Halloween 2011

We tricked, we treated, and we retreated to bed. Another successful year and I must say I was pretty proud of the girls costumes....if I do say so myself.

Eating a turtle's favorite food of course...yummy celery (the celery was supposed to be her prop, but she ate it).

And our little ghost...

Debo, Grammy and Casey came out for the fun!

Checking out the loot....

Belle's First Feeding

She didn't dig it...but we'll keep trying.

Belle Updates

I thought I would post a little something about Belle this time. She continues to be our "Mello Bello", she is just about content with everything in her daily life, except when hungry. I think she takes after her Daddy in that department. In fact, the more she is in our lives the more and more I think she is just like Kyle. Calm, chill, funny, no stressing, no emotions.....unlike her mommy and/or Allie-Ann...ha,ha! No seriously, I have the best girls in the world and so fortunate and blessed. Belle is doing fabulously well on the bottle....thank goodness! If one positive came from Allie-Ann being in the hospital is the fact that Belle got trained on the bottle (Thanks to Grammy and Debo!!). It gives me a little break every now and then, but the little booger could eat an entire pizza and still be hungry...she's a bear when it comes to feeding. One day I know she had a growth spurt because she ate every 3/4 hours for an entire 24 hour period...no kidding. I thought I would lose it from exhaustion. But luckily things have spread out a little more. She basically feeds every 3/4 hours until about 7:00-7:30pm when she is put to bed. If we're lucky she will sleep till 5:00am but most days she's up at 3:00am for a feeding. I'm not complaining because honestly having time with her in complete quietness is actually very calming and relaxing for me. We are going to start her on some oatmeal very soon, possibly tomorrow and maybe that will help with her sleeping longer too. I just can't believe how fast she is growing. She is already grabbing objects and is absolutely in love with Allie-Ann. No one gets as big of a smile than Allie-Ann from Belle. I can already tell that she is going to look up to her....hopefully not in the potty department...ha. And either she is going to be a singer or in theatre because she coos and talks constantly, it is quite humorous.  So here is a current picture of our Belle!!

Look at those cheeks...I kiss them all the time!

This picture cracks me up..Belle's like, what in the world is going on in this house?!!

Allie-Ann instructing Belle on cardboard box playing and inventing...

Wonder Pets Costume...

Wonder pets, wonder pets, we are on our way, to save baby animals and save the day, we're not to big and we're not to tough but we work together to make it work....or something like that. I don't know how the theme song goes, but my daughter sings it this way. I'm almost finished with her costume...thanks to some hot gluing, felt, and ribbon. I realized that I could have made this costume even cheaper because I had a lot of fabric left over...oops. I thought she looked pretty cute though, now all I need is some green face paint and blue water shoes...where to find the shoes??? Might have to improvise on that. But Allie-Ann is into detail so wish me luck trying to find water shoes this time of year.

This is the Wonder Pets. It's really a good little show that teaches teamwork. Once again, we don't get this show, the only time Allie-Ann sees it is at Grammys. Ming Ming, Tuck and Linny are the characters. Allie-Ann wants to be Tuck...the turtle.

Without further adieu, here is Allie-Ann...aka Tuck!

Don't look too closely at my work...I didn't put a lot of energy into this, knowing it's for Halloween after all, but the idea is there.

Halloween Preparations..

eeeeeeekkk! We are beginning our Halloween preparations. I had Kyle get out his drill to make holes in one of our big pumpkin. I saw this idea on the Today Show with Martha Stewart and thought it would be fun for Allie-Ann. So I bought a bag of mice at our local craft store and had Allie-Ann place the mice in the holes that were strategically drilled by Daddy. She loved it! There wasn't much mess, so I loved it too. So here is the finished product.

Allie-Ann putting the mice in their hole...

Also, here is the start of Belle's Halloween costume. I bought a long sleeved onesie and fabric paint to make the ghost face. I had white tulle already and elastic to make her tutu. She's going to wear white tights, and white stocking hat. Done!!!

Pumpkin Patch 2011

We went to our annual Pumpkin Patch...not an authentic patch but a place with lots of pumpkins which works for us. I wish we lived near a Pick-Your-Own patch, but we don't. Maybe next year when Belle can stay in a car seat longer than 10 minutes before losing it we can make the trip up North to a real pumpkin patch. We all had tons of fun petting the animals, playing at the park, and seeing and trying to pick up all the pumpkins. Now it's on to making a mouse hotel and mummy out of our pumpkins this year...courtesy of Martha Stewart. Oh, and I bought Allie-Ann's costume fabric for $8.00 today, she is going as "Tuck" the turtle from Wonder Pets. We will see how that turns out.


Arriving to find our pumpkin...Allie-Ann looks terribly excited doesn't she?? Don't you like how pink and orange go together?

The family shot of the girls....and this was the best shot. Can you imagine how the other pictures looked. Allie-Ann WOULD NOT look into the camera..I'm desperately trying to tell her to look at the camera in this picture.

I love Belle's expression!!

I thought this was cute...but I think Belle is trying to eat her carrier.

3 feet tall!!

This has to be one of the best pictures of Allie-Ann, I think.

Measuring Skills....

I'm sorry if it seems as if I'm blogging about our Allie-Ann so much but honestly with her, each day is a whole new adventure that is hard not to blog about. Sometimes I question my parenting skills and at times maybe I'm trying to teach her too much in her young years. It's starting to backfire on me....as evident in the picture below of Allie-Ann measuring mousie this morning. I just love how she takes what she learns from me and applies it but honestly my house is a complete mess. With paint on the walls, poop found in running shoes, crayons on the walls, glue and playdough stuck in the carpet, the idea of ever selling our house seems out of the question.

Since Allie-Ann went into the hospital, we started to backtrack on our potty training. We had her trained....honestly, she was doing SO WELL, but now somehow has forgotten everything. She has the tee tee down, never any accidents but the poop is driving me crazy. She just won't do it. So I've started this game that each time she poops in her pants, I would eat 2 of her M&Ms and if she keeps doing it in her pants that I will have eventually eaten ALL of her M&Ms. But if she poops first in her potty she gets to have the 2. She basically gets 1 M&M for tee tee and 2 for poops. Thinking that this was a brilliant idea, this morning she pooped in her pants so I gladly took out 2 of her M&Ms and ate them right in front of her (I know, I'm not nice, but I'm ready for this 3+ year old to be trained). So right after I did that she took off her pants and tee teed in the potty and so I had to give her an M&M to which she says, "We both have M&Ms mommy!!!" AHHHHHHHH %*@^*^@*^@*TE*^*#..... I tell you, I'm going to end up in the looney bin with this one.

Measuring mousie...I think mousie has grown a lot in 10 minutes...

Halloween Dilema...

I have a Halloween dilema...I'm completely at a loss for what Allie-Ann is going to be this year. I ask her and I get different answers each day. For example, she's told me that she wants to be a....triangle, a super hero zebra, "Tuck" off the Wonderpets, a pumpkin, and a plate. Each day it's something different....so I'm just going to pick something out....either at CVS...ha, ha..or make something. I'm all about buying a costume to make things easy but, honestly, the prices of costumes is ridiculous. So, give me some felt, ribbon and glue and I can make something even if it's a combination of those things she has already told me she wanted to be. Last year, she was Witcherina and I made it real simple...bought a witches hat, some ribbon and tulle. Walla. Now, I'm at a loss of what to do this year. For Belle, I think she's going to be a ghost. She's going to wear a onesie with ghost eyes and a white tutu...done. But for Allie-Ann, I'm going to have to think of something. I feel so behind with all that's gone on in our family, I mean we don't have a single pumpkin out in our yard..I did manage to get "Mr. Scarecrow" out yesterday but that's it. We will get it done though, I do believe that, even if it's the day before Halloween.

I took these pictures this morning. Today was "Blue" day at Allie-Ann's preschool, she wasn't digging the camera this morning..hence the pouty faces. But the girls were just too cute holding hands this morning. I love, love, love the fact that Allie-Ann is so sweet and tender to her little sister. It's just so sweet and I know one day I will have to separate the two of them from killing each other but I'm just enjoying their sweetness for each other today.

Allie-Ann always wants to hold hands with Belle.

Be still, my beating heart...

Fresh air continued...

We took the whole clan to visit the Holmans today. I was curious to see how Allie-Ann responded to a house of 3 boys but surprisingly she held her own and was even offered a yogurt drink from Banks. Anne Wimberly, sorry we missed you, your boys are simply adorable! The rest of the day was spent at the beach, playing in the water and flying a kite. Belle even got to put her toesy in the water for the first time.

Allie-Ann checking out all the goods at the Holman house.

Hughes showing Allie-Ann some of his artwork. He is so creative!

Allie-Ann being Allie-Ann!

Sweet Belle having fun at the beach

Allie-Ann flying her kite. She just had a ball.

Some Fresh Air...

What better way to get some much needed fresh air after having spent a couple of days in the hospital, then to go to the beach. It was needed....for all of us. We wanted to give Allie-Ann a few fun days since she's been through it. So, on the top of our list was letting her visit Freshfields this morning. She absolutely LOVES to push her mini-grocery cart like mommy. She just has a blast and is quite the shopper I must say. Her skills with the buggy are impressive as she weaves in-an-out of the people down the aisle. I love hearing the snickers from admiring fans....or partly annoyed. When I first let Allie-Ann do the shopping she would put all kinds of things in her buggy...for instance, there would be powdered donuts, diet cokes, cookies, candy, and pop tarts. Now, she is very strategic by using my list to find the items needed. I find that by doing this, she is very familiar with the grocery store and it helps me in some way. It is also teaching her about good food choices, that when we check out we don't have food that comes in a box but fresh fruits and veggies. We are toying with a trip into Charleston tomorrow, which will be the first time for our family of four. I still can't believe how easy we had it with three.