Goofballs

The girls and I had a pretty good day last Sunday while Tom and Matt went to the game. We played around the house in our pajamas and finally got dressed and out of the house after nap.

My silly weirdos:






In the midst of all of the silliness, they painted some farm animals and a barn I made out of old file folders.



More silliness at the park:




And after the park we all decided we needed a treat, so we went to "the ice cream store" to get ice cream for the girls and hot chocolate for me. Stasa looked through all of the ice cream options and finally settled on one of the pink ones and then Lexi picked the same.

15 Weeks Pregnant

It's been awhile since I've updated on the next little Merklet, mostly because there's not much to talk about. I'm feeling good - mostly tired, but then again I think that's normal for just about any parent. All of my nausea and most of my food aversions have gone away, but it looks like my good old friend heartburn is here to stay. I'm only hoping that my other friend sciatica stays away this time. My next appointment isn't until just before Thanksgiving and we won't go for our big ultrasound until sometime in mid-December.

For now, I need to make my tired self actually start documenting this pregnancy, starting with my weekly belly pictures. But since I've got the sicky face and am still wearing my pajamas I'm not taking my first belly picture like this. I'll wait until I've had time to pretty myself up so you all can think that I always look like a normal human.

Alright, so no belly picture, but look at this! Little Merklet is the size of an orange now and just growing and growing.

And I'm going to hold myself accountable for taking a decent belly picture this weekend - although there's not much to see yet...mostly bloat.

Happy Halloween!

I love how with each year each holiday becomes more special with the kids. Stasa's really getting it and I love the anticipation that builds as each day passes. She's been so excited about Halloween and took forever just to pick her costume. She finally settled on Ariel, the Little Mermaid. No shock there really since that's her favorite Disney movie right now. Well, that and Monsters, Inc., but Sully and Mike weren't attractive costumes to her. Lexi was just excited because Stasa was excited. And now I can not wait for Christmas. Imagine that build up. AHHHH! It's going to be so much fun every year.

So. Back to Halloween. We started off a bit late with the decorations this year because we've just been so busy on the weekends and the weekends we had time it was gloomy and wet out. We finally decorated right before the hurricane only to bring everything back in, then put everything out again before we went out trick-or-treating. Talk about last minute, but it looks GOOD. I still need to go out and snap a few shots before we break it down. The girls even helped put some stuff out this year and had fun playing with the heads and rats.

We woke up last Saturday and Stasa asked for her face to be painted before we started with pumpkin carving. Easy request to fill and I turned her into a beautiful butterfly.


Then after breakfast we got started on carving up all of our pumpkins. We got Stasa started on cleaning out her pumpkin and baby's pumpkin. She surprised us with how well she cleaned them out and how patient she was making sure all of "the nuts" were out of both pumpkins.


Lexi saw what Stasa was doing and wanted in on the action. She climbed up in her seat and buckled herself in. I opened up her pumpkin and scraped all of the sides so all she had to do was pull the guts out. She stuck her hand in and immediately pulled it out, disgusted and scared. And then burst into tears.


She spent the rest of the pumpkin carving time like this.


Much happier.

Our pumpkins turned out looking good. Stasa requested a rainbow and butterfly on hers (well, honestly she requested Ariel, but didn't like my drawing so we scrapped that). Lexi kept yelling ELMO! so I went with that and didn't butcher his image too badly. And Tom and I stuck with traditional pumpkin faces for ours and new baby's.

Tom, Stasa, Lexi, new baby, mine


Lexi, Stasa, Tom, new baby, mine

I didn't get fantastic costume shots this year because we ended up rushing to get the girls fed and dressed and ready. By the time we got outside for pictures it was getting dark and I think most of my shots came out underexposed and grainy. I'll upload them later and add them to the post - at the very least I did do the unthinkable and got a couple with the on board flash because at the end of the day I just wanted to capture them. All that said, here's my grainy iPhone pic of Ariel and Elmo:


And here are the little trick-or-treaters with Daddy. Stasa remembered the drill from last year and had fun yelling out TRICK-OR-TREAT! but she did need a little reminding about saying thank you. She was so excited about showing us her candy she would forget her manners. Lexi was apprehensive at first, but after the first house it was like a light bulb went off and she thought "Candy for knocking on a door? I'm IN!" 


We hope everyone else had a fun Halloween!

Another dental appointment under her belt

Stasa's becoming a pro when it comes to going to the dentist. She sits patiently with a big smile on her face and then does everything the hygienist and dentist ask of her. Her teeth checked out find - no cavity bugs - and there is good spacing between all of her baby teeth, though she has a very very slight overbite, but nothing major.

All geared up:



Counting teeth before cleaning them:

Eight years ago today I said "I do" and today I still "do." I fall in love with Tom more every day. He's an amazing husband, my best friend, and a wonderful father. I'm looking forward to all of the years we have together in our future. Happy anniversary to us!

Happy birthday, Daddy!

I love love love birthdays and try to make them a big deal even when we keep them low key. So yesterday I rushed to the store to pick up a bunch of balloons and a cake and then sped home to set everything up before getting Tom.

The other day I took the girls to the Family Dollar so they could pick out five gifts each for Tom. They had way too much fun deciding what daddy needed. After careful consideration, Stasa selected a crazy purple ghost skull with light up eyes, a Captain America figurine, a watch with flames on it, a bag of marbles, and a reusable travel mug. Lexi was much quicker with her selections. She chose play money, dinosaur grow capsules, a play gun and sheriff's badge, a whoopee cushion, and a sink strainer.

After we opened gifts we went out for Mongolian BBQ and then came home for ice cream cake. And then poor Tom spent the rest of his night writing his annual assessment for work. We'll get to celebrate a bit more this weekend though. We're headed to the Renaissance Fair tomorrow after dance class and then to the Redskins game on Sunday for our anniversary.

Sterlingfest and the rest of the weekend

We spent Saturday at our local community fall festival, Sterlingfest. We've lived here four years and this is the first year we've gone. The festival is always set up near our local firehouse and shops. The firehouse was having a HUGE open house, which Stasa absolutely loved. They must have gotten almost all of the volunteer firefighters in Sterling - there were so many and so many engines and even a big ladder truck. They let her get on one of the fire engines, sit in the driver's seat, climb aboard the ambulance, and even gave her some sterile gloves. Doesn't sound like much, but it's heaven for an almost four year old.


They also did some pretty neat fire safety demonstrations and in one they set a car on fire, hosed it down, then used the jaws of life to open it up. Later that night Stasa told us that next time we need to bring the firefighters some tape so they can fix the car when they're done. Oh and Stasa insisted on wearing her fire helmet I got at the craft fair at Occoquan. The firefighters commented that we were far from home when they saw her helmet. As soon as they learned that we live close by, they rushed to get her new hats with their name on it. So now the girls are rich in fire helmets.






They also had a smoke house maze for the kids. It was really dark in the maze and at first I didn't think Stasa would do it, but after a moment of hesitation she ran in and found her way around and out the other end. Then she did it again and again and again and again. I was really impressed with everything the firehouse put together for the kids. They really outdid themselves and it's something we'll be going to every year. PLUS the firefighters all said that we're welcome to visit any time and if they don't have an emergency they'll walk the kids through all of the equipment and would even get geared up for them. So nice.


Sunday we went out to Tom's brother Peter's house in Winchester to hang out with the family. And to celebrate three birthdays. October is a busy month for us. The girls were caked out and passed out for the night on the ride home. Of course, since Stasa fell asleep so early, she was up around 4ish this morning and WIRED. We found her in her room watching Disney videos on my iPad (yeah, she knows how to work the whole thing).

Thursday is Tom's birthday and I think we'll be keeping it low key with just dinner with the girls. I'm going to take both girls out to the dollar aisle at Target and let them pick a few things for him. Last year Stasa chose a pink football, some breast cancer awareness decorations, candy, and an iTunes card. I'm sure he'll make out like a bandit this year, too.