The Merits of the Double Stroller

(Picture is from when we bought the stroller in 2007)

I bought the big old Graco double stroller a couple months after Will was born and used it A Lot for many months.  Then Sarah got big enough to walk on her own a bit and to stand on the back of our single stroller.  The Graco came out only for big walking trips like the zoo and malls.  I pulled it out today for a trip to the mall because Sarah requested it.  I have not used it in many, many months - like maybe last summer?  I figured why not?  I now remember why it is a pain (heavy to push, hard to get into bathrooms, and huge in the car) but more importantly why, contrary to most moms, I loved it.  We had, for the most part, a very peaceful mall trip.  The kids enjoyed the ride and actually listened to me.  They got out to play in the play area for about 15 minutes while I waited for stores to open.  The minute I said last slide, the 2 of them took the slide together and very willingly came with me to put shoes on, hop back in the stroller and wander the mall.  Other than 5 minutes of Will figuring out he could put his feet up on Sarah's seat, we had a lovely time and actually got some stuff done.  I didn't have to chase anyone, there was no whining for not wanting to be in a store or wanting another ride on the carousel, just peace.  Maybe it was the novelty of the stroller coming back out or just the simple lack of having to walk with mom everywhere, but the kids enjoyed the mall and so did I.  That is a pretty rare occurrence for a trip of 2 hours with all 3 of us.  Thank you Graco.

Christmas at home

This was the first true Christmas morning we've had in our house.  It was great!  The family showed up around 7AM.  The kids slept until at least 6:30 and were very patient waiting for everyone to get to our house.  They opened stockings first and we actually had to tell them to look around for some presents Santa left unwrapped.  Will got a whole set of little Tonka train cars and was trying to carry around ALL of them at once.  It was very funny to watch.  I think he would have been content with just the stocking honestly.

The kids then proceeded to open the way too many presents under the tree.  We had to move Sarah along and the adults pretty much opened most of Will's presents.  He was too busy trying to play with each toy.  Sarah decided at one point that she was a toy in her pile and insisted that I take her picture so she could see.

Will got all kinds of trucks and cars and trains.  He even tried to sit in his new Tonka dump truck.  Uncle Dave and Daddy put together a very complicated hot wheels track, while Mommy took on the GeoTrax.  Mommy was a bit quicker due to easy construction and good instructions.  Will doesn't look too excited about the airplane but he, very quickly, warmed up to it and now it brings big grins.

Our breakfast was delicious, as was dinner.  All in all, it was a VERY exhausting day.

Favorites for Will:

Fire Truck, Sit n Spin, Hot Wheels (the cars), Toby from Thomas, CAT Forklift, actually Will pretty much checked out everything except Tickle Me Elmo.  The only thing I wish I had video of was Will watching Elmo for the first time.  The doll bends in half and falls backwards.  Will was very concerned and at one point had a great look of shock and tried to catch Elmo so he wouldn't fall over.  It was amazingly sweet and caring of my little boy.

Favorites for Sarah:  Roller skates, Leapster, Sit n Spin, anything Barbie, new Cabbage Patch Kid, Create a Sock Puppet Kit.  She has pretty much tried out everything now and seems to like it all.  Thank goodness.

Today we tested out some more toys since the weather was a bit nicer.  Sarah pulled out the roller skates and LOVED them. She was even brave enough after a trip down the street to try it without Daddy's hand.  Will carried his very large stuffed Dinosaur around a little bit.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas as well!!!

It's Santa!

We went to visit Santa this morning and lucky for us, the line was short.  We felt even better about it when we left the mall an hour after hour visit and saw the line of over 30 people twisting around Santa's place.  Sarah was wonderful and Will, well, he took some time to warm up and even then didn't quite get around to smiling.  Here is the progression:

I AM NOT LIKING THIS!!

Oh, wait! Mommy, Daddy, it's Santa!

I'm still not so sure about Santa.

And the rain came down...

Big storm sweeping through the west today.  This is more rain than we've seen in quite awhile.  I knew it was going to be bad when my dad in San Diego told me he thought the pool might overflow.  I drove to pick up Sarah from school today and I felt like I was back east instead of Phoenix.  I couldn't really see the mountains that pop up all over the valley here.  It was a bit creepy.  Closer to her school, the tops of the mountains were all in the clouds.

Our yard is starting to become one big puddle as is the common area of our neighborhood.  That's where all the run off goes.  It's always interesting to see how long it takes for the common area to drain.  From the picture below, I have a feeling that the kids would love to hop on that slide.  Maybe when it's summer, we'll have to try that.

Sarah is just thrilled for the chance to wear rain boots and use her umbrella.  And yes, she does have rain boots - mostly for monsoon season which is at the end of summer.   Will just LOVES the rain.  He stood out in it with a hooded coat on just catching rain drops in his hand.  It was pretty cute.

I'll let you know how much more we get.  I think this is supposed to last for a few more DAYS.  That's like weeks for us here in Phoenix.

A good looking tree

We got our tree over the weekend and decorated it.  It was more fun this year I think - maybe because Christmas morning will be at our house and we finally have something bigger than a 3 foot tree.  

Playing Mommy

Sarah just poured herself a nice, tall, cold, pretend glass of Coke.  Why you ask??? Because she is a mommy to all her dolls and that's what mommies drink.  Hmmm.... guess I have had a lot of Coke to drink in the past week.

We are in the midst of decorating for Christmas.  I forgot how fun it is to open each bin and remember all the fun stuff.  The kids got very excited over the stockings and nutcrackers.  I haven't even unpacked the truly cool nutcrackers which are a bit more fragile and special.

I also sat down to play many Christmas songs on the piano and it was such a wonderful feeling. The kids were nice enough to play quietly and listen to the music, with the occasional request for Feliz Navidad (Sarah's favorite this year) and Jingle Bells.  I better work on those 2!

And in an additional note, I just heard the following from the living room when I asked what they were doing:  I'm hiding things so the guests don't see them.  I think she's having a pretend dinner party and she's cleaning like Mommy and Daddy clean.  I guess we're busted!

Merry Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Several friends have done this and I couldn't resist.  Thank you Amy and Colleen!

The Outer Space Party

We had Sarah's first official birthday party this year.  I say official because past years may have been small gatherings or Disneyland, but this year was truly a kid's birthday party.  Sarah decided the theme would be outer space.  SHOCKING and a very welcome change from princess land. 

With much help from my in-laws and much stress from us, the party was great!  Andy created some outer space type games - ring toss and bean bag throw - that were not played with too much.  The kids mostly stayed on the playset or ran around the yard.  We made solar system cupcakes which was hard work but almost more fun than just doing the usual cupcakes.

Sarah loved having all her good buddies over.  Andy and I were just relieved when it was over!

Thanksgiving Belated

I know, I know, it's late but I've been busy.  I insist on keeping these separate so I'll just do a couple at the same time.  We drove out to CA for Thanksgiving.  The drive went OK.  Will gets a bit antsy.  We spent lots of time with the grandparents and had Thanksgiving with our next door neighbors.  It was a lot of fun.  My parents have lived next door to the same people since I was only a couple months old.  We had dinner with my best friend from when I was 4 and 5 and his family.  He has a little boy, Will!, who is a week older than our Will.  It was great to see him again and meet his wife.  The kids had tons of fun playing together.  Here are some pics:

My mom found pilgrim hats.

This is the best of our attempts to take pictures of all the kids:

We took a trip to the beach and Will worked on blowing bubbles, while Sarah worked on hating the waves even more than our last visit.

The Proper Way to Play With A Doll House

Before I get to the 2 holidays we've gone through so far (Thanksgiving and Sarah's Birthday), I wanted to share this:


Will loves to play with houses. It usually involves many cars going in and out doors and windows. I can always find a car "parked" in any of the rooms of Sarah's doll house. I think he plays with the house more than Sarah does. Funny guy!

Turning 4!

4 years!  I can't believe my little Peanut is already 4.

We are in birthday mode with the Outer Space party tomorrow. Sarah is very, VERY excited.

Cookies

Awhile back, Will became obssessed with the baking soda box and I couldn't figure out why.  He gave up on it and I thought it was over, until this afternoon.  I finally figured out why he LOVES this box.  He thinks it's cookies.  He keeps handing it to me and saying COOOOOOOKIIIIIEEEEEEESSSS!!!!!  It is now hidden since he refuses to believe me when I say no cookies in here!  Even sticking his fingers in it didn't convince him.

Other fun Will items:

Words that sound the same in Will language:

Unicorn and Candy Corn

Mac N Cheese and Trick or Treat (the funniest one because he gets very excited when he sees the Mac N Cheese and starts saying Trick or Treat over and over.)

Cheeeeeese!

The photographer who comes to the school for class pictures is magic.  He manages to get good pictures of just about every child.  Here is Sarah's:

We also got our fall assessment back.  Sarah did great.  She just has to work on a couple things - like sharing and personal space.  The teachers noted that she especially loves the dress up area.  Shocking!

Under $2

Gas is $1.98 at Costco..........

Yup that's all and it's worth a blog.

Hurray!

Hugh Jackman getting the recognition he deserves. I love him!  I think the title sexiest man alive is a bit crazy - can't they just say sexiest man this year because it does change every year.  Anyways, YAY!!!!

People's Sexiest Man Alive

Singing in Church

Some preschoolers from Sarah's school sang in the church attached to the school (no affiliation other than sharing a building) last Sunday.  Here's how it went:

Sarah was so excited and absolutely loved doing it.

1 question and 1 random picture

1st - Why is it that all the barbershops I see around town now BUY GOLD!!!  What is the connection???  I just don't get it.

2nd - Andy and I were out running errands a short bit ago and saw this sign.  He got a picture of it with his phone. It cracked us up.  I had no idea that Puppies were The Best of Fine European Food!

Gushing

I love Coach Crystal! Sarah has been taking swimming lessons once a week with her at Lifetime since Oct 1st.  She's had 6 lessons (missed 1 because she was sick) and is doing great.  I love going to watch her every week.  It just makes me so proud of her.  She has never been scared of the water but she has been nervous and not wanted to go under or jump in.  Crystal has her pushing off the wall by herself and rolling over to her back, jumping off the wall, and going all the way under to get rings and more.  It just warms my heart to see the huge leaps Sarah has made with Crystal's help.  It's all about the right teacher.  Crystal pushes Sarah past her comfort zone and it works.  YAY!  Next week Sarah has to try jumping in and making it back to the wall.  I think she can do it and that is amazing for her after only 8 weeks. 

Rites of Passage

It's been a day.

Let's start back several weeks though.  Sarah had (notice the HAD) a small white board in her room with a pen to draw on it.  She loved it and really enjoyed drawing pictures on it.  We removed it from her room after she drew a lovely LARGE happy face on her pink wall under the white board!!! UGH! 

So back to today.  I took a shower this morning with the kids hanging out in my room, mostly in full view (we have open master bathroom with shower stall).  I couldn't see that Will found the pen Sarah had used in our office down the hall.  He decided to "decorate" a couple places on the wall with his scribbles.

As if this was not enough, I set up Sarah with some scissors and shapes to cut out later this morning.  She wanted to make faces.  I had her cut out the shapes to do so.  I was sitting across the table from her looking at some toy catalogs.  She somehow managed to cut her hair.  Not just one little snip but MANY.  It's not horrible but it looks a bit odd.

It all just makes me think what kind of mom am I?!?!   Then I remember that coloring on walls and cutting your own hair are all rites of passage.  Just about every child does it.  I just wasn't expecting them in such a short period of time and so early.  Wish me luck that the rest of the day will go by fast and with peace and quiet!

(PS I will post pictures of all of the above soon.)

Fun Run and other tidbits

Yesterday was the Preschool Fun Run. Sarah had a great time. She did better than we expected considering she's more of a dancing girl than a running girl. She came in 3rd in her heat and maybe 8th overall in the 3 year old girls group. Her first heat was so funny. Sarah was more concerned about where her good friend Ellie was than about running. In the finals, she was busy looking around at the other girls. Amazing that she manages to be social while running a race.... only Sarah.

In other news, Sarah has new jammies.  She saw Will's outer space PJ's and really wanted some.  I am not one to deny her things that are out of her comfort zone, so the kids now have matching PJ's and are happy as can be!  In case you can't tell (haha), Sarah is the one on the right, not in pink or purple or a skirt or a dress or a nightgown!

Sarah, wanting to be just like Mommy, decided to try on my boots and my purse that I wore out Thursday evening.  I think it's a good look with the footie pajamas!  I'm not so sure about my 4 year old wearing thigh high boots though - a bit too Pretty Woman for me. ;)

For Gammy

I Win, You Lose

How the conversation went last night:
Daddy: Well, Obama won and now he's going to be President.
Sarah: Obama won? I picked him. You picked John McCain.
Mommy: Yes you did.
Sarah: I win, you lose.

She was very happy with herself.

Andy and I are just happy to finally have the election over. It feels like it's gone on forever and ever. The quiet of this morning without the phone ringing off the hook was very nice.

In other news, Halloween was a blast with all the grandparents. Will loved Trick or Treating, especially because people were holding out the basket for him to pick his own candy. By that point. he would just grab many items and forget actually saying Trick or Treat. He also loved ringing door bells. Sarah just wanted to trick or treat everyone, as she put it! We carved pumpkins the day before and Will REFUSED to put his hand in the pumpkin to feel the guts. Andy really tried to convince him but had no luck. My parents were out to celebrate with us and my dad found a new Garbanzo mask so scare the kids with.  He had a super old one for my brother and me while we were growing up.  Sarah and Will checked out the mask and decided it wasn't too scary.  It made them laugh!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Our Halloween through the years!

Enjoy!

Sprinklers

I am way behind but I'll do a general update a little later.  First some pictures:

We are trying to get our winter lawn to take with not much success.  The kids love the rotating sprinklers and played with them.  

Outer Space Expert

Sarah is currently in love with outer space.  She likes to tell me, often, that she is an outer space expert.  We have 6 books out from the library on the solar system and specific planets.  She has already informed me that we are missing some and need to go back and get books on Jupiter and Mercury among others.  I have to say that I am loving this obsession.  It's so much fun.

Tonight we walked down to get the mail in the dark.  I noticed 2 planets in the sky and guessed at what they were.  I was correct on 1 - beautiful, VERY bright Venus in the southwest sky and wrong on the next - Jupiter is currently in the southern sky.  I had no idea it could be seen so clearly and be so bright.  Sarah was very excited and ready to get a telescope.  Upon checking up on what we were seeing in the sky, I found this website from NASA.  It allows you to put in your state and city and check on when you'll be able to see a satellite or the International Space Station overhead.  How fun!  I love the internet!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Sarah finally settled on a Halloween costume or rather, I ordered one before she could think of something new.  She is going to be a ballerina princess.  Her brother will be the dragon chasing her and Mommy and Daddy will be the knights who protect her.  Should be fun, especially with Will's expertise at roaring.

O is for Obama

It's Sarah's turn for Show & Tell tomorrow at school.  Only one kid goes each week and each is given a specific letter.  Sarah has the letter "O" and has to bring one or more small things starting with the letter "O".  We've realized that O is pretty hard.  Sarah and I spent the drive home from school today trying to come up with ideas and all we could think of were O's (that's what the little Klemmers call Cheerios).  As soon as we got home, Sarah and I looked around the room for something starting with O.  Sarah turned to me and said How about Obama???  I almost fell off the couch and said What?!?  She repeated herself with a tiny bit of attitude as if I didn't understand - "Barack Obama".  I said, "You'd like to bring Barack Obama, who wants to be president, for Show & Tell???"  She said yes, it starts with O.  I told her that I didn't think we'd be able to do that but great thinking.

We are not overly political here in the Klemmer household and I must say that Andy and I lean more toward McCain.  I listen to talk radio and so Sarah and I have discussed the election, as much as a 3 1/2 year old can grasp.  She was in the car one day and told me that she'd never been to Obama, hence the need for explanation.  All we said was that there are 2 men who want to be president (the person in charge of the United States of America), and that everyone gets to vote.

So there you have it, my politically aware (HA, HA) daughter is ready to stir things up at preschool by bringing Obama to Show & Tell for the letter "O".  I'm so proud.

PS  Items Sarah is bringing for Show & Tell: a book about the Ocean, a toy Ostrich, O's and the state of Oklahoma from a USA puzzle

Camp Getaway

Spent the weekend with my "gang" (4 of us with preschool age children and younger) in a "cabin" in Flagstaff.  It was wonderful.  We left on Friday and came home Sunday afternoon.  Andy was a bit overwhelmed but the kids just loved having Daddy in charge.  He had the tent up in the family room and they made cookies and Sarah drew lots of pictures.  I think Will learned several new words in that short period of time.

I had a weekend of wine, board games, chick flicks, hot tub, cool temps, gossip and great friends.  I think it was a fair trade!