Sweet Dreams!

For the last five years of parenting I think I've been spoiled. I have been able to get away with saying completely ridiculous things without being taken seriously. But since Leah reached that magical age of FIVE, my ability to get away with this has gone down significantly. However, there are moments when I've reached the end of my rope that I still try to say completely illogical things just to throw her off. Like last night, bedtime. Leah was getting up after trying to sleep for 2 minutes, and kept getting up and getting up. There were noises, monsters, funny things, etc. etc . Finally, after nearly 1 1/2 HOURS of this, I said, "Fine, just sleep in the kitchen! There are no monsters in there!" (I'm sure none of you have ever reached the end of your rope like this....)

Leah looked at me. I thought I had accomplished my goal. To bed she would go! Until...."Okay, Mommy". I looked at Mike in shock, and he just shook his head at me. Leah traipsed into the kitchen with her blanket and bunny in tow, and was going to lay right there on the floor. Mike took compassion on her and brought her a pillow and a blanket. This was her within five minutes, completely out:



That does it. She's getting too smart for me!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Have you ever seen that movie? My husband thinks it's one of the funniest things he's ever seen, and I can hardly stand it. Why? Because no matter what they do, they can't seem to get it right. I can't stand watching them run into one obstacle after another...it just drives me crazy.

Tonight we had a very "Planes, Trains, and Automobile" kind of night.

It all started a few nights ago when Mike and I were talking about the two of us going out on a date this weekend. Leah calls from the backseat, "What are you two talking about?"

"Daddy and Mommy are going to go on a date this weekend," I replied.

A short pause. And then, again from the backseat, "I think, in this family, that a date means three people should go!"

How could you pass that up? So today, we headed out on our family date. The plan? A quick stop at Walmart, then off to the zoo to take in a new Christmas movie at the IMAX theater. After that, pizza at a place we've never been to on the other side of town. We (thought we) had a $25 certificate that we bought on restaurant.com for $2. Then, home to put up our Christmas tree!

So we left at 3:30, and made a stop at Walmart. Now, you have to understand that Mike hates going into Walmart on a slow day, much less on the Saturday afternoon before Thanksgiving! But we found a parking spot a mile from the entrance and he begrudgingly went in with me. It was a date, after all! So I head right to the thing that we need to buy. They are out of it. Completely. Back another mile to the car, and off to the IMAX.

We walk into the theater and see a bunch of people just sitting around. Strange, but whatever. We go up to the desk, and see a sign: "The IMAX theater is closed due to technical difficulties". Of course it is. But the cashier tells us to check back in awhile to see if it is fixed in time for the 5:00 showing. So we decide to head into the zoo for a little while and find the gorillas and parrots, Leah's favorite animals. Thankfully, they were all alive and well and we enjoyed an hour in a very quiet and empty zoo. Then we went back to check on the theater. Still shut down. "Oh well," I said, "we can just head to the pizza place a little early."

So we walk back to the van. I take out my folder with all of our certificates in it, and what do I find? No certificate! Apparently we had talked about purchasing one but never had. Mike thought maybe we should just drive up there anyway, but I didn't want to if we could first get our hands on the discounted certificate.

Well, our house is too far away, but my sister lives about 15 minutes from the zoo, so we headed over there to use their computer and buy a certificate on there. I get to the website, and find out that this restaurant is only selling $10 certificates, which is probably why we didn't buy one in the first place! We didn't think it was worth it to drive all the way across the city just to save 10 bucks, so we abandoned that idea altogether.

Back to the van. By this time Leah was tired and ready to eat, if not just ready to head home. I still wanted to salvage some bit of this family date, and Mike was just hungry and thirsty. So we drove to our old stand-by restaurant and had supper. It was delicious as always, but not quite part of the adventure that we had hoped.

But there was one part of our date night left! The tree!! We got home, put on some Christmas music, and started pulling the tree out of the box. (Yeah, I don't do real). This tree is a second hand one from my parents and so we haven't used it before. We got all the branches out and Leah was dancing around all excited to finally put it up. Actually, so was I. Mike came in to help (remember, this is a family date!) and says, "Hey, where's the stand?"

So a quick call to my mom told us that the stand is sitting in their porch, three hours away from our house. Of course it is. The "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" curse had reared it's ugly head yet again. I ran to the store to find something there. Nothing. Seriously nothing. And I'm done. I'm not going to drive around this city at 8:00 at night searching for a Christmas tree stand. I'm just not. Bah Humbug.

So our evening ends! The old standby leftovers are in the refrigerator, and the Christmas tree is strewn about our living room. Leah is sad that not only did she not get to watch a movie she also did not get to put up the Christmas tree.

But...we still enjoyed our time together as a family, and Leah was right, sometimes dates are more fun with three.

But, we would like to trade in our "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" kind of night for a "Groundhog Day" one. Because I think we earned a do-over!

Autumn turning into Winter...

The radio station that I listen to has started to play Christmas music 24/7. I wasn't sure I was ready for it but I've found myself enjoying it as I work around the house this week. And I did some Christmas shopping yesterday! So, I decided before I completely switch my brain over to the winter season I better finish up a few fall thoughts on this blog!

I know I left you hanging nearly a month ago. I went hunting for those promised pictures of the third winery but couldn't find any, so perhaps I didn't take any! I'm not sure anymore. However, I have other pictures that will hopefully satisfy any other desires you may have.

We've had a wonderful fall...lots of fun outside and in, and as I write this Mike and Leah are in the backyard raking and jumping in the many leaves that our 4 large trees produce and then dump in the yard.

A few of our adventures are detailed in the pictures below...the first three are of a really lovely trip Leah and I took to the pumpkin patch on possibly the most beautiful fall day ever, and the last one is of our princess on Halloween. A sweet old man answered one of the doors we went to, and said, "Now, what are you supposed to be young lady?" "A princess," she replied. "Oh, my, I had one of those once," he said. "She's 45 years old now!" It was a special moment as for a second I think this precious neighbor had a wonderful memory of his little princess.

Sunday Date

Several weeks ago Mike and I were downtown in the Old Market to celebrate Mike's birthday. As we often do when we are in this part of the city, we spent some time walking through the various art galleries and stores. While in one we picked up a brochure for something called Studio and Vine, and it intrigued us. Wine? Art? Fall colors? Sign me up!

We did a little more research and discovered that "Studio and Vine" was a bus tour through part of the Loess Hills in western Iowa. The bus stopped at three wineries and two artist studios over the course of a Sunday afternoon. We thought it sounded wonderful, and invited our wine club to join us. While we had several people interested, by the time Sunday arrived no one else could go, so it ended up being just a nice day away for Mike and I.

We were a little nervous when we received an email telling us to meet at the senior center in Council Bluffs, but our fears were quickly dismissed when we drove up and saw all varities of ages represented. So our adventure began!

Our first stop was at Sugar Clay Winery, which won the award for the most beautiful area of the day. You may enjoy their wine if you enjoy the taste of dirty socks, but I would probably skip Sugar Clay next time. However, the scenery was beautiful, so I may return with my own wine just to enjoy the area!








Our next stop was King Crossing Winery. After our first experience we didn't hold high hopes, but we were pleasantly surprised. No wine stood out like dirty socks, and there were a few that we would like to try again. The medieval decor was really fun, and the views of the vineyard were gorgeous.









The next stop was an art gallery located in a little barn in the country. While it was quite unassuming from the outside, the photography displayed indoors took my breath away. The art is by John and Debora Scanlan, and it is simply beautiful.

That's all for now...coming soon...more pics, one more winery, and one more studio.

Lame Excuse for a Blog Post...

Yes, I know it's not a real update...but hopefully this will satisfy all curious onlookers until I get my act together enough to post pictures and write about the 5th birthday that someone in our house just experienced. Mike is gone for the weekend so I've been dividing my time between being ultra-productive and fairly lazy, which is just the perfect balance. At any rate, a real post is going to come soon, but for now, I've been tagged!

So...


4 things...
I was tagged by Annette...so here we go!

4 things I was doing 10 years ago:
*Teaching 7th/8th grade in Worthington, MN.
*Adjusting to living life for the very first time on my own, without any roommate.
*I can't remember anything else too exciting! :)
*Nope, still nothing.

4 things on my to-do list for today:
*Clean Leah's toyroom (in progress...)
*Take Leah out for pizza (just got home)
*Do the dishes (done!)
*Read a book (soon!)

4 jobs I have had: (I've had many odd jobs. Mike keeps encouraging me to do a blog series about them. Perhaps I shall...)
*Dental assistant (first job!)
*Dairy Queen
*Cook at a summer camp
*Typed/Read phone conversations between the hearing and deaf/hard of hearing

4 movies I have watched more than once:
*Pretty Woman
*Never Been Kissed
*Shawshank Redemption
*The Princess Bride

4 places I have lived:
*Sioux Falls, SD
*Warwick, NY
*Worthington, MN
*Atlanta, GA


4 places I have been this year:
*Southern California
*Colorado Springs, CO
*Sioux Falls, SD
*Boelus, NE

4 places I want to visit:
*Tuscany
*Sydney
*Disneyworld
*Montreal

4 TV shows I watch:
*Amazing Race
*Monk
*Friends (still!)
*Ace of Cakes

4 things you may not know about me:
*I hate daily cleaning, but I love a big cleaning project. (Which works out well for someone who hates daily cleaning!)
*I love searching for good travel deals on the internet (even when I'm not going anywhere!)
*I love to read a good romantic suspense book...and often do judge a book by it's cover (much to my husband's dismay).
*I just quit one of my two jobs this week...for many reasons, but I am looking forward to having dinner at home with my family more than once a week. Gulp!

Hey, consider yourself tagged if you read this and are in a blogging slump like me!

The Tooth Fairy and other such things....

Leah's first experience with the tooth fairy came this summer when her cousin Katherine was staying at our house and lost one of her teeth. Of course this prompted all sorts of excitement when they discovered that the tooth fairy didn't put the money where they expected it, and the great hunt was on! They finally found it on the toilet, and figured that the tooth fairy must have had to use the bathroom and just left the money there. Wise cousin Katherine (who, at age 6, is already on to such things) looked at me skeptically, but she just gathered up her money and moved on. Leah and her cousin Aaron were beyond excited and couldn't stop talking about that silly tooth fairy who left the money in the bathroom. (It was later discovered, by the way, that Uncle Tooth Fairy had already place money under the pillow, but we didn't find it the first time around. So Aunt Tooth Fairy had to think quick...)

At any rate, Leah has been very excited for her first tooth fairy visit. We told her that usually teeth don't start falling out until you are in kindergarten, so she would have to wait a little while.

This morning, we hear this question yelled from the bathroom, "Mom, how do teeth know when you are in kindergarten??"

FALL IS IN THE AIR...

I was kindly reminded (thanks, Cass!) that an update was long overdue (once again)...I can't believe that summer is over and we are looking ahead to fall activities already. One of the fall changes in our home was that Leah started pre-school last week! We chose a little pre-school at a Baptist church about a block from our house, so it's a quick and easy walk down there in the morning. She goes three mornings a week, and after two days she is so excited to go back in the morning. It's a lovely little place, where you just feel happy when you walk in the door, so I know that she'll have a wonderful year there.

The first morning of school she was told by Daddy that Mommy would make her a special breakfast. Well, she interpreted that to be a "Special, super secret surprise breakfast"! (She has a flair for the dramatic). So this picture shows her eating her homemade waffles cut into hearts and flowers. I hope cereal is good enough on the other mornings!



On Wednesday morning as I was walking her to school, she held my hand and said, "I will miss you a little bit, Mommy". "Oh, Leah," I said, "I will miss you too. But I know that God is going to be there with you at school, and you will meet lots of new friends and have a really nice teacher. You are going to have so much fun." Her response was the one that made me throw my sunglasses on to hide the tears. "Mommy, God will be with you too while I am gone." Such blessings from a four year old. I understand what it meant in the Bible that Mary took all of these things and pondered them in her heart. A small statement like this is tucked away and brought out to remind me how much I can receive from my daughter.


(Leah has trouble just smiling for a picture. This was the best we could get! Her red bucket is what they bring instead of backpacks.)





In other things, we had a busy neighborhood weekend with a wine tasting on Friday night. Italian wines was the theme, as our hosts had recently returned from a 3 week trip to Italy. I would have rather gone to Italy, but we had a wonderful time once again with these people who are becoming our friends. Saturday we spent the afternoon and evening at our annual neighborhood picnic....lots of games and food...and rain!! But we, along with about 25 other people stuck it out for the fireworks which still went off in the pouring rain. I was only there because we had promised Leah we would stay, and it did make for an experience to remember! My hot shower felt very good last night.


(Leah and her neighbor friend after the candy hunt at the picnic)



So that's a little of what we've been up to! Change of seasons brings changes around our home too....Happy Fall, ya'll!