Catching Up

This Thanksgiving and Christmas Season has flown by so quickly.  I have let so many blog worthy events come and go that in order to get myself back on track, I just need to do a quick synopsis and dump a bunch of pictures on the blog.  Speaking of which, one of my resolutions for 2013 is to use our actual, real camera instead of my phone.  The phone is so convenient, but after looking at all of these pictures, I am kind of disappointed in the quality.

Cate,  Timmy and I set out for Chicago the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  It is definitely getting easier to fly with them alone.  It also helps that in Phoenix, there is a play area in the terminal.  It's not elaborate, but compared to them climbing all over the seats, it is great.

One of the main events was making Christmas cookies.  It was totally insane.  They were both so excited to cut out the cookies and decorate them, that they were going crazy.  I eventually had to make a separate staging area just for Timmy so that he would stop laying all over  the flour covered table to reach what he thought he needed.

Tim joined us a few days later and we had a relaxing visit at Mimi and Pop's house.

The following weekend it was time for Cate's first dance recital.  Her song was "Marshmallow World," so she got to wear a fluffy white costume.  Cate did a great job on stage and was so excited to get her flowers when we picked her up after the show.

The very next day, we headed up to Williams, Arizona with our friends Norah and Eli to ride The Polar Express!

Williams is up in the mountains near Flagstaff, so for the first time since we moved here, our winter coats and hats made it out of the closet.

The Polar Express experience is just like the book and movie.  We got to ride a train all the way to the North Pole, drink cold hot chocolate, eat cookies and sing Christmas Carols.  

When we got to the North Pole, we could see (out the window) Santa's Workshop, his sleigh and all of the reindeer ready to go.  Santa got on the train and gave each of the kids a bell to ring.

This is the first year that Cate didn't cry when she saw Santa, but her brother was closing his eyes and also sticking his fingers into his eyeballs to make sure that he didn't see Santa.

After the train ride, we got to have dinner in the lodge and visit with Mrs. Claus.  She was a big hit with both kids after she saw them come into the (empty) room and exclaimed, "Oh my!  I've been waiting for you two!"  Cate was all in after that.  They both told her what they wanted for Christmas and colored ornaments for her tree.

We stayed overnight in the hotel and after breakfast the next morning, we headed back home.

Cate and Timmy have both been getting ready for Christmas at school, and Cate's four year old class had a Christmas program.  Although Cate wore the same red dress that she wore last year when she was three, her performance was much improved!  Last year, she stood on the stage and didn't move a muscle.

This year, she sang all of the songs and did the finger plays without any hesitation.  There is such a difference between three and four!  Except for her height...which is evidently the same as both of her Christmas dresses from last year still fit.

After the Christmas program, the only thing left to do (other than class parties...) was to get ready to host our first Christmas in our new house.  Both of our families were coming, so we had a lot of preparation to do.  Luckily, I have two willing "helpers."  They were both very intent on cutting out gift tags and Cate wrote all of the names on them for me.  Timmy mostly cut up paper.

 Our resident party planner was never satisfied with the amount of decorations that we had out, but she was so so excited to do anything Christmas related.  Once our oven (which was awaiting repair for 2.5 weeks!!) was fixed, we got right down to business making cookies and treats for our guests.

Ho Ho Ho!

Halloween

Halloween is a pretty big event here in the desert.  People go all out decorating their houses and on Halloween, sit in their driveways with neighbors to hand out candy and chat.  

It makes sense, I guess, because it is finally getting cool enough to reemerge during the day and be outside after so many hot, hot months.

It felt like Halloween was a week long event with plenty of opportunities to wear a costume and dress up.  We started with painting our pumpkins like we did last year.

 Then, the Friday before Halloween, Cate and Timmy's school hosted a "Trunk or Treat" event.  They wore their costumes, bounced in a bounce house, played bean bag toss games, earned snow cone tickets, watched a movie in the courtyard while inhaling popcorn with friends, and finally went from car to car to trick or treat.  They loved it all.  Timmy didn't even need the bounce house.  He just jumped up and down the whole time.

This week at school it was "Noah's Days".  Both Cate and Timmy chose to be giraffes and made their "costumes" in class.  We got to spend the morning with them at school going from room to room to work on different crafts and games.  Cate loves a good craft and could have stayed all day.

Nana was visiting from Des Moines, so she got a chance to see C&T's classrooms and meet their teachers too.

After finishing up her third "Ark" related craft, Cate finally agreed to go and check out the petting zoo.

Timmy particularly loved the cow and the little black bunny rabbit.

After lunch and a short rest (and a trip for pizza), it was time to turn into Woody and Rapunzel.  Cate was very concerned that no one would know that she was Rapunzel because her hair isn't long enough so she settled for curling it just to be fancy.

We tried to make it to Norah and Eli's house before it got dark, but we were too late, so this was the best picture of the four little trick or treaters.

We worked our way up and down Norah and Eli's street before parting ways to go back and hand out candy at our house.  I think that this might have been their favorite part.  When Cate would see people at the end of the block, she would ride her big wheel (in full wedding dress Rapunzel garb) to the end of the driveway and shout, "Caaaaandy over heeeeere!"  Timmy got in on the act and just jumped up and down at the end of the driveway yelling, "Paaarty over heeere!" After going through seven bags of candy, we called it a night and both Woody and Rapunzel had a very long sleep!

Timmy is Three

On September 18th, my little Timmy turned three.  He's not actually little at all, which he is now quick to tell everyone.  He reminds Cate quite often that although she is older, he is bigger.  

We started  Timmy's birthday week with treats at school.  We brought "Kissing Hand" cookies for his five little classmates.  Timmy was so excited to show the cookies to his teacher that when we got to school, he ripped the lid off the container and almost knocked them all on the floor.  Timmy has definitely settled in to the school routine this year.  He is in a class for kids who are not quite three at the beginning of the school year so he goes just twice a week and is home with me when Cate goes a third day.  We enjoy our little date mornings together and try to always do something a little bit fun and special.

Over the weekend, we invited Norah and Eli over for swimming, pizza and ice cream cake.  This is Timmy's second "Cars" cake.  I wonder if he might be into something new by the time he turns four.

After he blew out the candles and opened presents, we went outside for his present from us.  A new bike.  He got a "Cars" bike, of course and we also got Cate a princess bike (of course).  We tried to emphasize that Cate will not usually be getting a present on Timmy's birthday, but it would not be much fun for Timmy to go out and ride his bike if Cate didn't have one.

 We have been going out for early evening bike rides since it is finally starting to cool off a bit at night here.  Cate and Timmy both love riding their bikes and only have a few scraped knees to show for it.

Happy Third Birthday, Timmy!  We love you!

Las Vegas

Two weeks ago, we set off on our first Southwest road trip.  While in Chicago in July, we decided to celebrate Mimi's September birthday by going to see Celine Dion's show in Las Vegas.

Since we had just been in Chicago, it wasn't realistic for us to go back, but since Vegas is a drive for us, it seemed like a good idea.  Plus, we were so excited to see Celine's show.

Las Vegas isn't really a place that I would normally take two little kids, but we figured that we could spend most of the time swimming at the hotel and just hanging out.

Our rooms at the Monte Carlo were not great, but the pools were fantastic.  Cate and Timmy were so excited to try out the wave pool and the lazy river.  The wave pool was a huge hit and they spent a ton of time jumping over those waves.

Cate spent one entire morning reenacting the Little Mermaid's, "Part of that world."  She would swim around with my mom singing the song (...up where they walk, up where they run...up where they stay all day in the sun....) and then would burst out of the water (as pictured above) and belt out, "Part of that world."  Over and over and over.  Mimi was a good sport, as usual, and played the role of the rock to Cate's Ariel.

The hotel lobby had a cupcake bakery which we, of course, visited twice.  Timmy got his standard chocolate and Cate got whatever cupcake was pink and sprinkled.

We did a little bit of walking around at night.  We took the tram from our hotel to the Bellagio to check out the flower and hot air balloon exhibit.  Timmy was fascinated and Cate was not interested at all.

For Mimi's birthday dinner, we went to Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in MGM.  Our food was delicious and Timmy ate his weight in pizza.  Seriously.  He ate slice after slice, long after Cate had gone back to coloring.  It must have been really good pizza.

We got to sing "Happy Birthday" over chocolate beignets and caramel sauce.  Of course, we followed that up with a visit to the frozen yogurt shop in the hotel lobby because we had already promised C&T.

Mimi, Pop and Jenn left early the next morning and Tim had some work to do in Vegas, so Cate, Timmy and I braved the crowded, scary, streets to visit M&M world.  I told them each that they could choose one thing in the store to bring home.  Timmy selected a bat and ball and Cate an M&M tea set.  Since she really needs another tea set.  I thought that maybe  they would pick something with actual candy that we could eat, but no such luck.

It was fun to do something completely different and somewhat last minute for Mimi's birthday and it was a good way to sneak in an extra visit!