Happy Halloween!

Well, I think we can safely say Clare ‘gets’ Halloween this year.  Jeff and I had talked about it and decided that we weren’t going to buy a costume; she wasn’t going to be trick-or-treating anywhere or going to any big Halloween parties so her Mizzou cheerleading dress would do for a costume.  This plan worked great for us, until Clare announced that she was going to be Cinderella for Halloween, we tried reminding her that she was going to be a cheerleader and say ‘Go Tigers’ but she wasn’t having it, she wanted to be Cinderella.  Being the sucker of a Mom that I am I asked Jeff to stop at Wal-Mart, I needed to get a few things to make treats for her school party, and I would just buy her the dress up dress.  When we finally found the dresses she chose Rapunzel over Cinderella.  Clare was thrilled with her new dress, so much so she wanted to hold it in the car and put it on immediately upon arriving home.  The dress is huge on her; I used 3 safety pins to keep it up so she wouldn’t trip during her party.  It was nice to see her so excited about her costume.

Clare and her friends had a Halloween party at school on Tuesday, they all wore their costumes and walked around the rec center trick-or-treating.  Having seen the different classes trick-or-treat for the past 7 years it was fun to be on the other side with my child.  I don’t know that she really knew what the point was, but she had fun.  I was a proud mama when she told each person thank you after they gave her a piece of candy, she was the only one in the class I heard say thank you. 

After trick-or-treating they went back to their room where they sang two Halloween songs, aren’t they cute!!

The best part of the party came after the trick-or-treating and songs, the treats!!  After reading the list of treats hat people were bringing I decided a healthy treat would be appreciated, so I made mandarin orange cups with pumpkin faces on them and little witch hat cookies (not so healthy).  Both seemed to be enjoyed but the Cheetos were Clare’s favorite treat. 

Watching the kids eat their treats was fun; they were so excited to have so many choices of sweets.  There were cupcakes, cookies, rice Krispy treat pumpkins, Cheetos, cups of dirt with worms (chocolate pudding with crushed Oreos and a gummy worm) and other sugary goodies.   Jeff and I watched the kids eating the cupcakes become COVERED in dark purple and dark green frosting, it was all over!  Fortunately Clare didn’t ask for a cupcake more than once, and accepted my answer that we weren’t going to eat one today (I doubt she would have eaten it anyway, she doesn’t like cake) but I was not going to let her get covered in that frosting!! 

Overall it was a fun day filled with sweet treats and fun, thankfully Clare didn’t ask about going trick-or-treating, I’m not sure what we would have done as we don’t live in a neighborhood or area where that could happen.  I suppose we’ll figure out what kids do for Halloween up here in a few years, I’m guessing the schools host a trick-or-treat event rather than having kids hike from one house to another. 

First Snow

We had our first snow the other night, I love waking up to fresh snow, I just wish I didn’t have to drive in it.  Fortunately the paved roads weren’t too bad making the trip into work relatively painless.

Today Clare wore one of her new Hanna dresses and wanted to show it off, she's getting pretty good at smiling for pictures :) 

Civic Doody

Clare performed her 'civic doody' yesterday on the way to the park.  She was thrilled to be able to put the ballots in the box all by herself.  Unfortunately there were no 'I Voted Today!' stickers being handed out, I felt bad since I'd talked it up, oh well, maybe I'll be able to snag a sticker on Nov. 6th when the rec. center is taken over as an official polling location.

I sure wish her submitting our ballots would stop all the political TV adds and phone calls.

First Haircut

Well, I’ve thought about it and I’ve decided that the easiest way to recap the rest of our Disney vacation is to just break it down by event, each day was packed and to post on each day just seems to daunting.  So, without further adieu, here’s the first installment. 

Gail spent countless hours researching the do’s, don’ts, must sees, gotta haves and you can’t misses of Disney.  One thing I had read about was getting your child’s first haircut at the Harmony Barber Shop.  Clare was born with almost no hair, and didn’t have hair so to speak for a long time, so she’d never had a real need for a haircut.  Reading about the first hair cut at Disney I decided it might be kind of fun, for $18 if she didn’t sit still I wouldn’t be out any more money than I would have been had we gone someplace here, so why not.  I called the Disney reservation line and got the first available time, Saturday at 3pm.   Gail was on board with the plan, but cautiously optimistic, I think she envisioned Clare freaking out and not letting them do it.

During our first day in the Magic Kingdom, Friday, we scouted out just where the barbershop was, if Gail and I were going to do this without Jeff and Greg (they were going to be at the football game) we wanted a clear game plan.   Fortunately the barbershop couldn’t be closer to the entrance, it was literally right there at the front.  I was fairly confident that we could make the trip alone, although by the end of the day Gail and I were both thinking maybe we’d bit off more than we wanted to chew. 

We ended our day somewhat abruptly, I’ll explain why in another post, and while we walked back towards the front I thought maybe we might benefit from stopping in the barbershop and letting Clare see what it was all about.  Knowing that she doesn’t do well in new situations I was hoping this would help.   The shop wasn’t too crowded, considering there were three chairs and very little standing room.  One of the barbers was taking names and sort of running the show, she asked if we had an appointment and told us that should we want to move her appointment to that day we would only have to wait 20 minutes, I decided to bite the bullet, if she was going to freak out then why not just get it over with.  So, Gail, Clare and I patiently waited our turn and talked about how the other people were getting their hair cut.  Of course she announced that she needed to use the restroom, so Gail rushed her off to the ladies room while I waited our turn. 

After a relatively short wait it was Clare’s turn, she wasn’t as excited once I put her up in the chair, but she didn’t freak out.  The barber, who’s name I don’t remember, was marginally more excited than Clare, it was clear he wasn’t keen on doing a little girls first haircut.  Thank goodness Ms. Diane happened to finish up her client and Clare was moved over a chair.  Ms. Diane is surely one of Cinderella’s close friends; she was absolutely perfect, sweet, gentle, kind and wonderful.  She shared her spinning Minnie with Clare and gave her more stickers than she knew what to do with before trimming her hair.  Clare loved the Minnie, thank you Gail for running next door to get one for her as a treat, and enjoyed the stickers so much that she hardly noticed what was going on.  Ms. Diane didn’t take too much length off, but she did even it up in the back, perfect for her first trim.  Not only did she collect a few locks but also she put them in a little fairy pouch for safekeeping.  When she was all finished she sprinkled some pixy dust in Clare’s hair and gave her a set of Mickey ears that said “First Haircut’ on the back.  Clare wasn’t interested in wearing the ears, but I have them with the hair for memories and keepsakes.  Clare also got a certificate indicating that she had her first haircut at Mickey’s house, how fun is that! 

Overall it was a positive experience.  I’m glad we stopped in on Friday; I don’t know that Gail and I would have tackled it alone on Saturday.  I was pleased that Clare sat still and let Ms. Diane do her thing, her hair looks much more even and cleaned up.  Ms. Diane is absolutely wonderful at what she does and made the experience that much better. 

Now that Clare has had her first haircut I hope she is a bit more relaxed the next time, I don’t have any plans of cutting her hair again but when the time comes I hope she doesn’t expect to have it done at Cinderella’s house. 

Monday Zoo Day

I swear I’m still going to post about the rest of our Disney trip, I haven’t forgotten.  I haven’t been feeling well lately add on top of that long hours at work and I just don’t feel like blogging when I get home.

Clare woke up early today and immediately declared that she didn’t want to stay home, she wanted to go to the park.  Since I woke up feeling somewhat decent I suggested a trip to the zoo might be nice, the weather was supposed to be beautiful and we would all enjoy some elephants and a ride on the carousel.  Jeff treated us both and decided he’d stay home with us, knowing I haven’t been feeling well he figured I could use the help and support, Thank You Jeff for staying home with us!!!

We were hoping Clare would take a nap on the way there, of course she fell asleep with only 14 minutes left, oh well a short nap is better than no nap.  I asked her what animals she wanted to see and she said zebra’s, elephants, and giraffes.  Thankfully we saw all of those plus some.

This guy was watching the animals in the next exhibit pretty closely. 

Clare is finally getting the hang of posing for pictures, unfortunately today she was more interested in saying 'cheese' to the people next in line that were encouraging her to say cheese. 

This trip to the zoo was different than our previous trips.  Clare walked most of the time, only riding when she wanted a snack, and she loved running from one exhibit to the next and climbing up on the fence like all the other kids.  She accurately identified all the animals and actually watched them rather than running on to the next one.  The zoo wasn’t busy, which was wonderful, we were able to see everything we wanted to and spend as much time as Clare wanted watching each animal. 

We like to end our visits with a ride, or two, on the carousel.  Today there were so few people that Clare was able to pick whichever animal she wanted and didn’t have to wait in line.  For her first ride she wanted to ride the giraffe, but because the giraffe is so tall it doesn’t go up and down, the cheetah was her second choice.   During her first ride she decided she wanted to ride a dolphin for her second turn.  Jeff took her on her second turn, and she ended up on a hippo, which she happily told me each time she went around, “I’m on a hippo mama!’

I love seeing her so excited about the carousel. 

I'm on a hippo mama!!

After our rides on the carousel Clare and I were both pretty tired, but not too tired for one more look at the elephants, so we headed to see the elephants in hopes of catching the 2:00 show.  We arrived just in time to see Groucho come out and do his thing.  Clare had the best seat in the house, on Jeff’s shoulders. 

Clare was scratching Jeff's beard while she was on his shoulders, I suppose it does feel kind of funny. 

Clare is normally startled by this lizard, today she walked right up to it and said hello. 

The ride home was long, both Clare and I were tired and to say I started to not feel well would be putting it kindly.  I’m grateful our day was so nice; we had a lot of fun hanging out at the zoo and enjoying the fall weather.  Clare is already talking about going to the zoo again; maybe we’ll go for the Christmas lights this year.