Wow!

Has it really been almost a MONTH since I last blogged??? Good grief - well, October totally got away from me, that's for sure. I've never seen a month go by so quickly before! I had a post written on 10/23, but the pictures turned out weird -really small - and I never got around to fixing them at home. (I'm NEVER on the computer at home, there's no time!) I just reread the post and it's about stuff that already happened, so *delete*!

Crazy days with Halloween - We dressed Grace up like Dora and Annie was a cute little Strawberry. I refuse to pay more than 5 bucks for a Halloween costume, because anything expensive for 2 hours is just ridiculous. We bought warm clothes in bold colors and put make up to darken her skin. We bought a black haired wig at Wal-Mart and cut it to make it short like Dora. Popped her pink back pack on and away we went. Annie's costume is the same strawberry costume we dressed Grace in her first Halloween - a hand me down from Clint's sister. She wore it well! I hope to update with pics later!

Grace did a really good job at trick or treating. Two fun things: We walked up to a little old lady's house. Little old lady complete with straw hat and front porch - Grace went up and nicely took a piece of candy, Clint reminded her "What do you say?" "Thank you!" she piped and then reached out and gave that little old lady a kiss on the cheek! The l.o.l. was so surprised, "That's the nicest kiss I've had all day!" - we haven't yet had the talk about not kissing strangers...

Second funny thing: We went to Clint's mom's house and camped out there a bit. Grace helped to hand out candy to some of her trick or treaters and a couple of girls, about 4 years old, came to the door dressed as Snow White and Cinderella. Of course, Grace was just enthralled. She grabbed her backpack and we headed out the door to do more candy hunting and she just took off down the street: "I want to talk to Snow Whi-i-i-ite!!!" She shouted. Poor Snow White was ahead of us, getting her candy and Grace was just spinning for her - not interested in candy at all. She was determined to talk to Snow White, so there I was about 2 paces behind trying to catch up and convince Grace to leave the poor girl alone and go get some candy. Snow White is one house ahead of us and the WHOLE time Grace is shouting "I want to talk to SNOW WHITE!" The father of the group that Snow White was walking with kept looking at me like, it was funny the first time...I'm tired of pretending it was cute." Finally about 3 houses down, Snow White stopped and looked at Grace and Grace went up to her and told her she liked her dress. She stalked that girl the whole rest of the street.

We ended the evening doing something unexpectedly fun - on our way to R&B's house, we passed by the old Riviera theatre - (Kate, you'll appreciate this!) that has been recently restored. They were playing a 10pm showing of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" -which I had never seen before. R&B watched the girls while my brother, his wife, Clint & I all went and saw a late movie. Do you know how LONG it's been since I've seen a late night movie??? The theatre was a tad chilly, so we did manage to stay awake. It was cool to watch an old movie in an old, restored semi-historic theatre!

After Halloween - it was time to think about Grace's third birthday. I can't believe I have a 3 year old! We actually celebrated that birthday 3 times. Once with my family the weekend before, once by ourselves on the actual day (first time at McDonald's playland for Grace!) and last weekend we celebrated with Clint's family. We just don't have enough room in our house to invite everyone over all at once. So - the birthday saga dragged on and on, but of course she loved it. We are in the process of redoing the second bedroom - we've transitioned from Winnie the Pooh to Tinkerbell. That way we didn't have to repaint, because the Tinkerbell sets at Walmart are purple and green. We were given a brand new toddler bed and mattress from someone we don't even know, spray painted it green and moved Grace out of her old bed so we could convert it back to a crib for Annie. Finally got her moved out of the dining room *ha!* and into a bedroom. It's been three weeks and so far it is NOT going well. Annie is a tremendously light sleeper and wakes up EVERY night between 2 or 3 for a bottle, which wakes Grace up and all three of us end up on the couch. Plus, Grace has been coming into our bedroom every night since we switched her, wanting to sleep in our bed, even if Annie hasn't made any noise. I think she's afraid or not adjusting to the switch. I'm giving it till the end of the year before I decide that we may have to do something different. 5 hours of sleep for Amy just isn't enough. And, at some point, I would enjoy sleeping in my own bed, underneath my sheets, next to my hubby.

We've successfully phased out the pacifier. That was a major hurdle and we were quite nervous about the 3 year old milestone and the loss of the plug that would entail. But, I've spent about 3 months gearing Grace up for it. Telling her that when she was 3, the plug fairy was going to come and take all her plugs and leave a present behind. She's been pretty cooperative, but on the 4th, when it came time to put the plugs under her pillow, she got very reluctant. We put them all under her pillow and in the morning, there was a new video (the new Ariel one) there for her, which she's been wanting to see. We have only had 2 major meltdowns since then, but we just tell her - "don't have them! Plug fairy took 'em" and she moves on. I haven't heard about them for the past couple of days. Although at one point, I do believe I heard the words "I don't want to be 3!" come out of her cute little mouth that was trying to cope without a plug. Annie is not so attached to the pacifier and after what we went through with Grace, I am not encouraging it one bit. That thing drove me nuts.

Annie has got her bottom two teefers! Has been sort of fussy with runny nose and painful mouth this week, but the first one cut through on the 8th and the second one cut through 2 days ago. She's such a fun girl! She's going to be my happy, sensitive kiddo. Grace is pretty independent and doesn't need much comforting, but Annie is going to need lots of nurturing and hugging, I can tell already. She's so alert and always watching everything everybody does. I think she'll be pretty smart. I KNOW Grace is smart. Her vocabulary is out of control. Saying things like: "Pass the Parmesan cheese, please..." yeah...we REALLY have to watch what we say now because she absorbs everything.

We're gearing up for the holidays. I'm still couponing my little heart out. In fact, that might be a reason why I didn't blog for a month. I've been completely obsessed by a certain deal at Meijers this past month and I tell you what - it was borderline exhausting and I'm a little ashamed to own up to the whole thing. I haven't yet decided if I'll include it in the blog. Let's just say, I'm pretty sure I made about 75$ in Meijer groceries and have 5 bags full of Glade products. I may just leave it at that!