Sleeping Beauty-6 months

So Sleeping Beauty can sit up now on her own, and can move from one side of the room to the other by rolling. So she now loves to be on the floor and get around. She loves to play with toys. Give her a toy and she is usually content. She turns 6 months this week. It is so amazing how fast the time flies.
She is totally a Mama's girl. But I don't mind, most of the time. We have made some progress with her sleeping during the day. Pretty much since she was born she only likes to sleep if someone is holding her or in her swing, but the past few days I have actually succeed in getting her to take some naps in her crib. I hope this sticks.

She is a very smiley girl. She loves attention from people and she usually gives a beaming smile in return. She also loves to make happy noises, especially during church meetings. I get afraid she will disturb someone, and I really don't want to have to take a baby out to the hall because she is happy, you know.

Glasses again

So Cinderella got glasses earlier this year. She hadn't had them for very long before she broke them. However by that time we had moved far enough away that we couldn't rely on the warranty issued by the optical where we got the frames. So after we had new insurance, and life had tamed down a bit after having a baby, I took her to an eye doctor here, and got a new prescription and new frames. This time I tried to be a bit smarter and went with flex frames. (The kind of frames that can bend quite a bit and go back in shape.) Well they worked pretty good for a while, slowly getting more and more bent out of shape. Then one day Cinderella left them on the floor, and accidentally stepped on them. Thankfully they didn't break, but the lens did come out. I fixed the lens and took the frames to the optical and had them bend them back into shape. They told us we were lucky that they hadn't broken, they were almost there. That was about 2 weeks ago.

Well this morning Cinderella said to me, "You're not going to like this.... My glasses are broken again."
"How are they broken?" I asked.
"The glass came out again."
"Did you step on them again?"
"No."
"Then how did they break?"
"I don't know, I just went to rub my eye last night and the glass was gone."
"Do you know where it is?"
"No."
"Do you know when you lost it?"
"No."

How in the world do you lose the lens to your glasses and not notice? So then I went into panic mode. I have no idea where that lens could be. We looked in the living room, where she was when she noticed it was gone. No lens. Yesterday, she went to preschool, and we went to the doctors office. So it could be in either of those places as well as some where here at home. I don't even know where to begin to look. So it looks like we are going to have to order a new lens.
I just wish I could get her to be more responsible with her glasses. These kinds of things wouldn't happen as easily if she would just keep the glasses on her face, except for when she is sleeping or bathing. But how do you get a 4 year old to do that?

It's not a car, it's a van!

So Guy is pretty particular about his vehicles. You have to call it by the right name or he gets upset.

Yesterday we were going somewhere in the van as a family, and I just happened to be sitting in the back, next to Sleeping Beauty. She was enjoying my company, and I asked her if she enjoyed me sitting by her in the car. At this point Guy yelled, "It's not a car, it's a van!"


Another time, we were at my parents house. They have a toy tractor of some sort. Guy was playing with it. I asked him something about his tractor, to which he replied, "It's not a tractor, it's a bulldozer." OK. Well a little bit later he turned to me and said, "I said it was a bulldozer, but it's a DIGGER! Isn't that silly?"
What I find silly, is his sense of humor.

Camera suggestions anyone?

This is a post mostly for any of you who know more about digital cameras than me, because I know that at least some of my readers do.

Every time I take my children somewhere to get their picture taken, I seem to come home dissatisfied. True I have never used a private photographer, and maybe I would be happier with their results. But I often feel like, if I had a a nicer camera than I do, a few props, maybe a back ground or two, and a little bit of know how, I could get pictures just as good as the ones I am paying a lot of money for.

Now true I know nothing about photography, so I am willing to admit, my pictures might be worthless too. Anyway, I am contemplating the idea of getting a better camera, and I want some advice from someone who knows about cameras.

My current camera is an Olympus Camedia with D-535 zoom, and 3.2 megapixel. I would like to get a camera that has a better digital zoom, higher resolution, and one that doesn't take forever for the picture to take after you push the button. I don't want to go so fancy as to have lenses that I need to change, or have a flash I have to attach. Built in flash is fine. But I want something that would take nice enough pictures that I could print off an 8 x10, that would be high enough quality to hang on my wall, and not have it be grainy, or blurry.

So if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Thanks.

No more boosters!

So ever since Cinderella was about 18 months old she has been sitting in a booster seat at the table. Guy joined the ranks when he was about 18 months as well. Well yesterday Cinderella asked if she could have her booster taken off her chair and just sit on a regular chair. I told her that was fine, and that I would take it off and clean the chair. (I'm terrible about cleaning under the boosters and they can get really gross.)

Well yesterday I didn't have a chance to take care of it, and she remembered at breakfast this morning. I told her I would try to take care of it today. Then Daddy suggested that she could just move her chair back into a corner and use a different chair. She seemed to think this was acceptable and so he helped her move it. After he joined me again in the kitchen, I looked over and saw, Guy get down from his chair, push it into a corner. Then he walked around the table, took my chair, and slid it back to his place. I think he wants to be done with a booster too. Don't you think?
This last picture is in here because Sleeping Beauty wanted her picture taken too.

Rice and Ice Cream

I made the mistake of leaving my kids unattended in the kitchen yesterday. I heard an "oh no," and went to check. This is what I found.

That and two kids happily chewing on raw rice. When I asked what they were doing they told me they were eating their ice cream. Isn't it interesting what kids will come up with?

I want a drink

So yesterday Guy came up to me carrying this:
And said to me, "I want a drink."

I told him he probably didn't want to drink that because it is lemon juice. He then told me he wanted a drink of lemon. I asked if he wanted a drink of water, and he said, "No! Lemon!" By this time Cinderella had joined us and wanted one too. So I got cups out for them. I then poured a little bit of lemon juice in the bottom of each cup, and had them taste it. After they told me it didn't taste very good, I showed them how to make lemonade. They liked that much better.

Say Please

My children have a tendency to ask for more food at the table by sliding their plate, bowl, or cup to either my husband or me, or directly at the serving dish. Sometimes no words accompany this action, or if they do they are usually a statement like, "Juice." Or "I want some pancakes."

I've been trying to teach them the polite way to ask for more. I will usually say, "what do you say?" I then usually hear, "please." For a while that was good enough, but I have since started trying to teach them to use a complete sentence. Like, "Please can I have some more pancakes." That kind of thing.

Well this morning, Guy wanted some syrup on his pancakes. He slid his plate across the table, and didn't say anything. When I didn't respond he shouted, "I WANT SYRUP!"
"What do you say?"
"Please."
"Please, what?"
"Please." pause for a moment, "please."
"Guy, say please can I have syrup," said Cinderella. "Say, please"
"Please,"
"can I," pause no response, "say please can I"
"can I, please can I"
"Have some syrup."
"Have some syrup."

Then later he wanted some more pancakes. We went through this whole thing all over again. Only this time when Cinderella prompted him to say, "Please can I have some more pancakes." His response was "Please, I WANT MORE PANCAKES." Oh well I guess it is a work in progress.

I LIKE YOU!

Yesterday morning Cinderella came and sat down at the table for breakfast. At that same time, Guy was sitting across the table happily making some loud noise. Cinderella started to ask him nicely to not make that noise.
She said, "Guy, I don't like you make..."
At this point Guy interrupted, "I LIKE YOU!"
She tried again, "I don't like you making.."
"I LIKE YOU!"
"that noise can you please be quite?"
"I like you Cinderella."
With that Guy got down from his chair, walked around the table and gave Cinderella a big hug. "I'se giving Cinderella loves. Cinderella's happy now."

The Halloween House

Halloween in Cinderella's favorite holiday. Hands down. All year round she checks out library books about Halloween. She is constantly telling me what she wants to be for Halloween. Even on November 1st. She just loves that holiday, and I'm not sure why.

Anyway, towards the end of August, when it was a week or so before Cinderella's preschool started, the preschool had an open house. We walked over to it, in part to see how long it would take us to walk to know if walking would be an option on preschool mornings. As we were walking we passed a house that had skeletons and pumpkins out in the front yard, so I pointed it out to Cinderella, because I knew she would love it. And she did. She then started to refer to this house as the Halloween House. She would always ask me on the first few days of preschool if we were getting close to the Halloween house yet.

I don't remember when I realized it, it might have been that first day on the way home, or on the first day of school. But I realized that it wasn't really a house, but a house that had been converted into a business. And they didn't always have their Halloween stuff out, just during business hours. This was a disappointment the first few days because the time of morning that we walk there, is before it opens for the day, and we don't usually walk home.

Still sometimes they would have started to put their displays out before we walked past, and Cinderella is still excited to pass it. One day we noticed that we could see some of their decorations through the windows. Then one day last week we noticed that the decorations inside were no longer Halloween but Christmas.

Then this morning on the way to preschool Cinderella said, "Let's look at the Halloween house and see if it still has Christmas stuff inside." I thought it was pretty funny that even though it has Christmas stuff, it is still the Halloween House. I wonder if it will still be the Halloween House at Easter.

Because it's cold.

So we had a cold week this week. It froze. On Wednesday it was rainy, wet and cold, so we didn't walk to preschool, we drove. Well on Friday, it was cold again. It was in the 30's. So I figured we would drive again.

Shortly before 9, when we leave if we are walking, Cinderella asked if we were walking. I told her I thought we would drive today. She asked me why. I told her because it was cold.

Then she asked, "We are driving because it is COLD?" The tone of her voice seemed to mock me. So I broke out the coats and we walked. It really wasn't that bad. And yes I was just being a wimp. I'm glad my kids keep me active. I really need it.

Favorite September Pictures

They tracked us down. Not that I mind, I just wonder how they did it.

So I don't know what made the difference, maybe it was buying a house, but we have suddenly been located by businesses in the state of Virginia.

We lived there in 2006, and left the beginning of 2007. Then we lived in Washington State, before we moved here. So I can understand our mail being forwarded from Virginia to Washington. And most of it was.

But recently we have received junk mail from a couple of businesses we frequented when we lived in Virginia, that we haven't heard from since. So I want to know how did they get our address, and why didn't they have our last one? Baffling isn't it? It is at least to me.

As a side note, did you know that you can be registered to vote in more than one state? Now I don't think that is legal, and I didn't do it knowingly. But a few months ago, I received a piece of mail from the state of Virginia, asking me to verify my address because my current registered mailing address isn't the one I am registered to vote in Virginia under. (It may be possible that this is how those businesses got our current address. I don't know.) This let me know I am currently registered in Virginia, even though I haven't lived there or voted there in over 2 years. The same day, I got an absentee ballot for the state of Washington in the mail. Hence, I guess I am still registered there. And I requested to be registered to vote here, when I got my current drivers licence. I never received word on that one, weather or not it went through. So it is possible that I was registered to vote in 3 states at the same time. I didn't know I was supposed to cancel with a previous state. I just thought they would get the message, when I registered to vote in a new area. Hmmm. I wonder if I am still registered in Idaho too?