Does anything survivie children?

Katie went to use the bathroom today by herself (yay!).  I heard her flush and hop off the toilet and then she never came out so I went in to check on her.  She was back on the potty with a tooth brush in her mouth.  After a while I helped her wipe some more and then we flushed and I saw a little green toothbrush spinning around in the toilet.  Dope.  Shoulda notice that it was no longer in her mouth.  Now Dan is going to remove the toilet and try to find the toothbrush before it clogs everything.  Glad it was a nice new toilet.  Hopefully he gets Katie to bed quickly so he can start working on this project :)

love my kids!

The Pains of High School Love

During some rare cleaning today I took out my recycling items to discover some hidden treasures in my recycle bin.  See, earlier this week we neglected to put out our trash cans at the proper time.  I put out the "trash" trash can before the man came, but the recycyling was too late.  When Dan got home, he put it out in a moment of sleep deprivation.  It remained out on the curb for two extra days before we hauled it in with all its contents, and a few new ones.  Inside my recycle bin were the remnants of old high school love: a box filled with pictures, cards, and deflated Valentine's Day balloons from our neighbor boy down the street.  Being the scavenger that I am, I dumped the pictures, but kept the frame and basket.  Katie has already claimed it as her own.

In his own sweet words to his now old flame, my neighbor professing his love:

It's the way you say I love you
and the way you hold my hand
There's just so much about you I 
completely understand.

It's the twinkle in your eye that
I only see when you look at me.

It's the warmness of your hands
it sends a shock straight to my feet

It's how you always amaze me, you surprise
me all day long.

This I know is true
Baby, I'm in love with you.


(Well I guess not anymore.  Sorry dude, but if you throw it in my trashcan I can publish it to the world!)

Sea World's So Much Fun

We did our annual Sea World trip today since Dan had the day off for the Veteran's Day weekend.  Katie has enjoyed it every time we've been, but this year was the most fun for her.  As soon as we entered the park we saw Shamu.

 

 Then we saw a lady with a giant pink tarantula.  The other kids were scared of it but Katie walked right up to it and wanted to hold it to.

We saw the Sea Lions Show, which was hilarious for adults.  Not sure Katie got it, but Dan and I had a blast.  Then we went to Turtle Reef and the Shark Encounter on our way to the Dolphin Show.

The beautiful turtles

 We figured Katie was getting tired so we went over to the Bay of Play to meet the Seasame Street characters. As soon as she saw Elmo, her eyes light up with joy.  The kid in line ahead of us for pictures did not want to go near Elmo, but Katie ran up and hugged him and Grover.  It was a moment of pure joy.

Levi in the Bay of Play!

 Then Katie went on some of the rides.  We actually lost her for like a whole minute.  So scary!

Katie helping to spin the ride before I got yelled at for taking pictures on a ride

 After the Bay of Play we headed over to the Manta Ray petting area.  Katie loved this as well.  She wanted to pet them for ever!

 And finally we went to the dolphin encounter/ training.  The trained had the dolphin come right up next to Katie and she was so scared of it- the dolphin had its mouth open to eat a fish and he had a lot of teeth.  The next time he came up he had his mouth closed and looked a lot friendlier.  Much better for her!

 It was an awesome day all around!  I think we might go to the holiday party for Dan's work in December at Sea World so we can go twice this year.  

****Today I am thankful that even when a day starts crummy, it can become awesome****

Our Turkey Family

Well we had to add a small turkey family to our thankful tree.  What's Thanksgiving decorations without hand and feet turkeys?  Levi got off the easiest only having to submit to a foot sketch since I just traced his hand prints from earlier.  He wasn't too concerned with the foot print thankfully.

Real Katie, Turkey Mommy, Turkey Katie, Turkey Levi, and Turkey Daddy

 
Today we went to story time at the Escondido Library and then went down and had lunch with Dan and one of his bosses.  It was awesome.  We had great Japanese food.  Although Katie ate all of my miso soup and all of Dan's.  Then she ate a ton of my katsu donburi and Dan's tempura.  Katie and Levi were both perfectly behaved for the whole trip and Katie took a nap on the drive home.  She even seems tired now so maybe she won't be up until 11:30 (her usual when she has a nap)  Maybe she will even get her clock reset after evil daylight savings!  Tomorrow Dan has to do a cake cutting for the Marine Corps birthday and then it is a nice long weekend with him having Friday and Monday off!  Maybe we can plant the succulents that I got last week.  They are starting to smell funny...  

Oh, and I got Levi's birth announcements finally so once his address labels come I can mail those off to everyone.  That may be old fashioned, but I love them :)  Shutterfly makes a killing off me with a new baby.

I am thankful today that: 

1. Katie took a nap today
2. Levi only went through one outfit today
3. I got a delicious free lunch with my whole family

The Thankful Tree

Halloween is over and it is time to put away the decorations, so now Katie wants to get out the Christmas stuff to replace it with.  She called Dan today at work and asked if we could set up the tree and he said that we could decorate for Thanksgiving instead.  Thanksgiving decorations?  After a quick search on pinterest, we turned up some ideas that needed major modifications.  We came up with our Thankful Tree.

We each traced our hand prints and came up with some things that we are thankful for.  Katie had the most.  She had lots of things: gymnastics, Elle, Popsicles, marshmallows, pizza, spicy cheese, Jesus, Grandma and Grandpa's House, putting up leaves, trampoline.  We had to come up with ideas for Levi: milk, back pats, good burps, baths, and warm wipes.   He absolutely hated having his hand traced though so Im sure he was thankful that was over.  He screamed bloody murder the first 10 times I tried to do it. I had to nurse him so sleep to finally get his fist to open up.

 We still have more room to add ideas to our tree until Thanksgiving :)

All of our hand leaves

 Katie and Levi and I had a great day together. At the end it got a little rough.  Katie seems to always get into mischief when Levi needs to eat. Katie was sitting on the kitchen counter scooping out watermelon (that she got out--- not sure why she put it up on the counter) with fritos and stuffing it into a sandwich roll for dinner while I feed Levi. She keep calling for me to come over and help her get down.  I figured she just wanted attention since I was busy.  When I went over to clean it up I saw a frito on the counter and it was a little wet but I figured it was watermelon juice so I decided to eat it anyways. Then she told me she peed on the counter. Yum.  Gotta love my life <3

Update 11-6-16- We have updated this to an elementary sized bulletin board here