Monday, November 12, 2012

A Party for Meg

Mega Moo is 6. Her birthday landed on Election Day. The good news is that schools had the day off. I didn’t realize this until about 5 days earlier. I thought maybe I would try and get a party together for her actual day (she really wanted a birthday party with friends this year). I asked around and everyone was available. So, we had 7 little girls over and had a fun party. The girls made wands, we played musical carpets (for Aladdin) and pin the lips on the frog (they put lipstick on with q-tips and kissed a paper) (for Princess and the Frog) and Hot Poison Apple (for Snow White – like Hot potato, but we used an apple). We had a little lunch: star shaped ham and cheese sandwiches or cream cheese and jam sandwiches, fruit skewers, corn chips, vegetables and raspberry lemondade. Megan opened presents and LOVED them all. Then we had cake and ice cream. Then the girls played with the news toys and just had fun together. A few of the girls stayed later and Megan had fun with them. When Dad got home she opened up her family presents: a new coat, Princess games, a new backpack, a little doll, etc. She chose hot dogs and corn for her dinner, so that’s what we had: fast and easy. I think she was pretty happy with her day. And an added bonus was that she lost her first tooth later that afternoon. She was pretty thrilled the next afternoon when she realized the Tooth Fairy had left her a silver dollar under her pillow (she didn’t check in the morning because she forgot to put her envelope under her pillow – she wanted to take it to school for show-and-tell before the Tooth Fairy took it).
Some fun things about Megan: She loves all things that are girly: ponies, barbies, princesses, fairies, etc. She loves to have her nails painted. She is a skirt wearing girl – we are going to have to invest in leggings of every color because she wants to wear a skirt almost every day. She dances every Saturday in practice for the Nutcracker, which she is performing in in December. She likes vegetables and most fruits and “smashed beans” (refried…and not whole beans very much), hot dogs and noodle soup. She’s not a big fan of potatoes and she’s not a big breakfast eater: she’ll choose toast most mornings (although she does like pancakes quite a bit). Megan is a great helper. She can get a room cleaned up in no time and she is always very pleased with herself afterwards. She loves to hug and hold and love on Austin – sometimes until he’s crazy. She loves to sing and learns words to songs pretty quickly. She is a very physical person – loves to sit on her teachers laps at church, loves to snuggle, loves to be close to people when she is sitting next to them. Her teacher at school says she is a good learner and even better classroom member: she is very kind and empathetic and inclusive to like a mother figure in her classroom. She has lots of fun energy and can still be stubborn when she decides to, but most of the time she is very easy going and easy to reason with. We just LOVE Megan – she brings a happy, bright, energetic spirit into our home.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Happy Halloween

Another great Halloween holiday. This year most of the celebrating occurred on the same day, which was kind of nice. We went to the elementary school Fall Festival the weekend before (always a fun time). Nathan dressed up for his preschool party the day before Halloween. Then on the actual holiday the kids dressed up for school. They have a costume parade and then class parties. I took the boys and went to watch the parade and then make our rounds to the parties. I took Nathan to Library Story Time that morning, where he dressed up. Then, that night we stopped by the Beehive Home (an assisted living home) and the kids went trick-or-treating from door to door. Then we headed over to our ward party. It seemed a little smaller this year, but the kids still came away with plenty of candy. Sean made his famous chili, which got gobbled right up. He put in ALL the peppers and spices....and it was spicy, but not kill-you-dead spicy. It is delicious. He always decks the trunk real good and then passes out the candy. On our way home we stopped by a couple of houses on our street. They were thrilled to have trick-or-treaters and the kids walked away with full size candy bars and handfuls of candy. A fun time for all. I pretty much let the kids have at their candy. I've decided I like this way better. They eat and eat and eat....and in a few days the whole loot is gone. Their happy....and I'm happy that it's out of the houses sooner than later.