MY first tooth!

I did it! I pulled my first loose tooth tonight! You'll remember that when Alpha discovered she had a loose tooth, we actually discovered she had TWO loose teeth. The first one fell out at school.

This second one was not budging. The back had let go, but not the front. It's been that way for weeks and hasn't gotten any looser. I've been suggesting she pull it for some time now. She tried to do it herself, but she wasn't willing to pull it to where it hurt.

Tonight we decorated Halloween cupcakes. After fighting over sprinkles and making a big mess, alpha says she doesn't want to eat any of them b/c she really doesn't like that icing OR the sprinkles! I jokingly tell her that if she doesn't eat one of those cupcakes, I'll pull her tooth! Having a bit of her mother in her, she says, "OK! I don't want to eat one!" and turns and smiles at me. I asked if she really wanted her tooth pulled and she says yes.

Ok.

Can this be that hard?

Being the modern parent, I google for "how to pull a tooth" and get everything from the old string tied to the doorknob to "NO! Only a DENTIST can pull a tooth!"

*sigh*

So we both get in the bathroom. I start wiggling it myself. I ended up twisting it and it moved! It also started bleeding a little. Finally, I got it out!

Unlike the first tooth, however, this one hurt. She cried a bit and had this sad expression of sudden distrust on her face. I felt so bad! I knew the tooth needed to come out, but I still didn't want it to hurt. I gave her lots of hugs and told her I used to scream and fight when my parents tried to get my teeth out. (really......ask my mother)

She really didn't cry for long, and then ran in to show daddy her latest pulled tooth. She's now very excited that the tooth fairy is coming to visit again. The tooth fairy may have to pay up a little more this time b/c of inflation, and because this one hurt. (and because maybe that was the tooth fairy's fault..ssshhhh!)

2 down, 18 to go!

Fall Festival #1

Well, this afternoon we got to actually ATTEND a Fall Festival rather than working one. It was fun! There were games, a jumpy thing (i.e. inflatable), sno cones, popcorn, hotdogs, and of course, CANDY!

Here are some pictures:


Seeing Double!
Yes, Alpha and Beta BOTH decided to dress up as Cinderella this year. Thankfully we own plenty of Cinderella dress up stuff so we didn't need to purchase anything.

And we couldn't find Beta's pumpkin ANYWHERE! So, she used her pink plastic Easter bunny basket.


Go Alpha Go! Alpha loves climbing walls and does a great job with them.

Even in a dress....









Here they are at the end eating hotdogs and popcorn. They both seemed to have lots of fun. I think they like the dressing up as much as anything. Unless you count candy!

Happy Halloween!

Here are some Halloween jokes I received by email. I have no one to attribute them to. They probably came from some Laffy Taffy wrappers. Enjoy!

Why do demons and ghouls hang out together?

Because demons are a ghouls best friend!


What did the skeleton say to the vampire?

You suck.


Why did the ghost go into the bar?

For the Boos.



Why did the game warden arrest the ghost?

He didn't have a haunting license.


What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman?

Frostbite...


How do witches keep their hair in place while flying?

With scare spray...


What is a vampires least favorite food?

Steak.


What do they teach in witching school?

Spelling.


How did the ghost say goodbye to the vampire?

So long sucker!


Why don't skeletons ever go trick or treating?

Because they don't have any body to go out with...


What do you call someone who puts poison in a person's corn flakes?

A cereal killer...


What does the papa ghost say to his family when driving?

Fasten your sheet belts...


Why was there no food left after the monster's party?

Because everybody was a-goblin!


Why was the little ghost crying?

Because he had a BOO-BOO!


What's a Vampire's favorite fruit?

NECKtarine!


What do you call a ghost with a broken leg?

A Hoblin Goblin!


Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?

He didn't have the guts!


Why does a Mummy make a bad birthday gift?

Because he is too hard to unwrap!


What do goblins and ghosts drink when they're hot and thirsty on Halloween?

Ghoul-aid!!!


What is a Mummy's favorite type of music?

Wrap!!!!!


What happens when a ghost gets lost in the fog?

He is mist.


What are a ghost's favorite kind of streets?

Dead ends.


What happens when two vampires meet?

It is love at first bite!


What do you call a little monsters parents?

Mummy and Deady.


What do you get when you cross a black cat with a lemon?

Sour-puss.


What's it like to be kissed by a vampire?

It's a pain in the neck.


What did Dracula say after reading all these jokes?

They suck!

I'm not ready for this.

Hi, all. Well, we are on the cusp of a new era in our household. We are starting to see signs of school-age children rather than preschoolers. Alpha is coming home with new phrases on her lips. Two that she says frequently are "Drake & Josh" and "Hannah Montana".

Oh, boy.

Anyway, tonight we were watching Spongbob Squarepants. Then, Drake & Josh came on. OMG! Drake and Josh! *SCREAM!*

The girls had seen an episode of Drake & Josh when my cousin Jennifer babysat them a few weeks ago. Jennifer works in toy marketing for a LARGE retailer and assured me that Drake & Josh were ok.

Well, apparently, she hasn't seen this one episode. Tonight, Drake & Josh were entering a home makeover contest for their parent's 5th wedding anniversary. (Drake & Josh are stepbrothers.) They won the contest and were notified at the movie theater where Josh works. As they are celebrating, Drake runs over to the food court, grabs a girl, and kisses her hard on the mouth. He stops and says, "I just won a contest!" The girl then smiles and starts kissing him again.

Josh, not to be outdone, grabs a rather attractive female who is walking through the lobby. After he gives "her" a long kiss, this deep voice says, "hey, thanks man!" It was a transvestite!!!!!!!

WTF? OMG! I'm like what r u thinkin? (sorry, I went and read some chat forums on nick.com)

It shocked and disappointed me. The show was very good up until that point. The guys are truly funny and silly. There was no bad language (shocker!) The situation wasn't too "adult". But then they have to go and throw something like THAT in!!!!!

Luckily, I just sat there silently and the girls didn't understand it. But still, I don't want to have to explain transvestites to my 6 and 3 year olds! I wasn't really comfortable with them seeing Drake kiss the "real" girl, but that didn't bother me as much. I mean, they're going to see people kiss on TV from time to time. They even see me and Jim kiss some. Some of that is healthy and normal.

Now, to be fair, the show is rated Youth 7. Which means it's appropriate for 7 year olds and up. But heck, I don't even want any 11 year olds exposed to transvestites! That's a teenage subject as far as I'm concerned.

I went to nickelodeon.com to try and write a complaint, but I cannot find a single place to do it. They have nothing on there "for parents" or as feedback or even to submit a question. Well, one place allows you to submit a question, but it's more for the kids. (I read some of the Q&As)

In the meantime, I'm hoping I can just keep the TV off at that time of day. If it comes on at 5:00, I can say we have to watch the news and avoid the show. I'll probably treat them like I do the Bratz dolls. If I went in there and announced, "Henceforth, there will be no more Drake & Josh", I would have mutiny on my hands. So, I'll just casually "forget" that the show comes on. At all. Maybe we'll try again in a year or so. I might watch a few more episodes to see if they are any better. I did look for some reviews on the web by parents. I found a few at Amazon.com and some at Common Sense Media. All the reviews were positive. I wonder where this episode came from?

Ugh. Give me a temper tantrum any day!

Ready for the Holidays!

Hi, all! My blog is ready for the holidays! It's decorated for Fall/Halloween right now. I'll change it to Thanksgiving and then Christmas in due time. Hope you all like it!

Alpha on 2 wheels!

Whew! We have had a BUSY weekend! I am glad it is over. I was going to post another cool video with music added, but iMovie HD is giving me fits and won't work the way it should. Or at least the way I think it should.

Here's a rundown of what we did:

Friday night: Against our better judgement and any sound financial plan, we took the girls to Shogun's. It's a teppanyaki restaurant. You know, the kind where they cook the food in front of you and make flames jump all over everything. Well, the girls LOVED it! I thought Alpha might enjoy it but I wasn't sure about Beta. Both pairs of eyes were the size of dinner plates when that fire shot up in front of them. The funniest part was after the chef tried throwing bits of rice onto our plates. (Turns out you were supposed to try and catch them in your mouth, but none of us knew that.) Alpha leans over to her daddy and says, "I'm going to trick him with some lettuce!" She was getting ready to throw lettuce back at him! That would have been horrifying to have her lettuce end up in everyone else's fried rice!

Saturday: Too much stuff to list. The best part of Saturday was when Alpha got on the motorcycle with Jim and rode behind him! Here are some pics:

FAQ: WHAT????? ARE YOU INSANE??? SHE'S ONLY 6!!!!!
Yes, but she has legs long enough to reach the pegs and we even got her a helmet! Plus we made her wear long pants and tennis shoes.









FAQ: Did she fall off?
Nope.








FAQ: Did she like it?
She LOVED it! We had other stuff to do, but she was ready for daddy to take her out again. She even asked if this morning, before breakfast, he could take her for another ride. I think she's hooked!




We also got some landscaping done to our front flower bed. Finally! We've been here a year. It's about time. I may have some pictures of that later this week. It's not finished yet.

Anyway, that is the quick version of our weekend. I wish I could get that video to work. Maybe tomorrow.

Hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend, too!

Redecorating

Do you like the new look? Inspired by my sister-in-law's blog, I thought I'd change some things around. I was tired of everything pink, but this template was so cute! It looks kind of girly with the "lace" at the top. I like the white background. It's easier to read and easier on the eyes.

Putting mom in her place...

Ah. Parenthood. I once read in a magazine that Parenthood is "The Great Equalizer". No matter your education, work training, qualifications, etc, your kids will bring you back down to earth.

Enter Alpha! A very intelligent 6 year old. Has a big heart. Loves to play outside. Has never met a stranger.

And thinks her mom couldn't possibly understand math.

Her class is learning to call numbers either odd or even. This week she had to circle all the even numbers and put triangles around all the odd numbers. And color them different colors.

She messed it up. In fact, didn't even come close! She also had to list some even numbers so she wrote 1, 2, 4, 9. Her odd numbers were like 1, 2, 3, 6.

I tried, albeit poorly, to explain what the even numbers were. She would NOT believe me! She kept insisting that her teacher knew what they were and that he would say the same thing she would say. I kept telling her the paper was going to be wrong. Finally, she said, "Well, I'm leaving it this way. We'll JUST SEE who's right!"

WHAT?????? 4 years of a rigorous Hendrix math education to be told that I couldn't possibly understand this concept? Well, I never.......

The next day she did come home explaining that SHE had confused the patterns of numbers at school. She also recited the even numbers for 2-10.

Keeping mommy on track....
The other day, I was going to exercise in the morning. I had my exercise clothes on, breakfast had been eaten and the dishes cleared away. I was fully ready. And on my computer. As I was sitting there, Beta says, "aren't you going to exercise?"I answer yes. A few moments pass. She says, "I'll put your tape in!" I slowly get up. I think to myself, hey, this is a good motivator.

Tonight after supper, I took a walk. I took Beta with me b/c she was the only one who agreed to WALK with me and not ride any toys. I told her we had to walk fast. So what does she do? She takes off running! So I took off after her. We ran almost all the way to the corner. When she stopped, I slowed down and then passed her! She hates that so she started back up again. We then walked and ran back to the other corner on our street. It wasn't very long, and it was getting dark, but it was a great aerobic sprint workout! So now I've got my motivational buddy. I just mention exercising and Beta will put me to it!

I love my girls!!

Fair Video!

Here is the video I promised you. I took out the original audio and put a song behind it. I can go work at a TV station now! I'm a video editor!

The Fair!

Popcorn! Peanuts! Fried Coke!

Fried Coke?

Yes. Fried coke was the newest "fried" offering at the Arkansas State Fair this year. We didn't try it. I tried a fried snickers a couple of years ago, and it was ok. Not great, though. Definitely better things that should be fried than candy bars.

This past Saturday, Jim and I took our girls and Grandmother to the Arkansas State Fair. We all had so much fun! We got to ride rides, eat gyros, corn dogs, and ice cream, and see lots of interesting crafts and exhibits. The girls got some instruction in how to handle the "games" and "carnies".

Since a picture is worth 1000 words, I will shut up for now and just show you some of our fun!
Grandmother and Beta on the elephant ride! Alpha is in the background.








Smiling Beta on the merry go round!








Smiling (and waving!) Alpha on the merry go round!








A kiddie dragon roller coaster. This was the girls' favorite ride! Beta got off and said it was fun and scary!








A cool hot-air balloon ride. They worked together to spin the basket.







I'm working on a video from the fair. I'll try to have it posted in the next day or two.

This and That

Hi, all! Sorry I haven't posted more this week. I've actually been fairly busy. Here are some odds and ends for you:

Alpha got $1 from the tooth fairy. She seemed happy with it. She has that second loose tooth which is getting VERY loose. It'll be gone in another week or so.

Beta saw a doll at the store the other day that cries unless it has a pacifier in its mouth. She wants that baby for Christmas SO BAD! That night, when we were saying prayers, she asked if she could pray to SANTA to bring her that doll. AAAAHHHHHH!!!! What do I say??? I told her no, she can't pray to Santa. She asked why and I said b/c Santa is not real like God is real. I hope she doesn't ask any more questions.

Beta missed her dance class last week b/c her throat was sore. She went to a make-up class today for it. She asked her daddy this morning if this meant she got to wear make-up to dance!

Alpha got her school book-order in. She bought a "secret diary". She is very excited about it. Unfortunately, the lock broke on it the very afternoon she got it! I think she may have turned it the wrong way. But still, one of my pet peeves is when they sell this stuff to kids that's cheap and it breaks and you're left trying to explain why their beloved item no longer works. She still loves the diary part. Oh, and don't worry too much about the "secret" part. She's told me and shown me every single thing she's written in it. She just wanted the lock on it so Beta couldn't get in and read it!

Well, that's it for now. I hope to have a great blog post about this weekend. But for now I must get to bed or I will have a crabby weekend.

Good night!

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

It finally happened! Alpha lost her first tooth today!

This morning during breakfast, she bit down and knocked it WAY loose. It was probably hanging on by one corner. She wouldn't pull it, though, so we sent her on to school.



This afternoon when I picked her up, she RAN to the car and started screaming, "I lost my tooth!" She was SO excited. She said it came out this morning when she wiggled it with her tongue. Her teacher gave her a bag to put it in. She said it didn't hurt and it didn't bleed.

So now it's in the tooth pillow waiting on bedtime and the tooth fairy.


I don't know who's more excited -- Alpha or Beta. Alpha also said she hoped the tooth fairy brought her $100. I told her when I was little, she brought $1.


We'll just have to wait until morning to see how much she brings!

This is the same tooth pillow that me and my brother used. My mom made it for us. Isn't it cute?!

P.S. Alpha has been saying she wants to be the tooth fairy for Halloween!

Vroom! Vroom!

Well, our bike weekend is over! I can feel the testosterone dissipating in the air.

Jim's parents came up and we all went to Bikes, Blues, and BBQ on Saturday. I think the girls enjoyed it. We had trouble finding a parking place. Most were taken up with bikes! Imagine that! We walked around some exhibits and then ate lunch. Barbecue, of course. Well, the girls had corn dogs.

One of the most memorable comments came from Alpha. We had been walking about 10 minutes when she said, "I think there are more boys here than girls."

Here are some pictures.


Here are Jim and his dad relaxing in our new home theater chairs! I might do a post on those sometime this week.








Here are Gramma and the girls having lunch. Gramma had barbecue and the girls had corn dogs.







Aha! There ARE things for girls at this event. Like pink motorcycles.








This is what the parking lot looked like. TONS of BIKES EVERYWHERE! Truthfully, this picture does not do it justice. Imagine this pic in a 360 degree montage. THAT would be more like it.

Bikes, Blues, and Booboos

Ok people. This isn't funny any more.

This weekend is the much-anticipated Bikes, Blues, and BBQ festival. Bikers from around the country (?) are all coming to Northwest Arkansas to participate. The editorial in the NWA Times this morning encouraged motorists to watch out for bikers. Nobody wants to spend a beautiful weekend in the hospital, it said.

So, there I find myself driving down the road today. I'm doing exactly what the editorial said. I'm NOTICING bikers! There are sport bikes and cruisers. That's about the only difference I can tell. Lots of chrome and leather. Definitely a man's thing.

WHEN SUDDENLY................!!!!!

Haha! Fooled you! Nope. I didn't hit anybody. Didn't even come close. But I did realize that I'm watching these BIKES and not the ROAD! If anyone's gonna get hurt, it's me!

I resolved to try to put off my staring until I can actually be on Dickson street -- walking. I think that's safer for everyone.

Go Team!

Tonight for dessert, we had ice cream. We bought some yesterday since my throat was sore. Jim took the girls and we each got our own kind. Alpha got strawberry, Beta got chocolate, I got vanilla, and Jim got Yarnell's "Whoo Pig Chewy". His had brownie bites in it and a Razorback logo on the carton.

Therefore, it was quite humorous when Beta asked if she could have some of Jim's ice cream. She called it:

Whoo Chig Pooey!

Later, she called it Whoo Pig Pooey, but we told her it wasn't funny any more.

Round 9

For those keeping score:
Jim 2 Wendy 3 Alpha 3 Beta 2

These would be the number of illnesses we have had in the past month. I am sick now for the 3rd time. I thought I had strep because I have a low-grade fever and yucky white stuff on my throat. But 2 strep tests at the doctor's today came back negative. A test for mono was negative. (thank goodness!) He finally prescribed me a Z-pack. He said 80% of sore throats are caused by viruses. The other 20% are by bacteria. Of those 20%, 80-90% of THOSE are caused by strep. So, I have some uncommon bacteria floating around in the back of my throat. YUCK!

I hope I can get better in a couple of days. My throat hurts! I also hope I didn't give it to anybody else. Alpha just got done taking antibiotics for an ear infection with a white gunky throat. I probably got this from her. I hope neither of us gives it to Beta. She's hardly been sick at all so I think her number's about up!

When I'm well, I'm thinking of buying some Vitamin C tablets. I don't think it would hurt anything. We might also fork over some money for the flu vaccine this year.