Tagged by Chrissy

It took me a while to figure out what this was. On my friend Chrissy's blog, it "tagged" me. I am to take the fourth picture out of my fourth folder and post it. Here it is!


Phew! I could just see it being a really gross pic of me or something!

Backlog of Dramatic Scenes

Nat has become quite the drama queen/dancer/rock star lately. Here is some of our recent dialogue (approximate):

I. (After turning her musical movie, to which she had been dancing earlier, off ) "I didn't even bow yet."

II. ( Julsie is in the tub and I am in the bathroom with her.)
"Pretend this (the bathroom) is your house."
"Okay"
(she leaves, shutting the door. After a while, she knocks)
"Who is it?"
"It's Natalie"
(I open the door to find she has decked herself out with a pair of sunglasses, necklace and purse)
"Oh Natalie, it's so good to see you again." (we hug in greeting)
"Its been a long while" she says.
"Yes, we're so glad to have you here."
"Yes, I just came to ... to chill out."
"Oh, great, well, come on in and ... chill. (We sit down. I'm on the floor. She is on the toilet. Pointing to Jules, I say)
"You know my baby, Julia, right?"
"Noooo, we've never met."
"Oh, I'm sorry, this is my baby, Julia. Julia, this is Natalie."
"Yes, Natalie, Natalie... Rockstar"
"Oh!"
"Yes, I'm..., I'm from Howdy, Howdy Texas. I love Texas. I'm a cow... cow... cow goil (girl).

III. (Relayed from my friend Cheryl, as our daughters were playing veterinarian together.)
Ky, the vet, says, "what is wrong with your puppy?"
(putting on her best dramatic face, with raised eyebrows and lowered eye lids, Nat rubs her fingertips down her own throat.) "Well, you see. My dog, .... my dog is having trouble. He..., he can't get his ruffs out. He's having a problem with his throat and he can't get his ruffs out.
(Ky goes on to prescribe a special dog bone to cure this issue with the ruffs.)

IV. As is always the case, kids know more than we give them credit for:
I say, "On Tuesday, we are going to go see a man,.... well, you know how daddy is like the boss of our family? Well this man wants to be the boss of our country. That is called the President. He wants to be the president of our country. "
"You mean, like Obama?"
"Yeah, like Obama, but the other guy."

V. Nat is in bed, I'm rocking Jules.
"Mom, sing the song about the bear and dreams."
Racking my brain, "I don't know that song honey. Why don't you sing it for me?"
In her falsetto, she sings about 4 or 5 lines of a made-up song. I have a hard time putting it all together, but it was something like this:
"Oh little bear, come to me. Come to me and dreams come true. There is glitter everywhere....." and on.
"That one, sing that one mom."
"I didn't quite get it, can you sing it again for me?"
She tries to sing it again, but has trouble remembering it herself. I sing a few words, including bear and dream and it seems to pass muster. She sings another song. It begins like this:
"And the monkey kisses the frog ..." It goes on to include words like dreams and prince or princess. It even speaks of a turtle in a glittery hole. All the while, she is "conducting" with her hands while singing.
"Sing mom." I stand up now, snuzzling and "slow dancing" with Jules as I sing. I now understand the kind-of thing she is looking for and make up a high-pitched nonsense "song" made up of all those "key words" strung together (like dream, glitter, various animals, wish, princess, etc.) From her bed, she is still directing:
"No, mom, you have to do this (demonstrating a slow, circular "conducting" motion) with your hand."

VI. We are eating lunch yesterday. Jazzy is hounding Jules for food.
"Did Jazzy eat today? I think she didn't eat today."
"No honey, she ate."
"Jazzy! get away."
A few minutes later, Nat is in the closet. John and I just look at each other but say nothing, pretending we aren't aware. Nat gets a scoop of dog food.
"Come Jazzy" (going towards Jazzy's bowl). "Sit. Good goil." tinkle tinkle of the food hitting the dish. Nat comes out of the kitchen and sees dad and I looking at her.
"I gave Jaz some food."
"Ok dog whisperer," says dad.
"I'm not dog whisperer. I'm Natalie. I'm just trying to teach Jasmine. I'm just trying to teach her to sit and not to jump on people and not to lick people. So I'm just trying to teach her."

Annual Trip to the Pumpkin Farm

Last week, we went on our annual trip with friends to the pumpkin farm! Daddy was able to go again this year, which is always so much fun.

We had an informative presentation on pumpkins and gourds

Went through a corn maze

Took a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick out our very own pumpkin (The joy of finally finding just the right one can hardly be described haha).

We finished out our trip with donuts and cider!

Hershey Park in the Dark

On the 19th, despite suffering colds, the whole fam went to HP in the Dark. It was the only night this entire Halloween season that Tob would be able to go with us. Here are some pics from our adventure. HP has many rides open (with new spooky names), a trick-or-treat area for the kids, fall food and entertainment. It was free for the girls and I with our season passes.

We even splurged and bought a bag of Kettle Corn. When I met up with John and Nat after buying it, we just stood in place and feverishly shoveled handfuls into our mouths - like we hadn't eaten in days.

Here is Nat on her favorite ride - the Frog Hopper.

Here is Julie on her first "big girl" ride!!!! It was mom's first time on the Frog Hopper too. Here we are telling the little girl on the right it was J's first ride, she was so excited, she passed the info on to all of her little friends sitting on the next car. Turns out, Julsie is NOT in love with the Frog Hopper like Nat. Maybe next year.

Here are my little girls at one of the photo-ops in Treatville. More candy please!!!!

It was chilly that night, and by the time poor Julsie got home, she was like a little ice cube. I had to stick her in the bath just to warm her up. Eventhough she had shoes and socks, her feet were frigid... takes after her mom, I guess.

More Home-Ec

Ok, so yesterday, I bought:
4pk Bic Advance 3 Razors
2 Palmolive dish soaps (11oz ea)
1 Sally Hansen diamond lip gloss
1 18pk Girl product
1 Loreal age perfect moisturizer
1 Oral B toothbrush
2 - 6 pk Sunmaid Raisins

and I made a PROFIT of $4.00!!

An "A" in Home-Ec

(for JIR)

As a stay-at-home mom, I firmly believe that part of my job is to make his paycheck go further. Not so humbly, I give myself an A for my recent performance. I should definitely get an A for effort. I spend tons of time each week perusing the ads from the Sunday paper, clipping coupons, and mapping out my shopping plan for the week. I have learned how to play the CVS game and work the Rite Aid rebate system. So far this month, I am scheduled to receive $60+ back in rebates from Rite Aid.

The picture on the left is a sampling of stuff I bought for between $0.30 and $1.50. The picture on the right is a sampling of things I've gotten for free. That's right, FREE! Remember, this is just a sampling. As I was putting everything away from this photo shoot, I kept finding more and more items I had forgotten about. It also doesn't include items I have already used. For example, to the Free Side, add a Gillette Fusion Power Razor, another apron, a children's book "More Spaghetti I Say," a box of Honey Bunches of Oats, a jar of Bertolli Pasta sauce... oh, and I just received a free sample of FiberOne Cereal and cereal bar today. I LOVE getting stuff for free =)

I can't take all the credit. I've had some help. My friends here in Hershey have aided me in my conversion to a bargain shopper. They've introduced me to new "bargain" stores (bargain is the nice term) and helped me learn in-store "systems." We even pass around info on a Hershey coupon clipping blog!!

My personal secret has been to stock up on coupons. Oh, and I don't even get the Sunday paper. I'm too cheap for that. Sometimes John works on Sundays and will bring one home from station. Most of the time I just wait until someone throws their paper in the recycling bins near the dumpsters. Yes, I dumpster dive for coupons. Once I was caught by a man bringing his doggie's doo to the dumpster, "Oh, it's only you," he said, "I was afraid it was a raccoon!"

I not only check the dumpsters near our individual building, but I've also been known to walk or drive to the other dumpsters throughout our apt. complex looking for especially valuable coupons. Some weeks I have managed to wrangle 5 copies of the same coupon! John is completely embarrassed, but I choose to see it as one of my endearing qualities =)

Jazzy and the Great Outdoors

Jazzy needs a little face time too.

Here she is fetching at Sugar Lake (by my parents' home)

The lane to Sugar Lake and my mom's cousins' boathouse

All these pics were taken by John. This is right up his alley.

Jasmine standing over Mr. Tudor's gravesite at my parents' home. We planted that tree for him.

John thinks Jazzy is getting more lovey. I don't know, I try not to get too close to her. However, tonight I was snuggling with the girls on the couch and when Julsie got up, Jaz (for the first time ever) put her front paws discreetly on the couch and put her head in my lap. =)

What have we been up to?

Here are some random pics of what we've been doing lately (besides John being on a long working stint and the girls and I suffering from a cold)

Here are John's Fall decorations:

We will add Jack-O-Lanterns to the chairs closer to Halloween. This pic was taken when we first did it. It looks almost the same today, except we are missing a few gourds. Apparently they are Jazzy's favorite vegetables.

No, this was not dress rehearsal for Halloween, Nat just enjoys dressing up. She decided she wanted to go outside to play with the dog and me, but as you can see, she didn't want to de-lion.

We made some homemade play dough about 2 weeks ago. Since we've been couped up, sick, we've been making a lot of homemade stuff lately. (Yesterday I made a homemade kite out of paper and bamboo skewers.) I've made a total of 5 batches now 2 plain, pink, purple and yellow. Here is Nat's own original creation:

First, it was a sailboat. Now she calls it a castle. Either way, momma calls it a masterpiece. It is still drying out, sitting in our china cupboard.

Oh, and John picked a bunch of apples from his sister's house and I made 2 big batches of apple sauce.

Under Attack

My nasal passages have been under attack today. First, we are all suffering from a nasty cold and my nose is very stuffy. Any breath I can get through those orifices is a blessing. Well, it was a blessing until this morning.
First, I wake up early and feed Jules. Apparently while I was in her room, Jazzy peed outside the door. Yuck. Smell of dog pee. Then, I tried to clean it up with Woolite carpet cleaner (strong smelling). Finally, I sprayed it with Febreeze - more strong smell. I immediately went to the kitchen to make John's tuna fish sandwich. Yum.
I went back to bed, and when I woke up this time, my olfactory was not abruptly assaulted. I just had to wait about 20 minutes though. Julsie's diaper provided the affront this time. woohoo. Such a little girl, such a big stink. .. and did I mention that Jazzy has a skin problem and both she and the medicated shampoo we use on her are both stinky?
Talk about needing to go outside and "get the stink blowed off."

Daddy's Little Hunter

So, we're leaving preschool on Tuesday and I see a squirrel. "Hey Nat, there's a squirrel," I say in my normal voice. "Mom, no. You've got to be quiet," she whispers as she tip-toes toward the squirrel. Following orders, I whisper in reply, "Oh, okay."

We tip toe around following the squirrel which stays at least 15 feet ahead. "Ok, let's go," I say. "But mom, I wanted to follow that squirrel."

Then my mind goes back to the last month or so that John has been talking to Nat

about squirrel hunting - would she like to go with him. Thinking I'd know the answer, I say, "Nat, would you like to go hunt..." "Yeah" she quickly interjects. You could tell that's what she had on her mind. almost simultaneously I add "and shoot a squirrel like that with daddy?"

"Yeah" she says, "I think we should come here and shoot that one... because he

shouldn't have done that."

I told John, "I don't know what she had made up in her mind that that squirrel did to deserve being shot, but...."

John laughs, "Don't cross her!"

Back to School

I know, I'm late with this, but its back to school time. We are again participating in the preschool co-op with three other moms. Two of the moms are the same from last year and we have one new family with twin girls participating!

We are teaching a variety of concepts like shapes, colors, letters and numbers using various book-based themes. Hope you like the pics. The top is our lesson based on The Little Red Hen. The pic on the left is of the girls making apple turn-overs during our apple lesson. The next is me with my lazy eye and beautiful Nat during my lesson on Rosie's Walk. The final pic is Nat decorating a pumpkin during our lesson on Pumpkins.

The Powder Incident

Every family has one.... and I don't mean a "black sheep." Every family has a baby powder incident. Mine came just last week. I was purging the girls' dressers and closets of clothes that are out-of-season or too small. Because the girls were coloring at the kitchen table, I set up shop there as well. At some point in my labeling and packaging 10 garbage bags, the girls finished coloring and started playing in their room. As I would haul the garbage bags back to my bedroom I'd check on the two of them. No one was yelling, hanging from the ceiling, climbing on the bookcase. No one was even jumping on the bed. Everything was peaceful and quiet. Too quiet.

As I completed my work, I headed into their room. Nat had pulled the changing pad off the dresser and onto the floor. The lid to the blocks and the porcelain duck were also on the floor. Now, the duck was a flower arrangement piece and has a hole where I keep the diaper changing supplies. I saw Nat shaking her hand as I drew near. Oh no. She's shaking baby powder into the lid for the blocks. "No!" I shout, "Don't do that!" I took the powder from her and rushed it to the bathroom. In my preliminary scan, I could see there was a little powder on a pair of Julsie's jeans and on her face, but not too much anywhere else. "Wow, that could have been bad."

By now, Jules had followed me to the bathroom and Nat is on her way too. But Nat looks nothing like she did 10 seconds earlier. She is now covered in powder. Apparently she had taken that window of opportunity to dump the entire lid over her head. .... Bath time.

My "Beautiful" Girl

Nat has a very sweet personality, but like her parents, she has funny little quirks. One of hers is that she can be sooo particular at times. I think she is genetically predisposed for that as John and I can both be that way sometimes (especially when we were younger, before we mellowed out.)

Example 1: Here's a pic of her after I told her I was going to try her hair a different way. She fought me the entire time, "But it's not beautiful. I don't want 2 barrettes, it won't be beautiful." Finally I held her up to the mirror. I think the wry smile on her face is because she realized she DID look pretty and was being completely ridiculous.

Example 2: We've gotten in arguments because I want to go somewhere or do something and she has to take 10 minutes to make sure whatever items she has are properly arranged. And don't try to help her or move things along, it just makes it worse. (That can be tough too, with a little sis who wants to touch everything big sis does.) The other day I was in their bedroom cleaning and she took a basket of toys to the living room. Here is what she did with them. She didn't play with them, she just laid them out in her own little orderly fashion. "Mom, come see what I did."

Example 3: Last week, instead of just following her friend to the middle of the gym, like I had suggested, Nat came back to find me because she wasn't sure how to get to the middle of the big gym. Should she walk over the blue mat, green mat or red mat, on the balance beam or on the carpet in order to get out to the other kids and teachers. This week they did a hopscotch maneuver and the teacher had to let another girl go ahead of Nat because she was so careful to jump exactly in the center of each square that it was taking forever. I also caught her finishing a jump, stopping to examine the mat she landed on, and replacing it so it was perfectly in-line with the apparatus they jumped from.

Example 4: She is already keenly aware of what she wears. For gymnastics, I finally convinced her to wear her little pink leotard but she refuses to take her pants off for class.

Getting ready for church this week was a nightmare. She decided the skirt I picked out was "not beautiful." I convinced her that the sweater to match WAS beautiful and she agreed to try it on. She just couldn't get past the plain tights, "but there is nothing beautiful on them." I finally gave in and told her to just pick SOMETHING out so we wouldn't be late. She looked in her closet and said, (you guessed it) "There's nothing beautiful in there." We ended up in the first outfit sans tights completely. Heavens!!!! We had the same issue with the hair. "But I don't like a pony tail. It's not beautiful." In the end we amazingly did make it to church (albeit during the first hymn.) humpf.

But like I said, how can I blame her? She gets it honestly. Just pray for patience! =)

Nat's a Tiny Tumbler!

So what's up with Natty girl lately? Well, she just started gymnastics this fall. We were out of town for the first few classes, and I was worried about how she would do coming in late. .... Well, she loves it. She was a little apprehensive, but by the time she had finished her first class she was on cloud 9. She got to use all kinds of stuff, like the bars, balance beam, trampoline, a huge blow-up castle with climbing wall and slide. She got to jump in a pit of foam squares, go through obstacle courses and she even got stamps on her hands and feet to end the class.
Here she is with daddy waiting for her class to be called to the gym. I couldn't get any good pics of her in the gym because of the lighting, but I'll try again.


She hasn't "warmed-up" with the other children once yet. She just sits in the circle and watches them all. She told me Monday that she didn't do the warm-ups because she was cold. I still don't know if she was actually cold and just wanted to stay curled in a ball to keep warm or if she thought she had to be warm to do "warm-ups."

Anyway, we're so glad we put her in. I think it will be so good for her.

Back to Babies - Julia

Oh my, Jules is getting so big. She has such a personality. My friend Pat says that Jules is going to be my trouble maker; "she's just got that sparkle in her eye." I don't know,..... but she DOES have that sparkle.

She is quite aware of the word "No" and frequently uses it. She'll say it with a quiet voice, and at the top of her little lungs (she especially loved to yell it at Uncle Mark's where it would echo through the house). She'll say it when mad or crying, while laughing or half sleeping. She'll say it when she means "no" and also when she means "yes." Oh yeah, and when she says "nose" it too comes out as "no."

Hmm. What else is she saying now.... good girl, nat nat, bear, baby, more, shoe, bye bye, maaaa!, dog, dad. Oh, and she can say and point to her eyes, ears, and nose. (Many of her words may only be understood by John, Nat or I, but they're close and still count.)

Hmm. What else is she into now... she still loves shoes and can put them on all by herself. She loves to model adults. She likes to carry a purse on her shoulder and just started being really interested in the baby dolls. She asked to sleep with 2 of them tonight. She also tries to put on any piece of clothing she may find all by herself. One time I caught her putting her feet into a pair of Natty's underpants. She has about 12 teeth now and loves to brush them herself.

I almost forgot, she says "pee" which means either "that" or "toothbrush." And she says "poo" which means "I want to go sit on the toilet." Yes, she will hold her diaper, say "poo" and then gesture for you to come with her. Once she knows that you'll go with her, she makes a rapid bee-line (well, a wobbly bee-line) for the bathroom. She points to the seat, we put her on and she sits there just beaming from ear to ear. She even grabs her own toilet paper. She is such a little stinker.

It's hard to explain, but I was so worried how another child would fit into our family (Me Nat and Toby). The weird thing is, its like she has always belonged here. I mean, its no 3+1... its just 4. =)