Happy Birthday Mimi!

Today is Mimi's birthday! And after all the rain and the cold that we had last week, Mimi is one lucky chick... it was a gorgeous day! Much nicer than I anticipated.

H and I got up and did our usual... donuts at the bakery. Then we went home, I put together a sopapilla cheesecake (thanks for that recipe Leah!) and we headed to Uncle Steve's to meet up with friends and family to celebrate.

Mostly, the day was spent chasing Harper, Kenzie and Conner around. They played on the swingset, they fed fish in the pond, they petted puppies, they made pretend food and served it at Kenzie's picnic table. They wrestled, they ran, they laughed and entertained. And at the end of the day, Harper slept the whole way home and went straight to bed after brushing his teeth.

Aunt Becky pushing H

A succession of photos:

H pushing Kenzie

Trying harder to push Kenzie

Mimi helping H push Kenzie

Cutie patootie, Kenzie Ann

H serving a waffle sandwich with a Coke

Chef Conner

H, out like a light, on the drive home


I will pause from praising my little one for a minute to say thanks to my mom. You do so much for all of us. We love you tremendously. The grandkids are hopelessly in love with you and I know Steven and I are the luckiest kids to have you.

We love you, Mimi!

Spooktacular Carnival

We went to Harper's school carnival tonight. There were a TON of people there! Harper was super excited to FINALLY get to wear his Thomas costume.

There were games in each room. I didn't get pictures of everything, just because there really were so many people there. I didn't want to be in everyone's way trying to get pictures of every little thing. The first room we went into Harper got to fish for candy. I think this was the first time he ever used a fishing rod.

The next room was supposed to be like bobbing for apples. But all you did was pick a plastic pumpkin that was floating in a tub of water, turn it over, and if it had dots, you got two bags of candy. No dots you got one. Then we went into a room with a ring toss. I wish I'd gotten a pick of that, because H was so cute taking aim. You'll just have to use your imagination.

In his room, they had a combination of golf/croquet and an orange and black velcro dart board that you threw an orange ball at and tried to make it stick. As you can see, he was successful.


We did a cake walk, but didn't win. And in the last room, he kicked a football through a goal to get candy. The games were fun and easy, and with all of them (except the cake walk), you got candy either way.

He had so much fun and was SO good. I let him have some M&M's on the way home and I indulged in a Kit-Kat. Now he's excited to finally have some Halloween candy of his own, and he's geared up and ready for the 31st!

Peer Love

When I went to pick up H from school today, I tried to hide so he wouldn't see me. I like to watch him interacting with the other kids. As soon as he sees me, he quits playing, runs to me full speed and yells 'MOMMY!' Which I admit... I love.

I was only there for about a minute when he ran to me. All the kids he was playing with followed him. Zachary always hovers around me when I'm there. Lily, Victoria, Mariah and Gavin were all in tow as well.

I put H's hoodie on him and zipped it up. Lily went over and put the hoodie over his head. Then she gave him a great big hug and said, 'See you tomorrow, Harper!' Then Mariah hugged him. Then Gavin hugged him. Then Zachary inched in and hugged him. Finally, Victoria hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He hugged each of them back and waved goodbye. Then he looked at me, beaming, and said 'I had a really good day, Mommy.'

Doesn't that just melt your heart?

Will the Real Captian Hook Please Step Forward

Yesterday, H and I went to Target to get a couple of grocery items. I was meandering down the aisle with glassware and at the end of the aisle were several types of beer glasses. Coors, Budweiser, Michelob, Guinness, and for some reason, Captain Morgan. When Harper saw the Captain Morgan glasses he said, 'Wook! Wook Mommy! It's Peter Pan stuff!'

When we got home, I fixed his dinner and gave him corn for his vegetable. Corn that, just the night before, he begged to have with dinner. Last night? Last night, corn was yucky. I had to beg and barter with him to eat three bites. At first he said, 'Can I eat this bite?' Heck yeah, I say. And hey, why not have a couple more? I said, 'Eat at least three bites and you can have chocolate milk when we read stories.' Which, so you know, isn't really a reward. He has chocolate milk EVERY night when we read stories. But I figure if I say 'Woo hoo! You get to have it!' instead of 'If you don't..., you won't get...', it sometimes works in my favor. SO my clever son says, 'Three bites! OK!' and puts three kernels of corn on his fork. Uh, yeah. Not quite what I meant. He laughed at how funny he was. Which it was. Then when he finished his FOURTH bite of corn, he said, 'Corn is AWfully yummy!'

Stinker.

School Daze

Here are a couple of pics of H at school, and the final product of his official school pictures.

H and his friend, Avery, playing at the train table. A doesn't go to H's school anymore, and Harper is quite upset about it. He talks about him everyday.

H enjoying an orange. He's most likely the last kiddo at the table, since he is the pokiest eater I've ever known.

Charmer pic:

Too cool for school pic:

More Circus Pics

Here are more pics from the circus on Friday.

I love how blue his mouth is here. This was after his first bite of cotton candy.

Macaroni Misunderstanding

I was talking to Mimi today and I remembered something funny H said a while back. He kept saying he wanted macaroni pizza. I knew that Cici's had macaroni pizza, so I figured he'd gotten some with Jody at some point.

H and I went to Cici's back in August and I got a slice of macaroni pizza for him and a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza for me. He curled his lip at his plate and said, 'Mommy, I want your macaroni pizza.'

Macaroni. Pepperoni. Easy mistake.

Running Away with the Circus

Friday night, Jody and I took Harper to the Barnum and Bailey Circus at the new BOK Center downtown. The building is beautiful, but they didn't plan for parking. We had to park about three blocks away. Not a big deal, Jody and I have walked further than that before. We were a little nervous, though. We were a little afraid we'd get back and the car wouldn't be there. No worries, though. It was there when we got back.

H on our way to the show:

We got there an hour early so we could get a decent parking space (ha!). We got inside quickly and walked around in awe for a bit. The place was very clean and bright. There were a lot of stations set up with cotton candy, popcorn, souvenir toys and stuffed animals. For two days, Harper had only asked for cotton candy, so we made sure he ate a good dinner, then we braced ourselves for stuffing him with spun sugar.

When we approached the kiosk to buy cotton candy, I caught sight of a teeny tiny stuffed animal that was $21. TWENTY ONE DOLLARS! This doll was about the size of Happy (the bear). Not a $21 animal. I was relieved that H only wanted the cotton candy. I order. 'That will be $12.' TWELVE DOLLARS?! FOR COTTON CANDY?! Oy. They hand us a huge bag of cotton candy, then she said, 'Oh, it comes with this hat.' Which we thought would be a waste, turns out, Harper loved it. He wore that hat most of the night. It was pretty funny. But everything was like that. If you ordered s'mores, you got a crown. If you ordered popcorn, you got some spinning thing that lights up. The downside was you can't get JUST popcorn or whatever, you had to get the souvenir. However, I decided that it's worth it. The show must cost a fortune to put on, and the tickets to the actual show were inexpensive. So if they want to charge $12 for cotton candy, fine. I didn't plan on getting anything more than that anyway.

We found our seats, but before we got settled in, we saw that people were allowed down on the floor where there were jugglers, an elephant, a man on stilts and a couple of clowns. We made our way down there, but there were a LOT of people and H didn't want to get up on Daddy's shoulders to see the elephant over the tops of people's heads. Too high, I guess. So we went over to the jugglers where there was a place on the floor to sit. We got to hang out for a few minutes, then it was time to find our seats, the show was about to start.

The show was starting and we stood up for the national anthem.




















Harper wore his hat for most of the show.





















During the pre-show, there was a lot going on. Elephants, clowns, motorcycles, dancers. But all H could focus on were three acrobats that were on our side of the arena. Very high up in the air. He sat there, staring at them, obviously nervous. When the pre-show was finally over, the ladder dropped and the acrobats started climbing down. Harper sighed and said, 'Now they can get down.' I couldn't get a picture of them, it wouldn't have turned out. It was too dark.

I think he enjoyed the part with the dogs chasing frisbees the most. He said he was going to teach Mona to do that. I figure I'll need to get another dog. I don't see Mona catching a frisbee anytime soon.

Just before the halfway point, Harper said his tummy hurt and I had noticed his eyes getting awfully itchy. I mean, the show didn't start until 7:30, which is bedtime. It was already almost 8:30. He had been a super good boy and we had seen a lot. So we all put on our jackets and by the time we got to the top of the stairs, it was intermission. We just beat the crowd out and we made the long walk to the car.

Harper was really sleepy on the way back to Daddy's. When we got there, I carried him upstairs, with his little head resting on my shoulder. Got him inside, threw the hat on the couch, put on jammies, brushed his teeth and washed his face. He asked for his hat... I'm pretty sure it stayed on the couch overnight. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if he slept with it. Daddy made chocolate milk and got settled in the rocking chair. I handed over our boy, gave him lots of kisses and headed home.

Maybe next year we'll make it through an entire show. And we can get there even earlier so we can participate in more of the pre-show.

It was a fun night for all of us. I can't wait to do it again.

*Jody has more pictures. I'll post some of those when I get his copies.

First Field Trip

Harper's class went to the pumpkin patch in South Bixby today. I went with him, because quite honestly, it makes me nervous for him to go on a field trip. Call me paranoid or over protective, I don't care. It ended up being a good thing I went. There were 16 kids and four adults. It was a lot of fun.

They had huge piles of pumpkins for the kids to climb on, a maze in a tent that was pitch black. The kids thought it was kind of scary at first, then they loved it and wanted to go through it again and again. They got to pet some goats and sheep. We went on a hay ride. Then they each picked out a pumpkin to take home.

Funny Boy

When H woke up Sunday morning, he asked, 'Is it Halloween Day, yet?'

When I put him to bed that night, he said, 'The sun is gone.' I said, 'It sure is. It went to bed, too.' He asked, 'Did it go see it's mommy?' I said, 'I'm sure it did.' 'Where does it's mommy live?' I just said, 'The other side of the world.'

That seemed to be acceptable.

The Great Pumpkin

Let me start off by saying, this was the busiest Saturday EVER! Saturday morning, we started our day at the bakery, of course. From there, we headed home to wait for Mimi, Uncle Steve and Kenzie. When Uncle Steve and Kenzie got there, Harper yelled 'KENZIE!' and ran straight for the door. He was SO excited! They played in the backyard for a while, then we headed to the pumpkin patch.

The kids ate in the car on the way there. They were so busy and it felt like the day was going so fast. I didn't want to spend 30 minutes sitting down, trying to get them to eat. Cram as much fun in as possible, that's what I say.
















We took a pic of them before they could get into too much mischief. You can tell they look thrilled. Harper didn't want to ride the ponies, or do the tractor pull or hay ride. He just wanted to go down the slide. Now, this slide is massive. It's at least as tall as three of me. Last year, he climbed half way up, then came back down. This year, he was determined to conquer it.
















First we took Kenzie to the ponies. She made it 3/4 of the way around and wanted off.
















Next we headed to the slide. Fortunately, it was not very busy. It was either because it was lunch/naptime or OU/Texas weekend. Either way, I don't care. The kids could climb on the slide without being trampled. Kenzie did what H did last year. She got half way up, then wanted back down. Eventually, she went down one time, and that's because Steven went up with her and held her on the way down. No worries... for one ticket, you could go down the slide 5 times. H had two tickets, so he got to go down 14 times. This thing is seriously high. And when the kids come down? It's lightning fast. H caught air a couple of times. Man... I admit it... I kinda wanted to go down the slide, too.




















Harper climbed up the haystack.




















And posed by the Great Pumpkin mural.
After the Pumpkin Patch, we went home so the kids could take a nap. They went down well and slept a long time. I actually had to wake Harper up.

We went to Ollie's Station for dinner. They have a train motif that will knock your socks off. They have electric trains three deep running around the restaurant. There are trains running in the middle of the restaurant. There are trains up high. There are trains down low. They have Thomasses and Henrys. Engineer caps and railroad crossing signs. Oh man... for a kid who loves trains as much as he does, Steven was in heaven. Er, Harper. Harper was in heaven. (I have to rib my little brother a bit, because for a 24 year old? Yeah, he's as into Thomas as Harper is. The goober.) Here are the kids watching the trains go around the restaurant.
















The trains were really loud. You can hear them in the video below. H *is* yelling, and I shooshed him, but I did hear the manager come out and ask a waitress to turn down the volume on one of the trains.

Oh, the food, you ask? Was amazing! They have the best home style food I've had in a long time. We'll definitely be going back.

By the time we got home, it was bedtime. H took a shower like a big boy and was ready for bed. He was asleep within seconds of laying down. My sweet angel had a wonderful day.

Downsized

I just got notice that my company is downsizing. I will be full time until the end of October, then part time until the end of November. After that, my job will cease to exist.

Friends who read this, if you know of anyone who is hiring for administrative positions in the Tulsa area, I could really use the tip. I've done bookkeeping, AR/AP, data entry, etc. I've managed properties, stores, offices. I can learn how to do anything.

I appreciate any leads that come my way. I've applied for several jobs posted in the Tulsa World, but I thought it couldn't hurt to post this and see what else is out there.

Trick or Treat.... EARLY!

Tonight when Jody brought H home, Harper wanted to show Daddy his costume. So we got it out and he ran around the house with it on. He wouldn't look at the camera when I took his picture, or stand still after the initial picture. So they're action shots.

After Daddy left, we went to our neighbor behind us, Kay's, to practice saying 'Trick or Treat!' She loved it! He love love loves his Thomas costume and all I hear everyday is, 'Is it Halloween yet?'

And the Guitar Gently Weeps

Jody has been in a band for as long as I've known him, and longer. There's a poster still hanging in my garage from the band he was in when we met and was in until well after H was born.

He still plays on the weekends. It's something he loves and it gives him some extra money. Who wouldn't want that? But sometimes he has to play on weekends he has H. Which ends up being a perk for Nana and Papa, who come to stay with H while Daddy is gone. H is usually asleep the whole time J is gone, so neither one of them is really missing out on playtime.

But this morning, when we were getting in the car to go to school, H saw the poster with Daddy on it. He sounded so sad and he said, 'I don't like when my Daddy plays the guitar.' I asked, 'Why not?' H replied, 'I just want him to stay.' My heart breaks a little, then I ask, 'Don't you like it when Daddy plays the guitar just for you?' He said, 'No. I just want him to stay with me.'

Fortunately for H, Jody has worked it out with the band so he doesn't have to play on the weekends H is with him. I know he had so much fun this last weekend, because he talks about all the things he did with Daddy. They went to a football game, to the ranch to ride horses, and to a new park.

October is a busy month for H all around. This weekend we're going to the pumpkin patch with Mimi, Uncle Steve and Kenzie. Next Friday we're going to the circus with Daddy. I, for one, am SO excited! It will be H's first time and I can't wait to see the look on his face! The following Friday is a carnival at school, then we go to Uncle Steve's for Mimi's birthday. Then the last Friday is Halloween! We picked out a Thomas costume, and hopefully, he'll wear it. He's never been big on dressing up.

Growth Spurt

After looking at his pictures from Day Out With Thomas, and realizing that his second favorite 4T shirt is now too small for him, I held up all his other shirts to it to measure. He has FIVE shirts left that are bigger than his Crab Cake shirt! Granted, it's almost winter and he'll be wearing more long sleeved shirts, but until then? I guess his remaining shirts will be in constant rotation.

And I hope the long sleeved shirts I bought will fit. They're 4T, too. I guess we'll find out soon.

Picture with Thomas

Here is H's picture with Thomas from last Saturday.





















I swear that a couple of weeks ago, this shirt and his shorts were just the right size. But when I look at this picture, they look too small! Don't tell me you weren't thinking the same thing. And so you know, that shirt? It's a 4T! He's 3 1/2! Unbelievable how fast this child grows.

Check out how much he's grown since last year's picture!

The Source

I know I haven't posted much this week. We haven't really done much. H has been with his daddy Monday and Wednesday afternoon. We went to Target and bought his Thomas costume for Halloween on Thursday, then we had dinner with Mimi at Chili's. Tonight he's with his daddy again.

So although not much happened, it was a wonderful week. Harper was, and I mean this quite literally, a perfect child. He didn't get in trouble all week. He didn't whine or fuss. He was cooperative and happy. We laughed a lot and smiled and hugged and snuggled. It was utter bliss.

I hope we can keep it up. There's no getting out of it now... I know he can do it!

Of course, now I know that I can, too. Mimi and I were talking the other day about how much our moods rub off on other people. If H wakes up and he's cross, it's going to wear me out a lot faster and my patience may be thinner, sooner. And vice versa. I admit it, I wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes, too. But when we're both happy and feeding off each other's happiness, it makes for a delightful home.

It's kind of fitting that this quote was delivered to my inbox this morning, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." — Thich Nhat Hanh