The Not-So-Bad Bad Day

The pictures are from our afternoon at Legoland and the conclusion to the Not-So-Bad Bad Day.

Last Thursday started like every other day.  Waking up and going through the get to school on time routine.  It's nice that we always walk because if we are ever running late, we can drive and still get to school at the same time. Which is on time.

It was super chilly that morning because our downstairs is always freezing.  Our heater has been broken for a week, making it even colder.  Phone calls have been getting relayed between us, the repair guy, the management company, and then the landlord whom I am told does not have a cell phone.  Brrrr.

There was a parade in front of the Capital building.

Then we got a call from Ms. Lori.  She got terribly sick and wanted me to walk her daughter to school.  Also, she wouldn't be able to take the girls to Legoland that afternoon.  This is devastating to the girls because her extra free pass expires at the end of the month.  Today was the perfect day to go because it's early dismissal and there is no school on Friday thus no homework.  It's a teacher in-service day.

After drop off, Ms. Lori called and suggested that I use her season passes and take the girls anyways.  This is genius and all I have to do to look like Ms. Lori is dye my hair and have a face transplant.  I swung by Ms. Lori's and grabbed her passes on the way to the library.

The girls had the most fun filled 3-hours ever!

The library was great!  Songs about cookies, stories about cookies and then a craft making paper cookies.  I must of been having too much fun paying attention to my kid during craft because I didn't notice when some dirty little toddler must of reached into the pockets on my bag and had taken my car keys.  Where are the parents when this is going on?

The librarian and a couple of parents help me look for 20 minutes when it was decided that my keys are either somewhere in the book stacks or already on their way home with someone else.  Thankfully I had a friend there that gave me a ride home to print up a new insurance card to get the VIN number and to grab my extra carseat for LG.  Then she took me to the Chevy dealership to get new keys cut.

This is as close as she would get to the LegoPeople.

I am loving that my heater was broken because I threw my house key under the front mat, just in case the repair guys needed it, and I was able to get back into my house.  I call this just plain luck.

Being out of the house and losing my car keys made me feel like I was lost and had no idea where to go next.  It's a horrible feeling when you have a 1.5 year old that wants lunch and a nap.  Or when you know you have school pick-up later and are responsible for picking up someone else's kid, too.  Or when your friend's Legoland passes are locked in your car and OMG what if they want to go that weekend?  Or even worst, it my car still in the parking lot?  I checked 3 times.

This is for the BoringKnitter who had a mediocre day at the real Mt. Rushmore.

Having keys again, I picked up the girls from school and surprised them by going to the previously cancelled, almost canceled again, Legoland.

I was easy to get through the gates when I pulled out "my passes" and accidentally dropped a bunch of stuff from my diaper bag.  I gave the teenager working the gate the passes, cleaned up my mess, walked through the gate like I owned the place and put out my hand to get the passes back.

Sometimes it's not what you are doing, but how you do it.

As you can see we had a great time at LegoLand.  It's like Disneyland, but smaller and with no teenagers.  It costs about the same as going to Disneyland, though.  That's why we wanted BG to get in on the free pass.   Buying season passes may be worth it though to fix bad days and it's only a couple of miles away.

Here is what my new keys look like.  See that hook there.  Don't use it for climbing, but do use it to make sure rotten, unsupervised toddlers don't cost you another $150 bucks getting new keys and a clicker.

Seriously, they charged $15 to get the key codes and $50 in labor for the 10 minutes to program the clicker.  Of course, they don't quote you that on the phone.  If GM wants to stay in the green they should hired toddlers to steal car keys at the library.

In case you are wondering why I don't already have a spare.  Our original spare plus clicker was lost at my parents aka. pit of no return.  The second spare, key only got lost in our move here along with the crock pot?  I hadn't made it to a kiosk to make another spare because I never needed it.  I also waited until Monday in case my keys to show up before spending the $115 that the one clicker had cost.

Baby February III

Not this week that just past, but the one before, I was out of town babysitting for a couple of nights.  DH's best friend was having his second child and I stayed with the big brother while they were at the hospital.  This was great timing since it was right after my mandatory parent meeting for Girl Scouts and the heater broke that night.

Now that the darling little Ava is born, here is the knit that she received from me.  The mommy asked for a sweater so I was relieved that she didn't want a blanket.  It's a Baby February knit up in Knit Picks Comfy Worsted.  I used the leftover yarn from my niece's blanket.

It's the same number of repeats in the pattern and the same needle size as LG's sweater, but this one is much larger.  I guess it's all about the gauge, which I never care about when it comes to baby knits.  Elizabeth Zimmerman even states in the pattern that the child will grow into it.

It is large enough that LG fits this sweater right now when she grew out of her sweater months ago.

Here is LG modeling the sweater in the playhouse while it was still hidden on the side yard.  I did a good job of hiding the house until Gramma came for a visit.  Gramma loves to sit in the backyard and LG took off straight for the playhouse.  When BG chased after her she saw the house.  So about 2 weeks before Christmas the house was moved onto the patio and has been played with on every non-raining day ever since.  Gramma even bought the girls special doll furniture that can withstand the elements and stay outside.

The Post-Game Show

Our Christmas morning was a hit.  When it comes to kids and Christmas, when is it not? 

I'm especially proud of the job Santa did filling the stockings.  Our stocking holders are not strong enough to hold a filled stocking.  That garland you see there is reinforced with nails keeping the stocking holders in place.  But just to be safe, and to keep a mid-night noise catastrophe from happening, I got up a little early to actually hang them.  Then I went back to bed and waited for BG to wake up.

FYI- the cards filled the entire wall and a few more were stuffed in the garland by New Year's Day.

The first thing the girls saw coming down the stairs was the Christmas Tree full of gifts from Mom and Dad.

There were books and puzzles, farm animals and bouncy balls, and an electronic miter saw with laser guide and a carbide blade.  That last one was for me.

Some gifts were a bit more exciting then others.

Our Christmas Day was a ton of fun.  We had gifts, dinner with the grandparents and uncles and aunt, and more gifts.  What more could a kid ask for?

The Making of a Christmas Card

I think that I did a good job of regularly publishing posts before Christmas, but it seems to be a bust in the New Year.  So, I'm just going to post these two remaining holiday posts and then we can get to the new stuff that has been going on.  

If you missed out on a Christmas Card from us this year, I posted our card picture on Christmas Day.  With all the cards I sent out this year, I think I missed out more.  I've never counted how many cards we received, but there were a few that I look for in the mail that I never got.

Don't worry, I got on Facebook and pestered them (still am if you count this sentence).  Turns out there are people busier than me and they never had time to put a card together.

Oh heck, I'm going to talk enough about it that I'll show you the picture again.  It's not like my kids are ugly or anything. 

Our adventure started when we went shopping at the mall.  Half of sending out a picture card is shopping for the perfect outfits to wear.  I found these cute sweaters at Gap on sale for 50% off.  The total price for both sweaters was $33 give or take a few cents.  I also like that I found sweaters that are matching, but not identical.  

The mall always includes a visit to Santa Claus.  LG does not like Santa Clause.  BG on the other hand was happy to be on her best behavior when asking for a remote control helicopter and set of walkie-talkies.

Now that the shopping was done, we needed to get our holiday photo taken.

It is very difficult to get a picture of the two of them together without one of them doing one of the following actions:

 Not Looking at the Camera

Screaming at the Other One
 Not Smiling

 Not Staying in the Picture Frame

The final picture was the third of ten pictures taken over the time period of one hour.  That includes walking to the lagoon/golf course and goofing off time.

My first attempts of getting a photo were down by the lagoon.  It's a nice background even if I can't get as close to the water as I would like to.  We found a bench that the girls sat backwards on and I snapped a few photos.

Not looking at the camera...

Mid-scream at BG...

Then we headed over to the golf course.  They have a great little duck pond with a waterfall.  These photos fall under the "It Could Work in Theory" category.  To be honest I would of had great pictures, if I could levitate over water.   LG spent the entire time 6 inches from the water's edge looking at the ducks and was as happy as ever feeding them Goldfish crackers for 20 minutes.

Photos here included:

Not in the frame...

Not Smiling...

In the end I still got a photo uploaded to Costco and we had a really fun adventure.

In fact, it's such a nice day out today that I think we might do it all over again, but with no camera and a bag of bread crumbs.

Dead Check

This is my two week check in so that you know that I'm not dead.

Or has it been three weeks.  Oops.

When I was young, independent and not living anywhere near my family I used to call them every two weeks so that they would know I wasn't dead.  Those were the days that if I were ever going to be reported as missing, it would of been my work filing the report.  Then the cops would of been questioning my parents as to why they had such poor communication with me.  Then my parents would call all of my siblings to prove to the cops that none of us ever answered our phones.  And still don't.

It's nice to know that my life is so filled now that if I disappear for a day people start looking for me.

Part of having a life that is so full is that it is also very busy.  I don't really blog during the holidays vacations.  I could if I got up on Monday and wrote out three posts before everyone was up.  That's what I did the first week of vacation.

I like my vacations filled with playing with the girls, completely Lego Harry Potter with BG on the Wii, reading books, going to the zoo and being lazy.  And DH normally gets the computer when he's home with me kicking him off only if I NEED to do something.  Blogging doesn't always get done.

I did try.  I wrote most of two posts on the Monday between Christmas and New Year's.  Since they didn't get finished, they didn't get published.

So I guess that brings me to a question:

Is it kosher of me to finish and publish the two half written posts I have done?  They are about Christmas and it's almost Martin Luther King, Jr Day for goodness sakes.

Oh, and as for why I haven't posted since school started up again... 

The cookies have taken over my life.  The Girl Scout Cookies that is.

School started with our regular monthly meeting that I had to get ready for and lead on Friday.  Then there was the 3-hour cookie training meeting, the lunch with my cookie mom, the parents freaking out about cookie sales, the meeting I'm prepping for to talk to parents about cookie rules.

Did I mention that cookies sales don't even start until January 30th?

I can't wait.  BG is going to be awesome.  We are setting our goals and though I don't think she'll sell the 2011 boxes it takes to get a helicopter ride at the Operation Thin Mint Kick-off, how cool is it that some girls do?  Really they do.

There you have it.  My excuse for why I haven't blogged and had to do a dead check.  Because in the blogging world, you can't hold a mirror up to my nostrils.