Disney Princess Cruise

Cassidy and Daddy had a special afternoon together today. They went on the "Meet The Disney Princesses" Spirit of Norfolk lunch cruise! The Hurrah Players dressed as the princesses and each one performed a signature song from their respective movie. The children were encouraged to dress up as their favorite princess, so Cassidy wore her Snow White dress. Cinderella seems to be her favorite princess, but the Snow White dress is her favorite (of the ones we have) because the skirt is big and super-poofy.
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She had her picture taken with the princesses, enjoyed lunch, and even got to dance with Belle! She had a fantastic time, and I have a feeling we'll be hearing about this for months (years?). She had a great day!
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Cinderella, Ariel, and Princess Cassidy

Belle and Princess Cassidy

Pocahontas, Jasmine, and Princess Cassidy

Mulan and Princess Cassidy

Cassidy dancing with Belle

11/30/08 Darby Update

Cassidy found Darby in her bathroom holding her "teethbrush" this morning! Cassidy calls her toothbrush a "teethbrush". We think this is her most HILARIOUS Cassidy-ism, because on our very first date I asked Matt if he wanted to hear the only joke I know...

Q - How do you know the toothbrush was invented in West Virginia?

A - Because if it had been invented anywhere else, it would have been called the TEETHbrush! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

At the end of the joke, Matt chuckled. And then he said "Did you know my parents are from West Virginia?" Oops... Luckily, Matt has a great sense of humor and wasn't offended at all. We smile everytime Cassidy says "teethbrush".

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Anyway, here are the pictures from this morning...

A Variety of Updates

1) We've finished decorating the outside of the house, and are almost done with the inside. We're on top of our game this year... remember the pictures from last year? I'm happy to report that the Halloween pumpkins have taken up new residence in our trash can and are not part of this year's Christmas decor! I think we're finally starting to fit in around here.

2) Cassidy found Darby in her bathtub this morning. SuperMommy suggested we might let Darby be discovered holding Cassidy's toothbrush tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!

3) We clearly have an issue with Cassidy. She won't be 4 for another two months and is consistently asking questions we don't know the answer to. It started with the morning jew question, which SuperMommy graciously cleared up (thank you, SuperMommy).

Maybe SuperMommy also knows how many toes a bear has? Matt thinks it's 4 on each paw. How does he know this? His high school mascot was the bruin and he thinks he remembers there being 4 claws on it. Call me Type A, but I was hoping for some reasoning with at least a hint of fact to it.

Today she asked me what a flamingo says. I've only seen plastic flamingos, so I obviously don't know. Then she said she wanted a flamingo to ride on top of our car and look down through the front windshield at us while we drive. That's a disturbing picture, and all I could do was laugh.

I can hardly wait to see what questions she comes up with tomorrow. Something tells me it's probably going to be something I don't know!!

4) I took Cassidy to get her nails painted this morning. She picked dark purple for herself and bright green glitter for me... lovely.

5) Cassidy spent the afternoon with Nana Jill and Poppie Bill this afternoon. Check out these great pictures of her playing in the leaves!!

Decorating the House

We started decorating today! We got some stuff done, but still have much more to do. I'll post pictures when we've got it all together.

Cassidy and I baked some brownies and made a gingerbread house. She thought it was the coolesting thing - decorating a house with CANDY! Check out the pictures below... she did great on the first side of the roof, but by the time she got to the second side she was putting more candy in her belly than on the roof!

Making brownies!

Decorating the gingerbread house...
Side view #1 of the roof... more candy on the roof than in the belly

Side view #2 of the roof... more candy in the belly than on the roof

The finished product!

Darby's Here!

Matt and I decided to start the Elf_On_The_Shelf tradition at our house. We ordered the package a few weeks ago and started reading the book to Cassidy every night. We've read the book enough for her to know what the Elf looks like, understand the rules, and has had time to carefully choose a name for our Elf. Our Elf's name is Darby.

Darby showed up at our house this morning!!! Her job is to tell Santa if the girls have been naughty or nice, and she also takes back any messages the girls would like to send Santa. Each night, Darby flies to the North Pole and reports the day's activities to Santa. Then, Darby comes back to our house. Darby will be in a different spot each morning, so the girls will have to look for her every day.

Darby goes back to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve.

This morning Darby was sitting on top of the TV. We had to make it easy so Cassidy would find her right away. I think tomorrow Darby will be hanging from a light fixture in the kitchen. If you have ideas of places/activities for Darby, please leave a comment. This is going to be so much fun!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

We spent the day at Mama and Papa's new house, along with the rest of the family. We were able to comfortably fit everybody (19 people) in the house for Thanksgiving dinner, and Mama was relieved. She was convinced their new house was far too small for our people. She doesn't realize that our people will fit wherever our Mom and Dad are, regardless of the space!

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Pilgrim Cassidy

Campbell and Cousin Maggie

Campbell and Aunt Becky

Cassidy and Campbell's special Uncle Ande

Campbell and Pop

Campbell and Papa

Pop and Cassidy

Cassidy playing in the street

Us!!!

Thanksgiving Eve

It's the night before Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Thanksgiving Eve. Two cool things happened tonight...

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1. Cassidy drank hot chocolate out of the Strawberry Shortcake mug I used to drink my hot chocolate when I was a little girl!!

2. Campbell discovered that toes can be just as good as pappies (pacifiers) sometimes!

Bring It On!

Matt told me a while back that our girls will NEVER become giggly, dramatic, snobby cheerleaders. So keep this background in mind as you read the remainder of this post.

Cardinal Sin #1 - As soon as Matt left to get dinner tonight, I changed the channel so we could watch something other than football.

There wasn't a whole lot on, and Cassidy was playing at her table in the kitchen so I settled on the movie Bring It On Part 2 or whatever it's called. It's a harmless, mindless movie about high school cheerleaders - exactly what I needed after hours of housecleaning. The movie grabbed Cassidy's attention and she was immediately fascinated by the "dancing girls" (cheerleaders) and their "tutus" (uniforms).

Cardinal Sin #2 - Knowing we had a tiny little Notre Dame cheerleader outfit and matching poms from two Halloweens ago, I told Cassidy we had an outfit like that. She wanted to wear it, so we quickly got to work dressing her up. I put on some MC Hammer tunes, and she went nuts! Take a look - you may have to turn the volume up a bit to get the full effect.



Matt was amused, but not overly excited. It'll grow on him... I just know it!

Favorite Spots in Our Neighborhood

The best way to wear Cassidy out is to take her on a bike ride around our neighborhood. She had some excess energy today, so guess what we did?!? I thought it might be nice to show some of her favorite spots in our neighborhood.

1. The Fountains. We have a bunch of fountains in the neighborhood, and Cassidy LOVES them. This one is on our street, and she looks to see if it's on every time we drive down our road.

2. The Rose Garden. You can't really tell, but this picture was taken in the rose garden. There's a statue of a little girl in the garden, and Cassidy always has to stop and make sure she's still there. We checked today, and she's still there!
3. The Playground/Pool. The sun was setting and it was getting very cold, but Cassidy always has a great time on the playground!

4. The Outdoor Grill Area. This is an outdoor fireplace, I think. It sits in the middle of a round-shaped grill area. Whatever it is, Cassidy likes to ride around and around it until she gets dizzy!

5. Mary Grace's House. It was too late to stop by today, but Cassidy would definitely rank Mary Grace's house very high on her list of favorite places in the neighborhood!

After the Show...

Cassidy asked for a sno-cone the entire time we were at the Playhouse Disney show. We really didn't want her to have one during the show because of the huge mess we made with the sno-cone at Disney On Ice... plus, it's the most expensive cup of ice EVER. Well, we decided to get her one on the way out even though Daddy was not too excited about her having it in his car. We had them push the ice into the cup as a precaution (they usually set a big round ball of ice on the rim of the cup... NOT kid-friendly!!).

Cassidy was ecstatic about her sno-cone, and even happier that it came in a cool Einsteins cup. I was happy that she was happy. Matt was shocked at the price and worried about her dropping it in his car.

Sure enough, we were about 2 miles away from the house when she dropped the cup on the floorboard of the car.

Some background - the girls have destroyed my car. Specifically Cassidy, since Campbell isn't old enough to destroy anything. Take a look at this video and substitute a Jeep Liberty for the minivan - that's my car.



On the other hand, Matt keeps his car meticulously clean. He was not too happy to add sno-cone to his interior, but he didn't get upset with Cassidy for the spill. Instead, his comment was "I can't wait until she gets her first car".

Hmmm... an interesting response. "Why?" I asked. "Because I'm gonna throw up in it. Right under the driver's seat."

I laughed so hard I cried.

Playhouse Disney Live! Again!

We went to see Playhouse Disney Live this afternoon! We didn't tell Cassidy what we were doing - all we told her was that we had a surprise for her. Boy, was she excited when she saw what her surprise was!!

The funny thing is that we saw this show last year. Every other kid show that makes an annual stop around here seems to change up the storyline a bit, but not this time. We saw this EXACT same show last year. I don't think Cassidy really remembered it, but I did... and that's saying alot because I had a kidney stone and was doped up on painkillers during last year's show!

Regardless, it was a great show. Again. We had front row tickets this time, and the highlight of the show was when Cassidy walked up to the foot of the stage during the last song and waved at the characters. June (her favorite Einstein) waved back!!! Cassidy was beside herself!

Playing in the Rain

It rained almost all day today, but we were lucky to have a few nice breaks in the storms to get outside. Cassidy wanted to play in the rain, so we suited her up in her rain gear and let her splash in the puddles. A little later, we let her play in the water that had collected in her sand/water table on the back deck. She had a great time, and it was fun entertainment for such a dreary day!!

Morning Jew

When the temperature started to cool down a few weeks ago, Big C started to notice the dew on the car in the morning. She asked what it was, and I told her it was morning dew. "Morning Jew?" she asked. "No baby, morning DEW." Easy enough.

Then the questions started to get harder... "Where does morning jew come from?"she asked. Uh-oh...

Unfortunately, one thing I've never enjoyed is Science. As soon as college was over, I quickly dumped all of that nonsense out of my brain and freed up those brain cells for more important things like Disney Princess trivia and Veggie Tale songs. I don't have a clue where morning dew comes from, so I suggested we call Daddy and ask him. He'd know!

I called Matt, and he gave her what seemed to be a reasonable answer, since she hasn't asked since (Note: I, however, still don't know where morning dew comes from).

Anyway, it was EXTREMELY foggy this morning. When we stepped out onto the front porch, Big C loudly yelled, "Mommy! Mommy!!! There's Morning Jew EVERYWHERE!!!"

Hopefully our neighbors aren't Jewish.

Mommy and Daddy Can't Possibly Be That Cool

How did our sleeping baby turn into her fussy sister right before our eyes? Our precious baby, the sleeper, the easy-going one... has turned into a screaming banshee. What prompts these screamfests? It seems to be one of two things that set her off. Either 1) we're not holding and/or playing with her, or 2) she's tired, but has decided she'd rather be awake and playing with us. Therefore, no one else in the house sleeps, either.

We're certainly super-cool parents. But I seriously have to doubt we could possibly be cool enough to go without sleep for... we just can't be THAT cool. Especially now that we're both EXHAUSTED!!!

Santa is here already!

Christmas music is already playing on the radio and Santa is in town!! We'd heard he was in the area, so we went to a local mall this morning to see for ourselves. Sure enough, he was there!! Whoo-hoo!!!!

Big C took him a small bag of Skittles so he'd have a snack handy if he got hungry. She is such a thoughtful and empathetic child.

The girls got their picture taken with the big guy, and it went very well. No tears or meltdowns, and the picture is fantastic! Big C is really looking forward to Christmas this year, and I think this is going to be our best one yet. Santa, Matt, and I have a plan for Christmas morning, but it will remain top secret until the big day gets here. Stay tuned!

Santa and our princesses!

A "Mommy and the Girlz" Day

It's that time AGAIN... teacher training, no school. I used to make these days "Mommy and Cassidy" days, but now that we have Campbell it gets a little tricky. I haven't been feeling well, so we didn't have a crazy-fun day like I normally would. The morning was easy - my friend Laura came over and we went through the family pictures she took last weekend.

The afternoon was a bit more eventful. We got our flu vaccines at 2PM, which I thought was going to be a good learning opportunity for Cassidy. It's been quite a while since she had a shot, and I suspect she's forgotten the experience. I was trying to be smart and get the vaccine with her so she can see that it's nothing to be afraid of. Well guess what? Mommys get uber-painful shots in the arm, while little girls get their vaccine via a dainty puff in the nose. How's that for strategery gone bad?

Here are pictures I took this afternoon on the back deck...

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Little C looking cute!

Big C looking cute!

Zaccheus! Watch out for that rocket ship!

Matt and I teach the 2 & 3 year-old Sunday School class at our church and really love it. The kids are adorable!!

This month we're learning about Zaccheus. Zaccheus was the short little guy that climbed up in a tree to see Jesus. I found a super-cute Zaccheus craft in my supply stash, so after reading the story this morning we all got to work putting them together (as good as a 2 or 3 year-old can).

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We try to let the kids do their own work and see what they can come up with on their own. These crafts are pretty complicated, so we always end up with tons of spare pieces. Cassidy did surprisingly well with hers, and added only one additional dramatic element... a rocket ship.

The white thing in the tree with the green arrow pointing to it is the rocket ship. I believe it was intended to be Jesus's other arm.

The black squares on Jesus and Zaccheus are belts... in Cassidy's world, people in Jesus Days needed belts but feet and hair were optional. Apparently Cassidy also believes Jesus could remove his appendages at will... wouldn't that have been a cool miracle? Forget turning the water into wine, Jesus - take your hands off!