Not Ready for a Winter Wonderland...

It's snowed here two out of the past three days.

My daughter has had to wear this getup:




on numerous occasions already.

The air smells cold and crisp each day, no longer the glittery golden of fall. The clouds are aching to burst with a big bout of this heavenly dandruff, flakes of condensed water, shaking it all over our withering foliage. I cross my fingers that this winter won't be like last, the ice-age encasement of our entire lives keeping us trapped in our homes, our driveways not plowed, our roads unmanageable and untraversable. Normal activity ceased and forced to conform to the whim of Mother Nature.

I wake to my car encased in an armor of frost crystals, ice-princess pretty but it doesn't feel quite as good as it looks. If we want to be comfortable on our drive, we have to ruin the beauty.

Days of fleeting warmth, walks on the green sipping iced tea and watching the girl run freely, so happy, have passed for this year. Farmer's Markets have shut down for the season. Foliage has come and gone, and I have missed the photos I promised myself to take. We get home and it is dark, too dark for the park, too dark to feel like you can do anything, too dark to spend that quality time on the swing-swing with Bendy Ruggles...

Am I the only one who isn't ready for the winter right now?

Friday Fill-Ins #9

1. Please feel free to DWAP my department director on the noggin today! He got on my nerrrvvveesss.... I'm SO glad it's Friday right now!
2. When I am burning a wax tart in my house I can't help sniffing it occasionally.
3. My favorite thing to cook is depends on my mood. But I love me some baking... I could go for some more of those cinnamon buns right now!
4. The holidays is are something I can't get enough of.
5. That's the thing I love most about the winter season.
6. Every time I talk to my landlord always makes me think to myself, what the heck?
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to dinner and maybe some shows, tomorrow my plans include cleaning and maybe going to pick up a xmas tree on sale at Big Lots and Sunday, I want to veg around and play with the Bendy Ruggle!

Thursday Thirteen #6- Thanksgiving Edition!

The Thanksgiving Edition!! Can you believe it's only TWO WEEKS away?!?!

Here are my 13 FAVORITE THINGS TO DO on Thanksgiving

(1) Give Thanks. For my family, my health, my job, my friends, and (of course) for good food. This seems a little obvious, but it popped into my head first... and I know if I don't mention it, everyone will be all "don't-you-at-least-give-thanks-on-the-special-day-set-aside-for-doing-so-you-(insert expletive here)?!" So I'm saying it. The most obvious thing. And I'm even saying it first.

(2) Watch the Macy's day parade. Or at least parts of it. But I am seriously upset if I miss it all, which happened to me one year! It's something I can remember doing when I was itty-bitty at my Nana and Pep's house every year, watching and ooh-ing and aah-ing over the ginormous (*yes, that's a word in my eyes!*) floats and waiting, waiting for Santa...

(3) NOT watch football. In fact, I'd MUCH rather be helping in the kitchen than watching football. I know, I blaspheme. So sue me.

(4) Play outside with the kiddos! This sometimes takes the form of tossing a ball around, or playing tag, or hide and seek... But we try and get at least a little bit of air, since we're all cooped up in the house together, and it's usually one of the last days of the year that you CAN play outside without getting super-soggy-nasty feet from snow.

(5) CHOW DOWN! This should rightfully be higher up on the list, but we don't want to seem gluttonous, now do we?? Food is always a first priority on this holiday! I can almost smell the turkey now... mmm....

(6) Card games with the fam. Shanghai, anyone?

(7) Listen to Christmas music on the ride! Thanksgiving is the official start of the holiday season... and we all know just how much of a CHRISTMAS lunatic fanatic I am. :P

(8) This is a new one, starting last year- dress up the Bendy Ruggle! It's always fun to do the mini-fashion show.

(9) Be family photographer. I just love taking pics. I'm sure I'll get shots this year of tryptophan-induced comas (BTW, I saw this on mythbusters and it's not true, unless you ate ONLY turkey and a lot of it... so stop blaming your laziness on the turkey, people!), gravy grins and post-meal vegging out.

(10) Try and decide WHICH of the 1,356,467.7 fabulous desserts I will allow to enter my body. I usually end up slicing a small piece off of a number of them, cuz let's face it, it's pretty impossible to choose just one.

(11) Take home some toot-kay! Nana makes the best, and she usually makes extras for this occasion, because she knows everyone will be fighting over the leftovers otherwise!

(12) Ponder what I will be buying the next day on the most nightmarish best shopping day of the year! Yes, I will be up and out of the house by 4:30 a.m. on Black Friday. No, I am not crazy. Yes, my Mom is coming as a shopping partner. No, I haven't figured out yet how I'll get HER out of bed and out of the house by said time! I'm working on some funky new wake-up-calls... heh.

(13) And lastly, I like to... drumroll, please... GO TO BED EARLY!

Come on, I'm getting up at 4 a.m. the next day! And I did eat a TON of turkey. Who believes those mythbusters, anyway? hah.

Butterfly Award

w00t w00t I got another award from Judi over at Where The Road Takes Us. Thanks Judi, you are so sweet! I love your blog, too!! :D

Now, here are the *rules* that go along with this award:

Rules if you choose to participate

1. Put the award up on your blog
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3. Nominate at least seven other blogs
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog

And I pass this award along to:

Dr. Cason
Aubrey at The Fam Five
Elizabeth at Three Channels
Issa at IssasCrazyWorld
Texan Mama at Who Put Me In Charge of These People?
ThriftyDecorChick
Kyla at The Journey

Wordless Wednesdays #10- Playing House

My Birthday Weekend Post

(A peek at some lingering foliage in Nana and Papa's yard.)

So, last weekend was a blast! A little crazy, but fun nonetheless.

We did the whole trick or treat thing on Halloween (Friday) night, which you can experience second-hand through the post below... Down there... Keep scrolling. See it?

Saturday we hung around the house and I got the necessary cleaning done. Okay, most of the necessary cleaning. The damned kitchen floor is still filthy, but I am pretty much on strike when it comes to that. At least until I start feeling grit beneath my toes when I walk out there. Then I'll be sufficiently disgusted to yank out the ol' mop and bucket to do the maid good housewife thing. Ilyana spent most of the day:

Sitting in front of our computer watching "doo doo doo doo doo Dora!" in her pj's...



Attacking me with booger-nose kisses/ leftover breakfast face....



And stuffing her face with tomatoes at lunchtime. :D



Later that day, we headed down to Nashua to pick up my new cell phone (woooo!!) and eat a nice pot roast meal that my Stepdad David made for me. My brother Mitch came over for dinner, and after we ate and he went home, we all sat down and watched "The Happening" since my parents hadn't seen it yet. Most of the pictures I took that night didn't come out for some reason, so here's what I got.


Uncle Mitch tries to tempt Ilyana with the Halloween spider. It didn't work.



In fact, she was not too happy about it at all.




But she let her friend, the rat, try and scare the spider away.



I told you it wasn't much for pics. I must have been too busy enjoying myself and checking out my new phone to take that many photos. Don't worry, I made up for it the next day- when we went to visit Will's side of the family...

My MIL Patti made a great ham dinner for us! (Thanks again Mom :D) Complete with rolls, potatoes, fried carrots, raisin sauce and homemade pumpkin cheesecake... mmm.... I didn't get a picture of the ham (which is funny, since it was my favorite part... guess we were too busy chowing down on it to get any photos.) but here is a small idea of what the meal was like:


Momma Patti taking the warm rolls out of the oven. She threatened my life and/or the life of my camera if she was to make an appearance on my blog. So if I suddenly disappear, you all will know where to look first for my body... :P




Couldn't wait till they were off the stove to take a pic!




Homemade Pumpkin Cheesecake. Yummmm yummm... :D



We spent the rest of the day catching up (it had been way too long since we'd seen them!), visiting and playing with the kiddos- Ilyana and Kaden enjoy each other's company so much, it is just too adorable!


Kade shows Illy how to use the blocks




So she goes and grabs some for herself!




He stacks the blocks...




And she stacks the blocks!




They both love technology, too. Kaden spent much of the day trying to snap shots of me with Papa Dave's camera while I was trying to snap shots of him.


Doesn't he look like a little angel?



When he didn't have the camera in tow, he had to at least drag along his fake pink cell phone.




Bendy Ruggles wanted in on some phone action, too. But only because it's fake. If someone were to actually be trying to talk to her on the phone, she would most likely run away and refuse to say hi. Cuz that's how she rolls.



Illy was pretty fascinated by the swirling colored lights in this wand. And being able to press the "buttin" was a super bonus.




She also really enjoyed climbing up and down the stairs (with Dada's supervision, of course!)




Nana and Papa: OMG, Jade, Will! Look, over there! It's.....



A (really cute little) POWER RANGER!



All that playing and running around really wiped Bendy Ruggle out. So what's a girl to do?

Grab a monkey, make a face...


And tuck yourself in with big pouffy pillows on the couch!




I was so grateful to get to spend the whole weekend with so many people I love... My mom and stepdad, brother, mother and stepfather in law, my nephew, and- as always-



My wonderful hubby...


And my beautiful, beautiful Bendy Ruggles. <3

Erm... Text From Post?

For some reason, with the MSNBC widget I was using, I wasn't able to post my text- it just kept disappearing when I tried to include it. So here's what I had to say about that, mostly addressed to my beautiful daughter, whose future was in the balance during this election.

Text from post:

All that hoping and crossing our fingers and teaching you to chant "O-BAM-A, O-BAM-A" has paid off, my girl. Starting 1/21/2009, our country will be led by someone who I believe has the intelligence, the empathy, and the even-keeled manner to pull our country out of this awful recession and put some policies in place that actually benefit the mass majority of us middle-class American families.

Halle-frickin-lujah!

Election '08 Results- Canigedda woot-woot?!?!

Wordless Wednesdays #9- Wearin' my Frogfeet

TRICKERTREAT!!

We took Ilyana out trick-or treating on Friday night. We weren't sure how she would take it- she's a pretty brave little girl, so we weren't too worried that she would be afraid of the costumes or decorations, but I wasn't sure if we'd be able to get her to go up to houses and say "Trick or Treat" or "Happy Halloween" and I didn't know if she would understand the whole getting-of-the-candy thing.

So first, we went to this place called the Powerhouse Mall. It's basically a small indoor mall, probably about 20 stores in all, but each year they do a Halloween trick-or-treat where the employees will dress up and stand outside their stores passing out candy. When we heard about it, we figured it would be a good place to start, since it's inside and not too huge, and we'd be able to get her used to the idea before possibly venturing outside to trick-or-treat.

When we arrived, things were not looking up. The woman at the Yankee Candle outside the mall tried giving her candy, and Illy didn't want to take it, didn't want to talk to her, and was having a meltdown because (a) she didn't want to wear her hood, which had the kitty ears and whiskers on it; and (b) she saw another girl with the same princess treat bucket as her and forgot I was carrying hers. She ran up to the other girl, hysterically screaming "Mine! mine!" I hurriedly exlplained that I had hers, and the other little girl just had the same one... I was thinking, uh-oh, this is NOT going to be good.

Of course, in the middle of said meltdown and pulling at kitty ears in anger, I ran into my boss outside the mall. We were able to distract her from the kitty ear situation for just long enough to get her to smile for a pic and say hi to my boss' daughter, who she goes to daycare with, before she got angry and wanted to go inside.

This is Illy in her kitty costume and my boss' daughter in her adorable witch temptress costume frolicking in the background.


This is the picture we got her to smile for... And it's before the hood was rejected for the night, so it's one of the best!

Then we went inside. She refused to say any of the obligatory Halloween phrases at first. One of the nice employees gave her a blow pop anyway, and I think she thought that was it. She started running past all the other stores, clinging to her "poppy" for dear life! Some people tried to stop her and give her more candy, but I think she thought if she got something else, she'd have to trade in her poppy, because she was not having any of that! Whenever someone tried to hand her something, she'd go "NO! Mine!" and hold the poppy to her chest.

This is, apparently, the best *poppy* that was EVER made. She is not giving it up.


Luckily, there was another little boy who happened to come up to one of the stores at the same time as us. He said his little "trick or treat" and they gave him candy, and it was as if a light had gone on in her head. She immediately went "TRICKERTREAT!" and was given candy by the employee, which she tossed into her bucket like good little kitties do.

YAY!

Trick or treat success has been attained!

After that, she was a little more into it.

Me and the girl in the Powerhouse Mall. Trick or treat, here we come!


Not exactly sure what she was doing here, but it's cute nonetheless. Notice the absence of hood.


Hey Momma! I trickertreatin'. Like my poppy?

Then we decided to grab a bite to eat and go downtown for some real, outdoor trick or treating. The candy at the mall was just not enough to suppress our sweet tooth. Oh, what, you really thought it was all gonna be for her?!? Pshaw. As if. What does an 18 month old need with all that candy, anyway?! But don't worry. We'll share some of it with her. And we won't eat her poppys. Pinky promise.

I'm kicking myself now, wishing I had gotten more shots of the outside trick or treating. But it was getting a little crazy. We didn't really want to let her walk because the roads we were on weren't shut down, so there was still the occasional car, and also... she walks slow. lol. So, Will ended up carrying her most of the way (I offered to help, but she wanted Dada...) which left me carrying coats, purse, trick or treat goody bag and camera in between houses. So you can see why I was a little frazzled. But still. No excuse. I coulda done better. Here's what I got:

Mmmmm.... Poppy.



Random scream blow up guy I saw at someone's house and thought was cool. Now, though, I'm thinking it's a little creepy?



She's looking at the other kids, going "Suckerrrs! My Dad CARRIES me AND I get the candy. What?! I know, I'm the coolest."


Okay, so I took this pic with the night setting on my camera, which apparently is only supposed to be used with a tripod, because the shutter is open for longer, which causes the above blurring if you or your subject moves at all. Who knew? I'm still figuring this cam out. In any case, I liked the result even with the blurring. I thought it gave the pic a little bit of cool movement. You might not agree. Whatevs. It's a pic of her and some cute little fairy girl she was fascinated by on the street.

All in all, I would say trick or treating was a success. After initial worry on my part and anger on her part, and after finally giving in and allowing her to NOT wear the kitty hood (after she yanked on it incessantly, saying "ouch ouch"), she was good. She had fun. She liked seeing the other kids in their costumes and thought the decorations were funny. She even attempted to say Happy Halloween to some people, although it came out as "Happy happy." I think they got the point, though. And she learned what trick or treat is- and the merits of dressing up in a ridiculous getup in return for a free sugar high.

Poor Dada, though. His arms were practically falling off for the next two days after carrying her around all night. This little girl just isn't so *little* anymore.

*sigh* Why do they have to ever get big?