A Day Out With Thomas

Amid partisan bickering over healthcare and crazy, rotten weather, we all could use a little Day Out with Thomas...

Elmo!!!

Some pics from our recent "Sesame Street Live" experience...although the event itself was memorable, the back stories behind these pictures are more interesting...

First, this looks like a simple shot of Tate wearing a cute Elmo shirt:

The Backstory: Not simple at all. You see, I ordered that shirt special for this show. I got it just in time and decided to wash it the night before. About halfway through the cycle, I peeked in to see pink water. Uh oh. I pulled the shirt out and it was completely PINK. I panicked. I threw something. I taught Tate some more new curse words. My mom and I both got online to find a remedy. Rob was sent to Walgreens for Clorox 2. Around 10 p.m., Mom headed to Walmart for Rit Color Remover. We tried it all. We soaked it. We washed it. We agitated it. We washed it again. With each attempt, the pink faded and faded. Eventually it was white enough that it passed Rob's eagle eye test, and Tate was permitted to wear it. Just don't look real close at it...

This picture shows Nancy and Blake attending the event for what appears to be a sweet sister/cousin outing:

The Backstory: It was supposed to be a sweet Mom, Dad and Tate outing. But then the US Hockey team (who knew we even HAD a hockey team??) went and won a bunch of games in the Olympics and were scheduled to play against CANADA for the Gold medal....at the same time that the Elmo show was starting. Rob waffled back and forth about which he wanted to do more: watch a big red furry guy or watch a bunch of big furry guys wearing red. Then we heard a TV commentator call it "the biggest game in hockey history." I didn't even say anything to Rob....I just sent a text to Nancy and asked if she and Blake wanted to join Tate and me at the show in an hour. She agreed, and we had a great time. Blake clapped along with everyone and loved the light show. And Rob got to see the United States lose in a sport he's never cared about. Score Jenny!

We had a great time seeing Elmo in Dallas, but the best part was that Elmo actually remembered seeing Tate there and sent him a little shout-out from DC last week:

The Backstory: Rob's brother Lamar helped write a script for a press conference that Elmo was participating in related to children's TV programming. He was somehow able to get Elmo (the REAL Elmo) to say hi to Tate. Our two-year-old son has a football helmet signed "To Tate" by Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning. He has a NASCAR car signed "To Tate" by former Rookie of the Year Denny Hamlin. But this. THIS is what impresses him (and us) the most! Elmo said his name! It just doesn't get any better than that for a two-year-old.

Parenthood

Things they don't warn you about parenthood:

1. If you say a curse word loud enough for your 2-year-old to hear, you will get a report from daycare one day informing you that he has taught his classmates this new word and they are now repeating it. A lot.

2. If you leave your laptop unattended in your toddler's room while you go to get his fourth-requested cup of water for the night, you will return to find all of the keys removed.

3. If your child is potty-training, you may receive an email at work from his daycare teacher with the subject line "Poopy Underwear." Just be careful that it doesn't pop up on your screen while an IT person is working on your computer.

Snow Day with the Unabomber

Our snow day didn't start off so well with Tate having a stomach bug and our power going out around 4 a.m. and not coming back for 15 hours. But Tate rebounded before our power did, and we were able to enjoy a little bit of the snow...which Tate kept calling "nose" instead of "snow."

Um, don't look now, but I think the Unabomber is behind me....

Don't worry, I will get him with this snowball!

Got him!

Tate saves the day again!

Tate's birthday party takes flight again

Tate's birthday party was back in October, and I went a little overboard with it. So I sent the ideas to a blog where I get a lot of ideas, and they featured it last week! Then, my designer friend who did all the design work for the party featured it on her blog, and another blog picked it up and featured it there!

Here are the links:

Creative Party Place (where I go to get a lot of good ideas)

Pink Peppermint Paper (my designer friend/creative muse Eleanor)

Maddycakes (a cute birthday party site that picked up the party from my friend Eleanor's blog)

This PR-professional/StageMom is proud!

All Boxed Up and Nowhere to Go

We're boxing up our valuables (see above) and moving out of our house this weekend!

We have never really warmed up to our house in Flower Mound, and we're tired of living so far from work, friends and family. So we put our house on the market last fall, just to see what would happen. We got a contingency contract on it in October, and the buyers finally sold their house two weeks ago...but with a catch that they needed to close in 17 days. And oh by the way, I was in Mexico for four of those 17 days. In a moment of weakness, I agreed to such a timeframe and now it's BOX HELL at our house. And no, we don't have a new house to move into. So we're putting our stuff in storage and moving into my parents' upstairs temporarily while we look for the right house and the right neighborhood. Are we insane? Maybe. But we are very grateful to my parents for letting us crash there, allowing us the time to find a place that we love and will stay in for a long time.

We got a little emotional packing up Tate's room last night...the room we so carefully decorated and planned for over nine months. We will miss it, but otherwise it's 'adios' to this place. Onward...

Christmas 2009

Some pics and a video from Christmas...

After a rare blizzard created the first white Christmas in Dallas in 80 years, we decided to stay at my parents' house on Christmas Eve vs. trying to drive back to FloMo.

Tate learned the concept of "PRESENTS!!!" (how he says it) very quickly.

During the impromptu slumber party at Mia and Big Guy's, Tate and Blake were definitely up to no good...and they couldn't figure out how we knew their names every time they turned their backs on us.

But Big Guy was there to corral them. (Blake is a new addition to this traditional picture)

It was all too much for Blake who fell asleep on his Mom's knee. We made Nancy stay like this all night.

We got home Christmas Day and while Tate took a nap, Santa showed up in FloMo. Tate now thinks that every time he wakes up, there will be PRESENTS!!!

It was a great holiday. I put all of our favorite moments in a video below.

Now Rob and I have taken the week off until New Year's, and we are very excited to be spending this time with Tate, even if all he wants now are MORE PRESENTS!!!

Montessori Miracle

I don't think Tate is picking up on the Mandarin he is supposed to be learning at his Montessori school, but he IS learning more important things, like...

Drinking from a cup!

Wiping his mouth!

Pushing in his chair!

I'll take those things over Mandarin any day, xiexie very much.

(Yes, I had to google "thank you" in Mandarin)

Rough Month

So it's Christmas week and the space under our tree is still sparse and the blog hasn't been updated in weeks....but we have perfectly good excuses...

We've had a bear of a month...

It's not like we've been just hanging around...

It's tough to balance things this time of year...

No, this month has not been a piece of cake...

We've been trying to stay on track...

But the holidays have us licked...

It's not exactly a stroll through the (North) Park....

So whose fault is it that it's Christmas week and presents still have to be bought and the blog hasn't been updated?

Tate's pointing at her!

Merry Christmas!

First School Picture

Am I wrong for laughing?