An Afternoon at the Park

I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Puppy Party

No, I did not just purchase a puppy for my kids - I'm not crazy. But my kids, particularly Malia, are quite fond of puppies. So we have quite a few stuffed toy puppies. A lot, actually.

The best part about all the stuffed puppies?

All the puppy parties I discover...

Just one of many puppy parties I've had to break up recently.

I especially love the real slice of bread they seem to be sharing. Perhaps it's a table? By-the-way, Malia is the culprit. She's the one who insists on feeding her toys real food. Silly kid.

Kids are the best, aren't they?

P.S. The above picture reminds me of that really classy portrait of dogs playing poker. You know, this one:

Yea or Nay?

So...Duane has a mustache. A Mustache! This isn't a new development though. No, he's been mustachioed for a few months now. What do I think about the mangy ferret that has taken up residence between his nose and lips? Well, that last sentence says it all, doesn't it?

What do you think? Should Duane get rid of the mustache?

Happy, Happy Birthday Mayah Dear!

Mayah and her big sister Ariel

It's official! As of February 7th I am the mother of a six-year-old. A six-year-old! I'm still coming to terms with this. But Mayah is super excited about being six (how I miss the days when I looked forward to my birthdays. As of right now I'm horrified that my thirtieth birthday--from this point on, I will refer to it as the First Anniversary of My Twenty-Ninth Birthday--is closing in on me at breakneck speed!). She goes around telling E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E that she is "Six today", because, apparently, every day is her birthday.

We celebrated by throwing a party for Mayah--nothing fancy, just a small family party at home. We ate pizza, chocolate cake and ice cream. It was delish.

After we ate to our hearts content, Mayah opened her presents. Because the girls have way too many toys, Duane and I decided to keep things simple and gave Mayah a few accessories for the toys she already has. So she received two outfits for her iDog, a carrying case for said iDog (appropriately called a "Doggie Bag". Hee), an mp3 player (we also downloaded a few songs that are to her liking) to use with her iDog, and a new game for her Leapster.

The girls have been dancing to the incredibly tolerable sounds of Taylor Swift and Paramore (NO Miley Cyrus--Duane and I can't stand her--thank you very much!) ever since.

All-in-all it seems Mayah had a very good birthday!

Worst Way To Wake Up In The Morning

Guess what everybody? I just discovered the worst way to wake up in the wee hours of the morning (after having stayed up the majority of the night putting out vomit-related fires, doing load after load of laundry AND barely having the opportunity to hop into bed myself).

The Worst Way To Wake Up In The Morning is to have your 10 month old vomiting ON YOUR FACE! Yeah, you read that right: My baby vomited ON MY FACE. TWICE. Because the first wave of vomit didn't exactly wake me up immediately. Oh and it was pedialyte. So it reeked of grape flavor (and no, I didn't taste it but the SMELL was incredibly strong) Talk about disgusting.

Now that I've made you throw up in your own mouth, I'll sign off.

Penny Bitner, Mother of three very sick little girls

Sooo not in the mood...

Blerg. I am so not in the mood to blog (am I seriously the only one?). At all . I just feel so... blah. I blame the holidays and the freezing cold weather.

But I have so many cute photos from Christmas break and I know I should post them. Because the longer I wait to post them the likelihood of me posting them will go down. Besides, perhaps posting something will get me in the mood to blog again.

So here you go (sorry for the lack of enthusiasm):

Before anyone thinks I'm a bad mom for giving my baby a candy cane, I'll have you know that it's fake. I had to invest in fake candy canes last year when Mayah and Malia ate all the real candy canes in less then a day (Maybe I am a bad mom...).

'Twas the night before Christmas...and the girls got matching jammies.

Matilda got a high chair, finally. She totally loves it too.

Mayah and Malia love playing Rock Band. Sometimes they play instruments and sometimes they dance. Malia is being a dancing girl and Mayah is rockin' out on the guitar. (I just need to mention that Mayah dressed herself that day).

Duane and the girls.

Mayah The Writer

Ariel and I went shopping this afternoon and left the kids home with Duane. When we got home, we discovered a story (or possibly a poem???) that Mayah wrote, all by herself. No joke. Duane swears he didn't help her write it.

Here it is:

Are words like, Flopping, Hopping, Stopping and Narrow part of the kindergarten curriculum now? Because, when I was in kindergarten, I was reading words like Fat, Pat, Mat and Cat. Have things changed so drastically since I was five?

I swear I'm not one of those people who insist that their kid is themostamazingsuperspecialgeniuskidever, but, Mayah keeps surprising us. I mean, really surprising us.

I'm going to have to talk to her teacher after the holiday break, to see if this is normal. Because, really, I don't know.