Dahlia funnies...

You just gotta love his girl.....

I'm buring the midnight oil.... trying to do 'some' work on the computer, and she comes out of the bedroom to find me.....

She comes up and sits down and I say, "hey Dahlia, what's up???"

She sits and stares off.... no answer....

Me - "What's happening?"
D- no response
Me - " Dahlia?"
D- "I forgot what I was going to say"
Me- "Are you awake or are you still sleeping?"
D- ............. "I'm not sure"
Me- "Well......... maybe you could crawl back into bed and see if you're still sleeping or not?"
D- "OK" .....


and off to bed she went ; )

Good tidings....

So Thanksgiving was quite lovely. We visited mom and it was just us and she cooked a wonderful feast for us. Sat and chatted the day/evening away and truly enjoyed a wonderful day. The kids were thrilled to be a Grandma's for so long. Kaidin has this funny thing.... when he's had a really awesome time, he'll rant and rave about how great 'that' (activity) was and then ask, "How long was that??". When I told him we were at Grandma's for about 6 hours he was so flabber-gasted he just literally could not grasp it. Quite cute.



As we get ready for the holidays this year, I am so thrilled that everyone had finally decided to only buy for the kids and not the grown ups. It's only been 6 years (since having Kaidin) that we (Seringe and I) have asked for this type of tradition. We feel so funny receiving so many gifts when we really are not in need of anything. It's just so much more fun for the kids to receive and enjoy in their magic. Tis the season to revel in their sheer joy of the holiday magic. (And I have to say, opening my gifts the last several years has taken away from this for me as a mommy... it's very hard to even enjoy what they have received when so much chaos is occurring.)



Anyway.... thanks to economic crunch, family is finally taking note that their spending is way out of control, and this year is a HUGE relief on us as a family. I am so thrilled at the change and hope that this continues as a year tradition.



That said, I have started snooping around for the kids gifts and finding some great finds on Craigslist, Ebay and even the thrift store and freecycle. So it will be a very nice xmas despite the penny pinching. I am so excited to enjoy this thoroughly with the kids this year.



Other... well Nakita Baby is finally up and running. Expansion is little by little each day. And thrilled to be on the worldwide web with it. Hope that all will continue to move onward and upward. I made my official announcement that my email has changed and linked my new site. Figured putting my butt on the line will keep me moving forward and really commits me to growth! It is quite cool, the amount of new things I am learning getting this going! Never stops!


The hermies have had a few sad passings. We lost Mr. Turkey the night before Thanksgiving.... go figure, right? And then Tweetie was next to follow... the day after Thanksgiving. Yesterday, I thought that Mr. Shark was looking a little slow (a.k.a.... totally still and death-like), so I moved him to the food bowl and he was cruising around that evening. But then we woke up today, apparently Kaidin was checking him out and he just plopped, dropped out of his shell lifeless. Ugh.... we are down to 5 live one's now. And with luck we can keep these guys going. I think a tank cleaning is necessary. Maybe we need to move their location in the home? Needless to say, the hermit crab thing is getting a bit disappointing. Kaidin is really really concerned that they keep kicking the bucket one-by-one. Last night he was hypothesizing why and what might be going on in the cage. Dahlia is sure we should just get a hamster. ; )

We had the first two dead one's in a plastic bag b/c they had fallen from the shell in the night, I put them in a bag for them to see when they woke up. They are strange looking, intriguing, cool... and figured they'd want to see what happened (what lifeless really is). The last day or so, Dahlia was more interested in the dead ones than the live ones! She was running to get the bag saying, "you wanna see the crab hospital??" Pretty funny. But those guys really get smelly, so they have moved on to crab heaven..... aka. the garbage dump.

It's been a really great and mellow weekend. I love this time of the year b/c holidays are coming, winter is not so horrendous yet, and laying low at home is kinda fun. It's after the new year that you get sick and tired of being home but its so stinkin' cold you don't want to go anywhere.... and it starts to get old and tired..... Enjoy this and every moment.

Deck the Halls!

So the kids have not even gotten to Thanksgiving yet and they have been begging me to set up the Christmas decorations already! They wanted to enjoy them starting a week ago! We have finally done so today. It was quite fun actually.... this year Dahlia was quite in to doing all of the decorating *with* me! (I usually seem to man that process alone!) So it was quite fun that she was at that point that she really wanted to help and was really in the spirit. She was quite excited as things came out of the storage boxes.... all the while Kaidin was on YouTube checking out Bionicles videos directing us at what was right and wrong and what should go where. When we'd sit to rest for a minute, he'd say "is that it? You did not do 'x' task yet!" (As if we did not figure this out already! ; )

Shea was quite thrilled to play with the fake tree and pull himself up on stuff. I think the excitment was just overwhelming b/c he totally refused to let himself nap this morning. It was well into the early afternoon before he crashed from it all.

So our home is quite decorative already! I am eager to buy just a couple more light strands. If its one thing that bugs me more than anything.... those light strands that you put safely in a storage box, only to not work just one year later... Like I'm going to sit down and check out all 100 lights on the strand to figure out which one it is not working!

In other news....
Hermies have been very very interesting so we decided to add 4 more to the clan. Making them 8 in all. We have "Mr. Turkey", and "Bruce", "Spiderman" and one teeny tiny little guy in a pretty unpainted shell.... let's call him "PeeWee" as the kids have not yet deemed him a name of their own yet.

Makes for a lot more action in the tank, and I think we will soon witness someone's changing of shells! Very cool! (Hopefully we get to witness this.... I guess I should add, as I think they mostly do this at night.)

And....
We have a new handcrafted game in the works! It is a sort of trivia adventure game and it's been SO much fun to put together. It is still in the works though, so I guess details will have to be relinguished much later.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

The Hermies Have Landed

Today was the BIG day! We are official "pet owners" as of this afternoon appx. 4pm central time! ; )

We had been discussing this for weeks.... well maybe even months! (The kids wanted a cat when I was pregnant with Shea, and I kept putting it off saying "when the baby is here, we will discuss 'A' pet option".... hinting strongly that it may not be a CAT!)

So Baby came and time has rolled on and it's been an even heavier discussion "what kind of pet"??

We had scanned many a pet stores and read many a books from the library.... surfed many a websites, and my first announcement was, "if we get a free aquarium/tank of sorts, on freecycle, then we can see what type of pet would suit us".

WELL.... we ended up getting FOUR tanks on freecycle and now have limitless options to house various types of reptiles, amphibians and other creatures. After reading, "Hermit Crabs for Dummies" from the library I finally gave into the notion that we would own and care for a creature. And today was the big day!

Actually, yesterday and today. The tanks have been sitting here a while now (since Halloween actually) and I could not muster to clean them up and get moving. But Dahlia was pushing more and more and getting more and more excited, so she eventually motivated me on this project.

Yesterday we went out and got the "home stuff" to be able to set up the tank for the Hermit Crabs.... OH yes, I guess I should have mentioned, the consensus was that we would do Hermit Crabs because they were very super duper low-maintenance, and we'd probably not kill them. ; )

So, this AM we spent cleaning out one of the tanks and getting it all ready. I told them we could swing by the pet store after gym today. I had thought we'd leave with 2-3 and we left with FOUR! But I do have to say, having them home and seeing how pretty cool they are, we could easily add a few more in the tank! They are pretty facinating little guys.

The kids had picked out 3 names for the hermies before we went out today, but when we got to the store, the only one's Dahlia wanted to select had characters painted on their shells! So they gave up on the names b/c they say "they already have names"!!!

"Welcome to the family, Patrick, Nemo, Plankton and Tweetie!!"

Exciting week!!!

Where to start?!

Well... first of all we had a very exciting Sci-fi workshop happening the last two weekends, and Seringe and Kaidin actively participated. Not only had a fantastical time learning cool Jedi moves, but what an amazing/special time for them as well! There was a very very cool performance/recital of sorts the last evening of the workshop, of which I have some very fun video coverage. This is just a new camera, so I have to figure out how to upload the video footage and get it on our site to share! Stay tuned for that one (I promise it's coming)!!!

And then.... had a very exciting order for my slings this week! I usually have been doing them per order (1) basis, and someone who had been given one of my slings as a gift loved it so much she wants to sell them in her float/massage spa in New Mexico! I am so thrilled about that! I have started a new outpost for all new updates on that facet of life, so do check things out there: http://nakitababy.blogspot.com/

Let's see, I can think of two other very fun things....

Dahlia wrote her name all by herself this week. She's been working pretty hard on this since the beginning of the summer. I have been getting regular 'love' notes on my desk each day that have her practicing on there. She often would ask me "what it says"?? And I would try my best to sound it out. She often would ask how to spell her name and would do it herself. She's also copied my writing when she's asked me to write it out for her. So this week, while makin' the routine waffle breakfast, she came in with a picture of the HUGEMUNGOUS millipede (or whatever the heck those god-awful bugs are called that transpire from the depths of the drain!!! We had a 2.5 INCHER cross our wall this week! Man, I still shake from the thought of it!!) Anyhow.... the pic is a beautiful momento of this creature that cruised our wall, and at the bottom, her name, so perfectly written, and she had *not* asked me once how to spell it!!

Pretty cool stuff! So I just had to take a pic of that one.... I think the pic speaks for itself!

(Funny.... I am just noticing the bugs face.... he looks a lot happier than all 4 of us when it crawled across the room!!! ; )

And in other Jarjusey news.... Mr. Boober has started nibbling on food. It's just ever-so-random, and I'm not really confident I could say anything is going down, but he just wants to be part of the gang. So he's maulled on banana, chomped on a single cherrio, and today..... rice cereal! ; )

He gets these funny looks, and most of it comes back out..... and after 1-2 bites he's already done. But he's just so proud that he can do what the 'big people do'.... it's pretty cute. See for yourself:

That's about it on this end. We have open gym tomorrow and day after I think we are going to check out a show at Old Town. The weekend.... well, Kaidin and Dahlia really want to see the new Madagascar movie that just came out. And I have a CCAP au pair event on Sunday. But as always, anything can change and anything can happen in Jarjusey Kunda!

History made

It's been an exciting week in the world... I just have to say it was a HUGE relief!

http://obama2008.s3.amazonaws.com/headlines.html

Enjoying the last of Fall

So we headed up to River Trail Nature Center, and aside for being reemed out for trying to have a picnic at the center, we had an amazing time! The center itself is truly remarkable. The kids and I thoroughly enjoyed. And the walk we took deep into the forest was just stunning. The "golden sea" was what we called it. Of course we were under attack by characters from Star Wars ; )

The color was shimmering in the sunlight. It was 70-something (in November no less!!) and it was just amazing. What a blast.... great memories...

Cool shades

Halloween!

Everyone here has hit their halloween low.... We thoroughly enjoy the holiday in this house. Probably more than any other holiday. Each year adding more and more decorations, and had them up in late Sept. no less! Even had them in our car windows this year!

This year we trick-or-treated in Grandma's neighborhood.... that was a bit sereal. One neighbor had about 50 pizzas set out on a table and cases and cases of water... serving the whole neighborhood! Can't even count the number of full size candy bars the kids raked in! Such is Kenilworth I guess... (when we left for home that same neighbor had a live band playing.... no telling what they were serving at that point b/c earlier in the evening each adult we saw was carryin' somethin' for happy hour!!)

Pic's are hilarious b/c we could not get Shea to peel his eyes off of Kaidin's mask ; )

Jedi moves ; )
Ranger power!

By the way.... Shea is 6 months old now!!!