Friday Focus: Vanellope

Vanellope turned one last month and her birthday theme was "Vanellope in One-derland".  Of course she had to wear an Alice dress.  This wasn't during daycare but it's so darn cute that I had to show her off.  I loved this one especially because it looks like the chair is too big and she just drank the "drink me" potion to become too small or something.  So fun!

Back at school, she finds all kinds of fun things to keep herself busy.  The Viking hats continue to be popular items.  Best $2.99 I ever spent, I think!  I love how pleased with herself she is here.  (I also really like the contrast between these pictures- it's just like the movie, with uncomfortable Princess Vanellope in fancy clothes vs. the sassy racer who's comfy in her hat and jammies.)

Here she is with Bernard.  She was trying to put the hat on his head too but all the pictures I tried to take of that came out really blurry.  It was super cute though.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

And here's her new "twin", Flynn.  He started a few weeks ago and they look really alike, especially from the back.  They're only about six weeks apart in age and they play really well together!

Spaghetti and blueberries for lunch was a big hit.  She's getting better about eating more things.  Still pretty hit or miss, but when it's a hit, she'll eat more than you ever thought possible for somebody as little as she is.

She's getting pretty close to taking steps here.  Haven't seen her do it yet, but her mama says it's happened a few times at home.  She'll stand up in the middle of the room and just look around wildly with a big smile.  Sometimes it kind of reminds me of a meerkat scouting out danger.  :)  Right now she still thinks crawling is a lot faster though, so if she decides she needs to be somewhere quick, she drops and is off like a shot. 

Vanellope is Anna's girl in a BIG way.  She tolerates me enough to be happy to come to me in the mornings, which is definitely a good thing.  Once Anna gets here though, I am chopped liver.  It's only occasionally that she decides my lap is better than the cold hard floor.  If she can't have Anna, I'm usually not an acceptable substitute unless I have food that looks good.  It makes me laugh how often the kids will pick one of us to LOVE.  A lot of them do it, and sometimes they switch.  I suppose most kids do that with their parents too though, so it's reasonable.  Spending a lot of time with two people, it makes sense that you feel closer to one than the other at different stages.

Oh, and she still hates painting.  We're starting the Very Hungry Caterpillar unit again, and I had to hold her hand around the brush while she yelled and slapped it on the paper.  Not to paint the leaf, you understand, but in violent protest of the entire process.  The end result was paint on paper though, so I'm counting it as progress!  :)

Friday Focus: Merida

We're living on borrowed time with Miss Merida these days- she's already got a June graduation date set.  A space is opening up at the preschool where her big sisters go and they're willing to take her early.  We are less willing to give her up and will miss her lots, but I completely understand the reality of wanting to have all siblings at the same location.  It will make pickup and dropoff so much easier for her family. 

So with only a couple months left, we're just trying to eat her up every day.  I love this kid.  She's so funny and her little personality is just so original.  Right now she's really enjoying the growl.  We try to set her up for success by reading lots of books and playing with wild animals- lions and tigers.  She really wants the horses and cows to growl too though.  She roars and growls at everything that moves and then falls down laughing.  I'm trying to transition it into a vroom noise for cars too- that works on occasion but mostly it's very lionesque. 

She's super lovey and will look for people who need hugs.  She likes to sneak up on us from the back and tackle our legs, and her favorite thing is for me to lie on the floor so she can jump on my back and pounce.  It makes her really happy when I pretend she's killing me and make OOF noises while she bounces.  Sometimes I don't have to pretend all that much.  She's energetic!  :)

She's our best eater- loves grape tomatoes and peas, we've discovered lately, so there's been a lot of that on the menu.  It's always nice to find veggies the kids will eat. 

No pictures for you, sorry.  :)  You'll have to just keep imagining her gloriousness.

2014 Calendar

In addition to our paid holidays for the year, we also take 5 paid personal days.  Any additional vacation days we take after that will be of no charge to you.  If you are on vacation, please remember that you must continue to pay to hold your child’s space.

Friday, April 18: OPEN for Good Friday due to snow days- we follow local school schedule on this

Monday, April 28: paid personal day

Monday, May 26: paid holiday for Memorial Day

Friday, July 4: paid holiday for 4^th of July

Monday, September 1: paid holiday for Labor Day
Monday, October 13: paid personal day

Wednesday, November 26: paid personal day

Thursday/Friday November 27/28: paid holiday for Thanksgiving

Wednesday, December 24: paid holiday for Christmas Eve

Thursday, December 25: paid holiday for Christmas Day

Friday, December 26: paid personal day

Wednesday, December 31: paid holiday for New Year’s Eve

(Thursday, January 1, 2015: paid holiday for New Year’s Day)

2 paid days remain- we will let you know as soon as we get them arranged.

Friday Focus: Merryweather

I'm going to do my best to get Friday Focus started again!  I've lost track of where I was or who should be next, so I'm going by age order and starting with Merryweather.

This child explodes with personality.  She is delightful and goofy and sassy.  Hot Sports Opinions on just about everything, and always ready for a hug and a snuggle.  I will say I am ready for her to be out of the stage where she can stand on tiptoe and reach up to pull things off the counter.  She can't see them, and just figures there's probably something good she needs up there.  My kids leave their breakfast dishes on the table sometimes when they go off to school and I've had to clean leftover cereal and milk and glasses of water up quite a bit lately.  She does it while I'm cooking lunch too and I have to do a dance to keep the cutting board back far enough that she can't get it, but still stand away from it.  She tries to weasel her way between the cabinet and my legs most of the time and wants to squish her head.  I have to leave space.

Evidence of her head, pre-squishing.  Not sure what she was doing with her hood in this picture but I have a whole series of them.  Odd.

What?  I'm not trying to climb on the couch.  For real.

Lunch is very tiring.  Sometimes you just have to take a little nap.

She's decided she loves this duck.  I don't understand the fascination with it, but when I had Lady last year, she loved it too.  I had to keep it in her box because she wanted to sleep with it at naptime.  Merryweather can't quite quack yet but she makes a funny attempt at it.

We went outside several days this week since the weather is finally nice.  I got the stroller out for the babies who are too little to sit in the grass and she would NOT believe me that we weren't taking a walk.  She thought I was gonna take everyone else out and leave her there in the yard, I think.  She insisted on getting in.  Then she realized I wasn't kidding and the stroller was just going to be sitting there with babies in it while Merida ran around the yard without her.  This is the face I got.  I'm pretty sure she's wishing bad things upon me.  :)

Mawwiage Is What Bwings Us Togevah Today

So I realized I didn't have a blog name for Assistant.  She says she wants to be Anna from Frozen.  I think my family is the last in America who hasn't seen the movie yet.  I had to ask which girl that was and she said, "not the one with the powers.  The one who gets engaged to a guy she just met."

Which is funny because she just got married after a rather short engagement.  Some of us went to the wedding.  It was really pretty.

Vanellope in her fancy dress, checking out Anna's fancy dress too.

My Duchess was a junior bridesmaid and had her first updo.  So SO cute.  It was freezing cold and so she borrowed a suit jacket from Vanellope's daddy.

Merryweather and Aurora with Mama and Auntie Doll, and me and Duchess.

Be My Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!  We spent yesterday and today getting little cards made for the parents.  I'm a sucker for footprints and I figure I can't be the only one.  Most of our people are too little to color, but it's fun to paint their feet so they can make a card.  Families love it.

 Merryweather went first and thought it was the funniest thing.  She laughed the whole time and then I had to do everybody else on the sly so she didn't help WAY more than I needed.

Mufasa was pretty chilled out the whole time- he let me do it without any protest but thought it was a little weird.  He stayed still though so his footprints came out really clear.

 Miss Merida's foot, making a cameo appearance.

 I had to practically hogtie Maid Marian to keep her hands off her feet.  She wanted to eat the paint SO BADLY.  I needed about six more hands for this job, especially since Merryweather snuck up behind me and grabbed the paintbrush off the table.  She dropped it in my lap and I still have red paint all over me.

Then she got all kinds of offended that I wouldn't let her grab the rest of the supplies so I had to console her before we could carry on.  I love the way Maid Marian has her foot stuck straight out and is still staring at it even after I washed it.  She can't quite figure out what I did to her.

While the littles were napping today I took Merryweather and Merida to eat lunch with O'Malley at school.  The weather hasn't been nice enough for a walk in forever and they talked and laughed the whole way there. 

 I got wise in the afternoon and put Bernard in the jumper to do his painting.  He decorated the floor while I went to get the wipes.

He had a good time too.

Last but not least was Vanellope.  (I watched Wreck-it Ralph with my kids again tonight and she's so great.  Big smile, sassy little attitude, makes you happy.  It works.)

She put up with the first foot, although she let me know she thought the whole thing was weird and possibly a little scary.  We didn't take pictures of the second foot.  Girl got angry.  :)  But they all turned out really cute.  Happy Valentine's Day and I'm sorry if there is a little paint left between your kid's toes tonight!

Aw Shucks Guys

Y'all should have told me you were actually waiting for me to blog!  Because I pretty much thought nobody ever read it- not like you comment frequently.  :)  I really do like the feedback- it makes it easier to write regularly when I think somebody cares about reading.  Mufasa's dad texted me today and referred to him as Mufasa, which made me laugh.  I couldn't come up with a good quote back to him on the fly.  But clearly he read!  YAY!  And Maid Marian's mom (HI THERE!) mentioned that she stalks the blog.  Maybe it's hugely narcissistic of me, but I'm super flattered.  Just for that, extra pics of your babies.

She holds her own!  At least for a few seconds anyway.

When it is really cold outside they bring Mufasa in this bear suit.  I squeal every time- I just can't help it.  He's so darn cute and extra snuggly when he wears it.

Okay.  *clapping hands briskly* moving on, I need blog names for several of the munchkins, and also for The Assistant.  It is getting difficult to write about the day with unnamed people.  OH!  I could call the twins Phineas and Ferb.  I've used so many names up that I'm going to have to branch out into TV soon anyway and I like that for them.  Done. 

Then we have this sweet new little guy.  I think I'm going to call him Bernard, like in the Rescuers.  I like the way Eva Gabor says it.  (I did have a Bianca a couple years ago, but since I'm fairly certain nobody but me is paying attention to the horror of having two different families using names from the same movie, we'll just brush that aside.....)

Meet Bernard!

Here we have the serious look...

And also the smile.  Cutie pie.

Two more girls to name, but I'm still mulling over options... good night.  :)