St. Patty's Day + Sesame Street + Shopping for Sleep

I'm not usually one to celebrate this holiday. It may be the fact that green beer repulses me (or any color of beer for that matter) or it just may be my firm dedication to give all of my attention to the main holidays like Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. Heck, even 4th of July is usually ignored. Whatever the reason may be I'm not one you will find out celebrating all day wearing green. But it seems that I've been much more interested in celebrating the smaller holidays since Hallie came along. Case in point...my first instinct Saturday morning upon awaking was to whip up some pancakes. But not just any pancakes.......GREEN PANCAKES!

At that point we were off to a great St. Patty's Day start. We showered, dressed, packed and loaded up our little green leprechaun. She was already pretty excited about what the day had to offer....

Top o' the mornin' to ya!

I was outnumbered by my Irish lad and lass that day. I was thankful that they let an ol' German tag along for the day with them. So where were we headed? To OKC for a day of fun and exciting things! A few weeks ago my cousin's wife Amy had a great idea to take the kiddos to see Sesame Street Live. After some convincing I was able to get Riley to commit to coming along and Amy said that Matt was willing to go too. It was a date!!! Aaron and Hallie got busy getting their Sesame Street on in preparation for the big show. I was feeling kind of silly when I began to think how Hallie hadn't even watched the kid friendly learning show. It was high time to study up on Big Bird and friends. But all we had were some mini books about the colorful characters. They are some of her favorites though so we read overtime this week to familiarize her with them. No complaints from her! The bookworm spent most of her time reading on the way to OKC after all....

And tending to her baby of course.....

And just being a diva....

Our bellies were talking to us by the time we got to Yukon so we stopped for lunch at Louie's. I was silly thinking that her good behavior streak that morning would continue on through lunch. It did not. Oh my. She had devoured most of her snacks during the car ride so she was a little less than willing to wait for our food to arrive. However she did partake in some chips and queso which was great entertainment for her mom and dad. She made it clear that she did not need help dipping her chips in the queso. I think her dress and lap would disagree. ;)

"You talkin' bout me!?!"

You can guess what Riley had on his mind as we sat down for a bite to eat. Yes, green beer.....

Once our food came our lady turned into an angel and spent her time eating her shoestring fries and flirting with passersby. My faith had been restored in the day and I was ready for our next stop. Someone else needed a bit of shut-eye first though....

It's not easy being green

To say that I was excited about our next destination would be the understatement of the century. I. Was. Insanely. Thrilled. We were meeting my dad at Mathis Brothers to pick out a set of bedroom furniture. I was like a kid on Christmas morning. No wait, more than that. I can't even explain it. It's no secret that Riley and I have been making our way through a transitional period after moving....between having to give our new bedroom furniture away with our Mustang home, selling our guest bedroom furniture and being left with nothing more than a mattress....we have been yearning for an actual bed. A bed elevated off of the floor to be exact. ;) Our mattress is sandwiched in between two wooden tables made by our grandfather's. My side table is named Paul's table and Riley's is named JC's table. As you can see, we have some fun with our current furniture situation. We may actually miss these old side tables we've become accustomed to using. Ok, maybe not. So what was Gman doing tagging along with us at the furniture store? Well, ya see....he's a rockstar. The generous-hearted teddy bear offered to gift us with new bedroom furniture. Holy Moses!!!!!!!!! He was waiting for us in the parking lot when we arrived. Hallie was still snoozing and definitely needed some more rest to make it through the rest of the day. Dummy me forgot to pack her stroller. The plan was for my dad to push a napping Hal in the stroller while Riley and I got our shop on. Instead Gman waited in the car with Hal until she woke up. Riley and I had been snagged by one of the store designers who began guiding us around the store. I was feeling pretty lucky that we had a design expert who could help me pull all of my jumbled up ideas together. He was a saint and put up with a lot. Hallie and Gman caught up with us after she woke up. We took turns holding the chunklet while we perused the store. Gman pushed her in a little red car for awhile while she giggled with glee. By the time we had picked out the one we wanted she had decided it was time to cause a scene. Mattress selection happened pretty quickly and I'm honestly not even sure which one we chose because I just wanted the madness to end. Don't get me wrong, I was still in heaven.....it's just that there was this screaming child in my heaven who seemed to only be satisfied either in my arms or jumping on the plethora of beds surrounding her. Riley felt confident in my ability to finish out some selections so he took Hallie to the car. Whew. Sigh of relief. This picture shows a very rare calm moment......

"I think this is the one"

Somehow all of my ideas and dreams in my head came to life and we came away with the perfect stuff!!! I think I hugged dad about twenty times in the course of twenty minutes. That's one hug per minute if you don't want to do the math. ;) We walked out to the car to find a very quiet red-head watching her movie and eating snacks. Stinker!

"Gman, you're a riot....and so is this movie!"

I hugged dad one last time and he sent us on our way. He was headed to the Harley store and then home.....we were headed downtown. Sesame here we come!!!

It had been a long time since we'd been downtown in the daylight and we were surprised to see all of the new changes that have taken place. Lookin' good OKC!

The leprechaun was on a hunt for her cousin Aaron by that time....

Ah ha! There he is!!!!

Can you feel the love people?? ;)

They wouldn't give eachother so much as a high five let alone say hi. There wasn't much interaction between the two but they were both lookin' mighty cute! Aaron had been watching the ducks before we met up with them and hollering out his quacking noise.....

Hal joined in with some of her own quacking. The weather was so pretty (a bit humid but no big deal). We walked toward the Cox center to give the kiddos a chance to play in the Sesame Street playzone. We took the long way around to the arena and stopped to ask for directions once inside. I had to suppress my desire to ask the nice lady "can ya tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?" How many times in your life do you actually get to put that little diddy to good use? We made it to the playzone finally but first we had to check out the stage from up top....

"Ok. I'm here...you can start now!"

I was already exhausted by the time we got to the playzone from all of the walking, shopping and driving we'd done already that day. I don't think I was prepared for what happened next. The playzone= Hallie on speed. Stimulant city!!! The kiddos checked out each stop along the way. Amy and I couldn't help but plop the kiddos by this cute little street scene.

"Ya think our parents know what they've got themselves into??"

I've got to admit, they had some pretty cool toys and areas for the tots to checkout......

There was one area in particular that Hallie was interested in. Much to my embarrassment she took it upon herself to disassemble the blockade that was built in front of a big screen. Granted I'm sure she thought it was a lovely and very fun toy....innocent as it may have been I was not looking to get us kicked out of Sesame Street Live. This is when I put Riley in charge. The funny part is he soon joined in her "fun" by standing inside of the blockade with her. And this is when I turned around and pretended that I didn't know them. ;)

"Oh, this looks fun....."

Aaron joined Hal for some button pushing fun. Amy and I swarmed around them in paparazzi mode while Matt and Riley stood back and shook their heads at us. "Mom's delight", as Matt put it so eloquently. Yes, it was definitely mom's delight seeing them have so much fun!

One last diaper change, a trip to the concession stand and a search for our seats....we were ready for the show to start! Hallie was restless to say the least while we waited. The popcorn snack didn't quite do it's job like I'd planned. Well, it did for a minute at least....

Elmo! Elmo! Elmo!

It was a clapping frenzy between the two tots as they switched between mom and dad's laps with their little eyes fixed on the bright, colorful characters. I was just beside myself watching her take so much interest in the show....

Clap, clap, clap

And more clapping

And yet even more clapping.

Can ya blame her? ;)

Amy got us some great floor seats. I think being so close to the stage helped them focus on the show more...

Don't let her clapping and intense watching fool you into thinking that all was well during the hour and a half-long show. She had her restless moments and made plenty of messes. My poor purse was the victim of a drink spill in the row ahead of us. Hallie knocked over the tub of popcorn twice. She dumped out half of the little snack bites that Aaron shared with her. She spit out her binky for fun in the row behind us at least five times. She threw her cup in the row in front of us twice. It was a lot of moving and squirming....but of course lots of clapping, cheering and smiling to balance it out. I was enjoying the show....Riley was pretending to enjoy the show. ;) The plot was based on the new Sesame Street music teacher who was waiting on a truck to show up with her instruments in it. Several times throughout the show she mentioned waiting for the truck. A very worn out Riley leaned over midway through the show and said "I sure wish that truck would show up soon." Haha! It was 7:00 by the time the show was over and the kids were surprisingly all hyped up after we left the building headed for dinner. We were seated quickly at Abuelo's and soon began what would become a chorus of "no, no"s. Aaron sat quietly and waited like a good boy.....while Hallie was acting a fool. They filled their bellies with chips and tortillas and found a small little area by our table to play in. Amy and I joked that it was our built in play area....

"I think I know how we can escape this place"

Aka baby prison.....

"LET US OUT!!!!!!!!!!"

Hallie's belly was full which was no surprise since she'd snacked nearly the entire show. But a spoon full of queso seemed to hit the spot.....

Loco baby!

We parted ways after some prompted hugs and kisses between the cousins, made a promise to get together again very soon and made our way to the car. Hallie watched her Cat in the Hat movie for a good thirty minutes and before I knew it she was in dreamland. Most likely dreaming of Big Bird and Elmo......

It was an eventful day.

A fun day.

A stressful day.

A memorable day.

A day or firsts.

A day of pretty furniture.

A day of thankfulness.

A day to be green.

Thanks Amy, Matt and Aaron for inviting us along! Next up for the cousins.....THE ZOO!!!!

Thanks Daddio for being straight up awesome. We will try to thank you....but nothing seems adequate enough. You are the best!

A Little Bit of Everything

Consider this random post #1,540.

Yet another conglomeration of our goings on.

Hallie has been a tornado lately.

You can just call me the Red Cross or FEMA.....following behind to provide a cleanup effort.

Words have been rolling off her tongue literally every minute. She is constantly chatting, repeating or just spouting off jibberish.

I've talked about her talking a million times. Maybe more. But seriously....I cannot get over it. I give no apologies for running it into the ground. It's amazing.

Her increased vocab may have something to do with her new habit of reading in bed. I mentioned in my last post that Hallie Grace has done a 180 this past week and now prefers to spend a few minutes relaxing in bed before getting up. Compare this to last week when she would let it be very known that she was ready to get out of bed while it appeared that she was a monkey trying to climb the sides of her crib. No monkeys here....just worms.

Book worms, that is. ;)

As you can see, Goodnight Moon seems to be a clear new favorite. While I was reading the last few pages to her for the third time this morning she surprised me by repeating "goo ny moo." In case you didn't catch the baby language....that was "goodnight moon."

Sad because she had to get up and start the day

On a totally different and very unrelated note, I came home with a few of these tasty treats for Riley this week. After all, his Irish ancestors would have been proud of his blarney stone consumption....

I've been feeling very LUCKY (ah, the luck o' the Irish) this week seeing as how I have my very own red-headed Irish baby. Not only that but I also have my very own comedian....

Daycare clown!

 In honor of St Patty's Day which is drawing very near I've been questioning Riley about his Irish descent. It went something like this...."babe, just how Irish are you?" His answer: "quite a bit." I never said that it was an intriguing conversation, did I? ;) He did, however, follow up his quick answer with his standard explanation about the Fannings coming to the United States during the Irish Potato Famine. I may not be Irish but I sure as heck won't let anyone pinch me tomorrow.....

I had an interesting experience while getting this St. Patty's day-inspired pedicure. I'll start by saying that my mission to get the pedicure lasted from 2:00 to 4:30 Friday afternoon. Holy busy nail salons. Once I was finally sitting in the chair, getting my feet pampered and feeling some semblance of relaxation I asked the lovely and friendly pedicure man if he could draw a four leaf clover on one of my toes. The man looked at me as if I had just spoken Chinese back to him. Me being the bonehead that I am said "ya know, for St. Patrick's Day?" Blank stare. Ok, obviously a four leaf clover was not happening at that point which was alright. About five minutes later the man asked me "why is everyone picking out green polish today??" He he. Where was my husband to teach him about the Irish Potato Famine when I needed him??? ;)

I had a hankering for my favorite pasta bake for Friday night. To the store we went. Oh but wait...first we had to accessorize. I watched as diva stuffed five bows into her pink, rhine-stone studded purse, placed it on her little shoulder and set out towards the car. Oh my.

Of course, of course, we must take the purse into the grocery store just like mommy does. Fine by me....the five bows kept her busy which meant no meltdowns over not being able to pull Oreos off of the shelf. Note to self: always let her bring her purse. It was a seemingly peaceful and quick shopping trip. I was bee-bopping along in my brand spankin' new running shoes when all of a sudden.....

I was bummed. My shoes were bummed. And Hallie was staring at me as if to say "you can't blame this one on me for once mom." And she was right. I was the idiot who placed the jar of sauce in the front of the cart instead of the main part. Little miss diva had set up camp in the main part of the cart leaving me limited space to hide food from her reach. So technically......well, maybe.....ok, I guess it's still my fault. There was a nice man who tried to stifle his laughter as I cried out "MY SHOES!!!!!!" in the middle of the aisle. He even tried to add a little humor to my situation by passing me on another aisle and casually mentioning "uh ma'am, you have something on your shoe." Ha ha ha. My shoes weren't laughing.

We had our first BIG lesson in sharing tonight. I'd never heard Hallie say the word "mine" before. Or I guess I should say "scream" the word mine. Oh my. I wasn't prepared for a teaching moment such as this. Here's the scenario....she stole my Sonic cherry limeaide. Just straight up vandalized it. Which I honestly didn't mind as long as she was planning on sharing. Well, she wasn't. I let her place it gently in her wagon while I took her for a ride. She would randomly lean forward to get a drink without picking the giant Route 44 cup up to her mouth. Too much effort, I guess? ;) But the girl sure did move quick when I bent down to pick it up to take a drink. She saw my hands moving in, grabbed the cup, began sucking on the straw as if her life depended on it and screamed "MINE!!" Oh. My. Goodness.

Over the course of the next ten minutes I attempted to get her to calm down long enough to teach her about sharing. It wasn't pretty to say the least....but in the end she did finally offer up a tiny drink to me. Of course after she made sure that I knew it was her drink. Wish me luck.

I did some baking for St. Patty's day earlier in the week and it has spurred a cookie addiction in my little one. Not to say that she gets a cookie when she requests one....because that would be literally impossible. We've gotten quite a few laughs out of her this weeks when it comes to requesting treats. Her last word before going to bed Wednesday night and her first word Thursday morning was "cookie." Why does that little toot have to say it in the sweetest, most angelic voice ever??? I've been swapping grapes for cookies which she doesn't seem to mind. Does anybody else have a kiddo who tries to eat in the middle of a teeth brushing session. She was holding on for dear life to her bag of grapes when I plopped her down on the counter for some oral hygeine. In between me wetting her brush she popped in a few grapes. Very effective. Oh that girl!!

We took a bike ride this evening. Perfect weather. Great idea, right? Eh, not so much. The first half was fast, easy, peaceful, chatter-filled. She shouted out "hi" to each person we passed. The second half was an uphill ride against a thirty mph wind. She wouldn't speak a word on the way back (probably for fear that a bug would fly right into her mouth) except for an occasional "beep beep." Flying kites would've been a much more appropriate activity on a day like today. Or possibly wind surfing.

My biking buddy

Riley has been in handy man mode. He has had a sudden surge of testosterone and has been putting it to use in the garage. Ripping wall paper, painting doors, sanding cabinets for our small bathroom off of the laundry room....I'm exhausted just watching him. And completely impressed. I would have been cursing the inventors of wallpaper and stopping for a snack...or two or three or four.

Funny story. I have a habit of removing Hallie's diaper by the kitchen trashcan and asking her to go get another one for me to put on her. She happened to be wearing a skirt today and when I took her diaper off I got side-tracked and just up and forgot to replace it. She must've thought I was crazy trying to do some early form of potty-training. Lol, not my intention at all. Fast forward to thirty minutes later....Aunt Kylie had stopped by to drop something off for Riley and the four of us were hanging out on the side porch. All of a sudden we see Hallie waddling towards us with something running down her leg. It didn't look good. Oh my. My first thought was that she'd had diaper blowout. That was until I looked down to see that she was standing in a puddle of poop in her sandles. "HOW DID THAT HAPPEN!?!?" It finally occured to me that I'd forgotten to strap a poop catching device back on my little diaper dependent tot. Poor baby was kind of distraught and very confused about why she'd just pooped on herself. Two clean shoes, an outfit change and an impromptu standing bath in the sink she was all good. I won't make that mistake twice.....

Sometimes I feel like I'm not teaching her enough. And then other times I feel like I'm bombarding her with information. Bathtime seems to be the place where she doesn't matter how much I talk. This is when I turn into crazy alphabet/counting/animal sound/body part identifying momma.....

Ok, maybe just a little bit of learning....and a LOT of FUN!!!

blowfish

alphabet soup

A busy/fun/fast/long-awaited day coming up tomorrow. Of course I'll share every last detail. But for now I'll leave you with a couple of clues about our day tomorrow........

Happenings Around Our House This Week

Oh let's see.....here's a sampling of what we've been up to this week so far. It's hump day....we are on the downhill slide toward the beloved weekend. We have a very fun and exciting Saturday planned for our baby girl but I can't spoil the surprise right now...she's reads the blog after all. I'll leave it at that...BIG SURPRISE SATURDAY! But enough about Saturday....

...what about Monday? Oh, Monday was a Monday. But not too awful Monday-ish. Enough Monday to make me wish for Tuesday though. But oh wait, not the usual Tuesday. No Tuesday off this week (bummer, hiss, boo.) Let's play a game of "Did You Know?" Shall we?

*Did you know that yogurt is a lot more fun to eat if you rub it all over every inch of your body? Well apparently that is the case....

Exfoliated and feeling good

*Did you know that there are murderers in our neighborhood? Well, technically this is not true at all. But you would think there were knife-yielding crazy men around every corner with how spooked I get about running at night. Night after night I attempt to begin an evening run but rarely ever make it out of the driveway let alone around the corner. No crazy men....but usually a few cats that jump out and make me head for the hills (aka home).

*Did you know that my husband is funny? This is how I know. I walked out onto our side porch yesterday to find something very offensive to my eyes and extremely hideous. It was a pair of chairs sitting there staring back at me. My first instinct was to laugh....but before I could do that I hollered around the corner and asked him what on earth he was thinking. Apparently these two chairs he'd found in an old clinic and they seemed to him to be good for temporary outdoor seating. I'll let you be the judge.......

They are leaving ASAP.

*Did you know that Hallie is cool? Or at least that's what she told me this morning. I was getting her dressed when I held up her zebra print skirt and said "isn't this cool?" She immediately picked up on this new word and told me a few times that she was "coooooooooool."

*Did you know that reading a book is the best way to start out your morning? Take it from Hal...she's taken up a new morning habit. Riley put her to bed on Monday night and placed one of her books in the crib with her. Me being the paranoid freakazoid that I am would've been too nervous about placing something with sharp corners near her head while she was sleeping but she did survive so books in the crib it will be. She seems hooked already. I found her lying in bed Tuesday morning with her head propped up on some blankets with her body stretched out just reading to herself. Sweetest. Moment. Ever. In fact, she didn't even want to get out of bed (unheard of) and insisted on reading her book over and over and over. Each time she'd holler out "Mama! Book!" To which I replied with a fluttering heart and an "okay." Who needs to be at work on-time anyways? Being that it was my usual day off it made it that much harder to get her out of bed and get her dressed. Snuggling on the couch with cartoons sounded like a much better plan. She continued reading as I placed her on the changing table to get dressed. And believe it or not, her tiny book had to be put through her shirt sleeve as I put it on because she was not ready to let go of the book. Funny lady.....

Don't mind the mis-matched PJs...dad was in charge ;)

*Did you know that Mickey Mouse is universally loved by all. It's true.....

*Did you know that waddling is the cool new way to walk? Poor baby girl had some pretty killer rashes on both legs this week. Bad enough to force her to waddle around the house to keep her legs from rubbing together. Dresses were a must and she was slathered in cream which did wonders for healing them quickly. They are still hanging around but looking much better. No more waddling!

*Did you know that it's impossible for a baby to carry ten plastic eggs at once? She got an A for effort though. I had placed two Easter buckets full of eggs on the windowsill. She watched me place them up there, got a sly smile on her face, hopped down from the couch and immediately pulled them down. And so began her mission of picking up all ten eggs at once. There may have been a few tears shed in the process of trying....

"Three?!?!?!? That's all my tiny hands will hold?!?!"

*Did you know that Nanny spoils her grandbabies? No, surely not. Nanny went wild this week at Michelle's Chic Boutique. Oh my, talk about some insanely cute outfits that she picked out for Carmen and Hallie. I'm dying to put them on her little body. And speaking of spoiling, Nanny picked up Hal from daycare today and spent the afternoon and part of the evening with her...they ate dinner, played at the park, took a wagon ride, took a bath and ran around outside. I've got to admit it was very nice to have a little break from being Miss Sassy Pant's mom....I even got to go for a walk with my friend Amy.

*Did you know that Hallie likes to eat???

*Did you know that Hallie hates olives? I got a humorous text from Paula telling that my little mini had been helping her prepare pasta salad and had requested an olive. Paula handed her one and Hallie put it in her mouth...but it didn't stay there for long. Paula says that she spit it out, threw it on the counter, said "no, no" and walked away. The girl isn't afraid to tell you exactly how she feels.

*Did you know that sidewalk chalk is a good source of protein? Ok, I'm a liar liar pants on fire. But Hallie tried to chow down on a stick of blue sidewalk chalk as if it were a tasty hamburger. We happened to find a couple pieces of chalk hanging out by the driveway. Of course I felt compelled to write Hallie's name and draw a few hearts. She felt compelled to eat the chalk. I've never seen a cuter blue mouth. ;)


DID YOU KNOW that I'm pretty pumped about this upcoming weekend?