#412 - Snowed-Out Birthday

Since TLG was born in December a few years ago, we have had good luck with the weather on his birthday weekend, allowing some family members to drive to us (or us to drive to them!) for a family birthday party. 'Twas not to be this year: despite all our planning, Mother Nature forced us to cancel our big family birthday plans for TLG's party today. While I was disappointed, TLG still had a terrific (albeit smaller) family party. We spent the morning playing in the snow at our house, shoveling pathways for our dogs. TLG actually really enjoys shoveling, or at least dragging the shovel around the yard. Then we made time for grocery shopping, not really a fun birthday activity but a necessity! After a quick lunch and nap, we met Grandma and Grandpa at the bowling alley. (Grandma and Grandpa couldn't really remember when they'd been bowling last, but guessed it was over 30 years ago. It was good to see them in action!) TLG and his dad played a game of air hockey (shown) and then it was home for presents, taco salads, and cake. We had a very nice day celebrating TLG and didn't let the weather get us down too much. Happy birthday, TLG!

#411 - TLG's Musical Performance

This afternoon, The Little Guy and the other older preschoolers and kindergarteners sang six Christmas carols at the community college President's Christmas party. We, of course, videotaped the entire thing, as well as taking photos! All the kids wore the adorable antlers they made (as seen in the photo). We've been practicing the words to all six songs at home for about a week:

- Rudolph

- Jingle Bells

- Kwanzaa's Here

- Hanukkah

- This Little Light of Mine

- We Wish You a Happy Holidays

TLG knew all the words very well, despite being one of the younger kids in this crowd. They positioned him in front of the microphones, but after the second song he switched places with the kid next to him. (Why? You'd have to ask him, I have no idea.) He did great! I was definitely a proud parent today.

When the President's Party was over, we retreated to the daycare for their Christmas party, where TLG made an ornament for our tree and the kids gave a repeat performance of their songs, helped with the younger preschoolers too. Oh yeah, my wonderful hubby and I also played trombone duets, but that was mostly just background noise. Ha!

#402 - Veterans Day Parade

I've lived in Reno for 12 Veterans Days so far, and I've never attended a parade. So today, I took TLG downtown to watch the Veterans Day Parade on Virginia Street. It wasn't exactly what I expected: there were tons of JROTC students and veteran's support groups, boy and girl scout troops... all just walking and waving. Yes, there were six or seven marching bands and a couple of horses, but where were the floats? TLG did enjoy seeing the motorcycles and the two or three vintage cars. And he did get really sad when the people handing out candy ran out before he got some. (A big thank-you to the girl sitting next to us who gave him a piece before he totally melted down.) I don't know if we'll make it a habit to attend this parade, but it was nice to acknowledge our veterans' gift to our country.

#392 - Daycare Trick-or-Treating

Yesterday morning, I spent a few hours at TLG's daycare helping take the preschoolers trick-or-treating around campus. Originally, I was assigned three kids: my little dragon, plus Snow White and a pink cowgirl. Not having much (OK, not having any) experience taking three preschoolers out in the world, I didn't really think to tell them to all hold hands - though I did ask them to stay together. Silly me, what was I thinking? The cowgirl took off, making her hard to keep track of, and the teacher re-assigned her to another parent by the second stop on our journey. So the dragon, Snow White and I did it all ourselves, holding hands most of the way. Snow White recognized her mother's office when we got there, and when she couldn't find her mom anywhere, she got very upset and refused to hold my hand after that. Thank goodness for her mom showing up 10 minutes later! As for me and the little dragon, we did great. There was about 30 stops for candy in the 2-1/2 hours, and he was a trooper. No complaints, no asking to eat anything, not even any bathroom breaks. What a kid.

#362 - Santa Replies

Today's mail brought a letter for The Little Guy with a return address from the North Pole. Inside was a typed poem by an elf named "Maria", who signed the letter, which promised that Santa was busy making toys. It also said that if TLG was good for his parents Santa would try to bring him some special treats at Christmas. I've never heard of getting a reply to a letter to Santa - I certainly don't remember getting a letter back when I wrote to Santa myself - so this was just the coolest thing to see in the mail! It just made me love Christmastime even more.

#358 - Letter to Santa

For the past three Christmases, TLG has been too little to really ask questions about Santa Claus, and he certainly hasn't been able to ask for anything specific for Christmas. But today, TLG dictated a letter to Santa, which I wrote down and helped him mail. We used a regular envelope and put a stamp on it in the hopes that the USPS knows how to send it all the way to the North Pole. The two things TLG really wants for Christmas are a flashlight and a big letter "J". I do hope he will stop throwing nightly tantrums and saying "I don't want to!" all the time... I've explained many times that Santa only brings gifts to good boys and girls, but I have a feeling Santa was watching how good TLG has been all year. I suspect he will probably receive the gifts he's asked for, and then some. I love Christmas!

#356 - Third Birthday

The little guy turned 3 today, and we took the day off from work to have a leisurely day with family. Early this morning, we drove to Sacramento to have lunch with my mom and sister. After a nice nap and a little afternoon shopping, my sister had an amazing "Handy Manny" party ready for TLG, complete with streamers, balloons, plates, napkins, and toys emblazoned with the cartoon handyman. My terrific family all gathered for a dinner from The Old Spaghetti Factory and chocolate cake, decorated by my dad ("Poppy"), just like he used to do for me when I was younger. And, oh, the toys! Did I mention the toys?!? The highlight must be his very first two-wheel bike (though for now it has training wheels) with a Lightning McQueen bike helmet. He took to it right away, and even rode down the driveway before getting a little afraid of not being able to stop. (I'm sure he'll get the hang of those pedal brakes before long.) Thank you, family, for a wonderful party and some great memories.

#352 - Birthday Party!

Today we held TLG's first-ever birthday party with his friends. We went to a local bounce-house place, Jump N Play, and had about 20 kids total for a two-hour party. In the photo, you can see the backs of all our heads as we watch TLG try to scale a giant bouncy ladder to go down a big slide (which he could do with no help from anybody). It was actually a joint party with his best friend, who also had a birthday just a couple weeks ago. He had an amazing party, jumping and sliding and climbing and racing around. After about 90 minutes in the bounce areas, it was time for pizza, ice cream cake, and singing happy birthday! Having the party jointly was great, since our two kids have mostly the same friends, and each family only had to pay for half a party... and at this time of year, it was nice for the other friends' families to only have one party to put on the calendar. We loved this birthday and we all left feeling like it was a total success, and lots of fun.

#342 - Trick-or-Treating for Real

Tonight, we took the little guy on his first neighborhood trick-or-treating adventure (which was also our first time going as parents). Since we practiced TLG's "lines" the other night (including "Trick-or-treat!" and "Thank you,") he took to them pretty quickly. We only went to houses that had lights on, but I was disappointed that even at some of those houses, nobody answered the door. We walked around our street, down an adjacent street to the corner, crossed it and looped up a court, and then headed back to our house. We are grateful to Grandma, who answered the door at our house for 45 minutes while we were out on the prowl. And we're also thankful for our great neighbors who ooohed and aaaahed appropriately over TLG's cute dragon costume and gave him a huge stash of treats!

After we finished our "rounds" of the neighborhood, we stayed up late (for TLG) and ate candy, answered the door for other kids coming by, and sat around being silly and giggling together. After a quick bath, we read some Halloween books that I've had since I was a child, and then it was time to turn off the lights. It's nights like these that make me feel so lucky to have such a great kid.

#340 - Strip Mall Trick-or-Treating

Growing up, when we went trick-or-treating, I remember it always being at homes in our neighborhood or at the elementary school carnival. So tonight we put TLG in his dragon costume and attended the "Safe Trick-or-Treating" at the Raley's shopping center near our house. All the stores in the strip mall had people outside their doors handing out candy, and the place was pretty busy with families and kids in costumes everywhere! We fit right in, and we did practice saying "trick-or-treat" in the car on the way over there. TLG came home with plenty of candy to enjoy over the next few days until it's Halloween again and we can do the old-fashioned trick-or-treating at least at a few houses on our little street. He seemed a little overwhelmed at the stores, I don't know if that was from all the people, the costumes, the new-ness of trick-or-treating (since he has always been too little to go, this was his first real experience with that). He loved the candy though. We let him eat a mini Twix bar on the way home from the store, then after dinner he chose a Tootsie Roll Pop which took forever for him to finish (how many licks DOES it take to get to the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop?!?) All in all, this was a neat neighborhood activity.

Here's a photo of us standing in line near a neat decoration outside one of the stores:

#339 - Carving Pumpkins

I have only carved a couple of pumpkins as an adult, and it was quite a few years ago that we did one at our house. So tonight, TLG helped us carve a pumpkin. He has been learning about jack-o-lanterns at daycare for a week or two now, so he knew all about it. I was surprised that he didn't want to use his hands to get all the gooey mess out of the pumpkin (in my mind, that was a natural boy thing to do!) so we ended up using pasta forks to scrape everything out. (He called it a "rake.") My wonderful hubby did all the carving, to TLG's specifications, and we think the jack-o-lantern turned out great. The one mishap we had was we burned all the seeds we were trying to cook so we could eat them... guess we'll have to carve another pumpkin and try again.

#338 - Pumpkin Patch!

Today, my dad joined our little family at the Pumpkin Patch in Sacramento, where we had lots of first for The Little Guy (including his first hayride, haunted house, corn maze, and pumpkin patch in general!) I didn't remember that this particular pumpkin patch had so many great things to do --- TLG also got to go on a pony ride, play on the hay bales, climb through a long tunnel, and of course pick some pumpkins to bring home. We easily spent two hours exploring all the great things to do, and could have stayed longer if TLG hadn't gotten tuckered out and in need of a nap. Thanks, Poppy, for spending the morning with us. TLG and both his parents had a great time and really enjoyed exploring all these new things!

#326 - The Big 3-0

Happy Birthday to Me!

My wonderful family gave me an amazing birthday to start off a brand new decade. The fun started this morning when my wonderful hubby let me open my first birthday gift, a beautiful sapphire-and-diamond necklace. Once I got to work, the deliveries began... first some flowers, then balloons, cookies, more balloons, more cookies, more flowers, and finally a great little candle to keep in my office long after the flowers and cookies are gone. (Here's a photo of me in my office with all the wonderful gifts.) After work, we took TLG to Grandma and Grandpa's so we could go have a delicious romantic dinner out. We had carrot cake and ice cream with TLG and Grandma and Grandpa, and opened a couple more wonderful gifts. I am so lucky to have such amazingly supportive family and friends... thank you, everyone, for a fantastic day.

This past year has been so full of fun and new things. I had intended to review the total sum of my year's experiences, but I didn't quite finish the project on-time. I have received a couple of comments/requests to keep up this blog, and I have decided to keep this up until I reach new thing #365 (which should have been yesterday, but who's counting?!?) I may not do a new thing every day, but since I haven't exactly done that so far, you won't be surprised, will you?

#311 - Halloween is Coming!

The little guy doesn't remember his past two Halloweens, and both of those someone else chose his costume. (His first costume was Batman, when he was 9 months old, and last year his Auntie chose a cute pirate for him.) So tonight, we let TLG choose his own Halloween costume! He fell in love with an adorable red dragon costume at Old Navy. We tried on the top half in the store to make sure we had the right size, and he immediately wanted to try the rest (impossible with all the tags attached, etc.) The costume is nice and warm, perfect for going trick-or-treating... which he doesn't remember either. We have some Halloween work to do before the big day arrives.

UPDATE 9/6/08: TLG bragged to Grandma all about his dragon costume, and insisted on putting it on to show her the whole thing. He left it on for about 90 minutes even though it was warm in the house, before volunteering to take it off. It was the cutest thing to look downstairs and see Grandma and a dragon playing with the train table!

#288 - NFL Sunday Ticket

My wonderful hubby celebrated a birthday today, and my gift to him: I signed us up for DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket. (I told him that the "real" present wasn't the actual gift itself, but the fact that the little guy and I will give up talking to him each Sunday during the football season. Ha!)

I'd never really heard about this service in-depth, but apparently you pay a fee and they broadcast each NFL game every week for your enjoyment. We could have paid $100 extra to get one HD station and one station that would show you all 8 games and let you choose which one to listen to... but that just seemed like overkill! Then again, for a non-football-lover like myself, the entire thing seems a little like overkill. Anyway, you'll know where to find our family once the football season starts for good: in front of the TV.

#258 - National Slurpee Day

I did not know that today is a national holiday... apparently, each year on July 11 (get it, 7/11?) all 7-11 stores nationwide give away free Slurpees. So today, on my way home from work, I stopped to get a Slurpee and partake in this fabulous new holiday. The free Slurpees were the child-size cups, but that was plenty to give myself a beauty of a brain freeze in the car on the way home. There had some interesting-sounding flavors to choose from, including a sugar-free Crystal Light lemonade flavor, but I'm a traditionalist when it comes to my Slurpees and I got the original cherry flavor (now made with cherry Fanta, I guess, but it tasted the same to me). I called each member of my immediate family to invite them to their nearest 7-11 to enjoy this wonderful holiday, though I don't think any of them took me up on it. Their loss.

#253 - Fireworks!

Happy 4th of July! Tonight, we shared fireworks with our little guy for the first time. (Last year, he went to bed too early to see them, and the year before he was too little to understand.) We set up on the sidewalk at my sister's house in California, and had a giant box of them to set off. My wonderful hubby and my brother-in-law did all the lighting of the fires, and they did a great job. My sister provided delicious desserts to accompany the pyrotechnics, and the rest of us ooohed and aaaahed. The little guy loved them, and clapped after almost every one. Here's a shot of him at the beginning of the fireworks show:

#186 - Groom's Cake

Today, in honor of our anniversary, I had a cake delivered to my incredible hubby... not just any cake, but one from a new store in town: Nothing Bundt Cakes. Having never heard of this franchise before, I thought we should give them a try. When I ordered it, I thought it was overpriced for a cake that was only supposed to feed 8 people, but of course that included the delivery price and some extra money for plates, forks and a plastic server. Well, the cake was delivered on time, but they forgot to leave the utensils and plates. Plus the enclosed card didn't have my hubby's name, or mine either. I had to call them to get the utensils delivered again. After all the confusion, we settled in to try their chocolate turtle bundt cake. It was very tasty, moist and the frosting wasn't too sweet or overbearing. Apparently everybody at my husband's workplace liked it and there weren't any leftovers, so in that sense it was a hit. Happy anniversary to us!

#175 - Party People

My hubby and I put together a surprise party tonight at a restaurant I've never been to before. OK, my hubby's been to this Mexican place before, and he did a lot of the work (calling to invite people, keeping it a secret, arranging for the birthday boy to arrive)... but still. The restaurant is called The Agave (formerly La Pinata) and they have a great Mexican buffet. The funny part about today's post is that the person having the birthday was 20 minutes early and hardly any of the guests had arrived yet, so it was a little anti-climactic. All in all, though, it was a nice party with good food and happy folks. Exactly what a surprise party should be!

#165 - Chalk It Up

The Easter bunny brought a neat set of sidewalk chalk for TLG today, so with the weather being perfect (65 degrees and sunny today!) we played with chalk in the backyard. I don't remember seeing some of those colors as a kid - there were 20 colors in the set - and TLG really enjoyed drawing on the ground. I know they've played with chalk to do artwork at day care, but I don't know if he's ever done it on the ground like that. When we got bored with chalk, we brought out the bubbles to blow, and later (after a nap) we headed to the park to get in some more time outside. What a wonderful day!