Where Were You On August 11th?

I love when things or events other than Christmas turn out to happen on the same day for multiple years. It wasn’t until about an hour ago that I realized Roo and I have gone to the OC Fair on Aug. 11 for the past 3 years. Really? What are the odds of that happening, completely by accident. It makes my soul happy, ecstatic even, no idea why. It’s just so neat.

August 11, 2010

August 11, 2011

 

August 11, 2012

 

and for fun

 

the first year of Roo’s life, we went with our bestest friends (Roo’s godparents), Kat & Mark. I kept seeing those photo booths everywhere and finally decided that I wanted to do one with Roo. It just became something that Roo and I do every year. Here is our collection so far, 4 years of OC Fair with my darling Roo.

I will be doing 2 posts tomorrow, one on our trip to the fair and another one on a very grim topic;  the death of one of Roo’s grandparents on her father’s side.

Good night (or morning, it’s 2:18 am here)  all!!!

 

Lately

Been pretty quiet here on the blog, life has been calm lately. Well, calm for our house at least. Nothing really huge going on. Roo and I have just been doing what we do; going for walks, doing crafts, coloring, and working on her letters and word recognition. Anna has a new nurse (yay!), Hunter is starting to take real steps, Kate just got her hair ‘relaxed’ using a Japanese technique.

There was one event incident, Roo decided to give herself a haircut using nail scissors. Yeah. I just don’t think I have any words. I was more sad to see her beautiful golden locks covering Anna’s dresser than mad at her for chopping them off. Not that I wasn’t mad, I sure was, and she was punished by no fun activities or treats that day. I understand this is something most children do at one point or another. I suppose this is just one of those motherhood milestones that I can say is over with. If her hair is down, it’s painfully obvious that some of hair is missing but when it’s up in a ponytail, it’s not terrible. Roo’s hair has been her Auntie Kat’s (Roo’s Godmother) area. I trimmed her hair when she was a baby and it was a catastrophe, so I just leave the hair stuff to her. That said, I think I will let Kat decide what the best thing to do is, if we should try to even it out or just let it grow back again. I’ve been trying very hard to ignore the fact that my daughter is missing most of the right side of her hair so I haven’t snapped too many pictures. Here is one.

 

With that out of the way, here are some camera phone shots from the past few days. These ones make me smile, not wince.

 

oh, and this one.

 

went back to black and I am so happy. I understand that my natural color is in the blonde realm and I should be happy about that, and I am because it is the reason my daughter has such gorgeous hair. For now, I want my hair black and I’m loving it.

Neighborhood Walks

The kids and I have been going for lots of walks around the neighborhood lately. I’m trying to get them used to long walks before we venture on walks to the library or the park which are just a bit over a mile away from our house. Strollers are great but Roo is quickly approaching the weight limit and Anna has far surpassed it. Roo’s stroller is a bit better so one of them could ride in that, but that means they’d need to take turns, which just doesn’t go well. So I’ve decided the stroller is reserved for Hunter and the both girls and I just walk. We’ve been having some great walks and seeing lots of fun things around here.

water drops on a spider web

found this awesomeness partially blocked by a bush on a street we don’t usually go down. So glad we decided to go off our usual route and that Roo and I were paying attention.

“Look, Mom! A monster’s shadow!!” I love how while I see messy oil spots and probably a spilled drink, she sees the shadow of  a monster. Toddlers’ imaginations are amazing.

 

 

An American Girl Gift

Lets start off with this picture

Roo is 10 days old here. Jan. 11, 2009, the day she got Thalia. My mom works with some great people, including her ‘boss friend’, John. John and his partner, Tony, bought this American Girl doll for Roo. The doll sat  in her crib for a few months, nameless, until Roo was able to point to things. Before Roo could talk, I would name her dolls and stuffed animals with a flashcard system. I would write every letter of the alphabet on a flashcard and let Roo point to the one she wanted. She’d pick a letter and her father and I would come up with 5 names, both male and female, and write each name on a flashcard and let her choose the name. When it came time to name her American Girl doll, she picked T. I don’t remember the other options, I do remember that her father said Tracy and I immediately vetoed that one due to a clinically insane dance teacher I had in high school. Obviously, Thalia is what Roo picked. I’ll be honest, I got the idea for that name from the best friend of Mady and Cara on John & Kate plus 8, which I watched nearly ALL DAY long back then. Roo LOVED the show, she would giggle nonstop at the 6 little ones. Roo has loved Thalia for literally all her life (minus 10 days). She is always either on Roo’s bed hanging out with Morison and Harrison or sitting in front of Roo’s Ikea storage thing with a cast or band-aid on from first-aid play.

So there is the background on Thalia.

Poor Thalia wore the same dress for a good 2 years before Lynda’s sister knitted/crocheted/whatever’d matching dresses for Roo & Thalia. When we changed her into the matching dress, I put her old outfit in Roo’s baby box for safe keeping. Roo’s baby box is not easy to get to and the dress is near the bottom, which basically means Thalia has kept that dress on for over a year now. Lady needed some new clothes, thats for sure. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with American Girl stuff, but for the price of 1 of their doll outfits, I could buy Roo 2 outfits, so getting clothes for Thalia was never a huge priority. John and Tony must have sensed that poor Thalia needed some new clothes. Yesterday, during a very unsuccessful junk sale, my Mom showed up with a surprise for Roo/Thalia.

Thalia now has some options: 1.ballet outfit and 2.summer outfit.

Thank you very much John & Tony!! Roo and Thalia are very grateful, especially Thalia because Roo has not put her down since yesterday afternoon.

what? what? what?

these cards don’t really demonstrate great penmanship so here is a picture I posted to Facebook a few days ago.

 

still working on capital letters and that whole combining letters into words thing. Yeah, I know how sad this is. 26 years old and just now learning 3rd grade material. Oh well, at least I am learning it. Yay.