The cat can dance!

Diva just came up to me all excited saying "Momma, Momma, guess what Prince has!"  I fell for it and asked "what?"  She said "Prince has moves! He can dance!  He shakes his tail and wiggles his hips!"

Mama's nose knows

Tonight I send Diva into our bathroom to get into her pajamas.  After a few minutes when she didn't reappear and Imp was suspiciously absent from the living room, my mommy radar started to go off.  It was then that I noticed a curious light fragrance in the air.  Knowing that I didn't have any air freshener or candles going, I knew something was up.  I thought it smelled like baby powder, and mentioned my suspicions to Daddy.  He said, "There's no way you could be smelling baby powder in the bathroom from where you are".  Just as he finished saying that, Imp came walking out of our room, covered in - you guessed it - baby powder!  I couldn't deal with it for a good 5-10 minutes, not because I was upset, but because I didn't want them to see me laughing.  Imp did not appreciate the shower that followed.  I still have to clean up the mess in the bathroom, but I'll get to that soon.  One thing's for sure, Daddy isn't going to live down doubting my instinct for quite some time!

our "Thankful List"

This is a picture of a project I began with Diva this month in preparation for Thanksgiving.  It began with just asking her one day what she was thankful for, then I asked her the next day, then decided to start writing them down.  Since she is only 3, most of the things tended to be whatever her eyes happened upon, but it was still interesting to see what she said each day and how it applied to her in the moment.  The "medicine" day was at the end of a string of days where she and Imp had both been sick.  "Couches" was at the beginning of those sick days.  After doing that this year, I am seriously considering (if I remember to do it!) doing this every November with the kids and saving their lists from year to year and giving them the lists when they move out of the house.  I'm sure it will be interesting to look back on these lists after a few years and see what kind of window these "Thankful Lists" give us into our lives at the time and the children's perspectives of our lives at the time.

not quite right

I was just spending some time with Diva since she's lying in bed not feeling very well.  She wanted to play "pat-a-cake" so I obliged, letting her say the rhyme.  Her version needs a little work.  It went something like "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, bakers man, put it in the oven and put a baby on top then bake it for Mommy and me".  Not too sure what I think about putting the baby on top then in the oven ...

Days of Thanksgiving

I was inspired by someone on an email mailing list subscription that I am on.  Every day they are sending a message saying one thing they are thankful for.  Yesterday at lunch I asked the girls what they are thankful for.  Diva quickly answered "God!".  Today I got out a piece of paper, wrote the words "We are Thankful for" at the top, glued a few fake leaves on the paper, and listed yesterday's date and today's date.  Beside yesterday's date, I wrote "God" and by today's date I wrote Diva's answer for today, which was "pictures".  Once she realized that I was writing down the things she was saying, she started to list off several more things, but I told her to remember them for other days.  I don't want her to list off everything all at once then not be able to think of anything later on in the month. :-)

I'm going to try to keep this going through Thanksgiving at least, and maybe through the end of the month since it's only 3 more days.  If I remember this next year, I'm going to try to make a tradition of this and keep the papers from year to year.  I think it will be interesting to look back over the years to see what the children were thankful for at the various points in their lives.

new "hobby"

I have started a second blog (don't worry, I won't be abandoning this one) for my newest interest.  I got inspired by a segment on Rachael Ray featuring a woman who wrote a cookbook for things that you could find at the 99 Cent Store.  I remembered how, when I lived in Florida, I used to put together various little gifts using things that I bought at the local dollar stores.  I really haven't put too much into household decorations, so I challenged myself to a bit of "dollar store decor" for the various seasons.  The web address for my new blog is dollardecorating.blogspot.com or you can click on my profile and it is listed there.

my little literalist

Diva never fails to give us something to chuckle about, and I needed the chuckle after the heart attack she gave me this morning when I caught her pushing Bubba in his baby swing so hard that she nearly made the swing fall apart.  But, that's not the topic of this post.  Instead, I thought I would share her interpretation of a conversation a little later in the day.  Since we were out running an errand around lunch time, I made the "executive decision" that we would get lunch at McDonald's and bring it home to eat.  While we were waiting in line at the drivethrough, "Auntie" (their favorite aunt) made some remark about eating McDonald's for lunch.  Diva, in a concerned tone, said that we couldn't eat McDonald's for lunch.  When we pressed her for a reason, she said "You can't eat a building!"