Raking in the Dough

So as promised, just to update that the Tooth Fairy did indeed make a visit. She left me two silver dollars. She also left a mess of fairy dust all over my pillow, sheets and head! Mom has to wash the sheets now. Later that day, Mom took me to the water park. We had loads of fun and I did all the slides and even a few things I was too scared to do last year. On the way back, we stopped at the gas station and there was another fairy there! Well, not a fairy so to speak, but a very "happy" gentleman who had maybe had a little too much "happy juice" who decided to give me a dollar as we were leaving. Of course, I said yes. But I got lectured BIG TIME on the way home about NOT taking anything from strangers...especially stinky strangers who slur their words and call me sweetheart. Mom said it is a good thing she was there. So my free dollar was not free, it came with a big, giant dose of lecturing. Mom didn't argue with the guy, he probably would have thrown a punch at her.

In lighter news, the ice cream truck is scheduled to make its rounds today. I plan on getting a treat, I've been looking forward to it all day. I went to the gym daycare with Zach today while Mom punished herself with a kickboxing class. Zach did much better with me there. Hopefully he will continue to do well. Mom signed her life away to the gym for a year today and there is no escape clause in there for whiny toddlers! Or whiny mothers for that matter!

Ciao for now,
K.

Toothless Wonder

Big news, I lost my first tooth today. Even bigger news, I lost TWO teeth today! How about them apples? The first one just popped out as soon as I got up and the second came out after some serious ice cream cone licking. Neither hurt, neither bled -- like I had feared. It's so funny because my friend Nic was here yesterday and he was just telling me how the exact thing happened to him just awhile ago. Those two puppies were hanging on so long that the new teeth were already coming up behind them. I called both my Grandmas today and told them "I lost two tooth-es". I put them in the dino tooth pillow tonight. Hopefully, the tooth fairy is faring the recession well and won't be too stingy!

We thought we were going to the cabin today, but it was too windy so we hung out here instead. We were up early, since the carpet cleaners were here at 8am. So we headed to the farmers market. I scored some bread, a bracelet, cookies, and trinkets for the stepping stone we made today. Mom scored some leeks and veggies. Later, Mom and I went letterboxing. We had quite the adventure, but we found all four we set out for and rewarded ourselves with ice cream. I think we're going to Splashdown tomorrow to play in the water, I hope, I hope, I hope.

I'll let you know if the fairy comes tonight. We left my window cracked, just in case she needs an easy entrance!

In the meantime, I'll keep whistling through my space in my lower jaw, you'll know it's me when you hear me coming!

Later!
K.

Chillwaukee

Hello! We just got back yesterday from our fun little mini-vacation. Everything went well, us kids were remarkably good in all respects. It was downright cold for all of our trip, but that makes for good zoo sightseeing. And good to be at a museum on a dismal day. We didn't arrive on Thursday until late afternoon. Dad was finishing up sealing the driveway all morning - a project that did NOT go as he had planned, but at least it is done for a year. We tried swimming at the hotel. The indoor pool was freezing, but the outdoor pool was warm as long as you stayed in the water. I am very proud that I can now go fully underwater without plugging my nose. After some water fun, we ventured out for dinner. Mom was super-excited to try the fondue restaurant. We didn't realize it would be a very expensive, 2 hour ordeal, but the the food was great and us kids were very well-behaved. There was a steady supply of food coming the whole time, finished off with dessert fondue, complete with marshmallows, strawberries, cheesecake and brownies -- that helped keep us in line. Too bad we were sugar-hyped up back at the hotel and had a hard time settling down.

Friday was devoted entirely to the zoo. It is a huge zoo with plenty to see. I really enjoyed the reptile hall the best. Zach liked all of the animals, especially the big bears and cats. We did the train ride later in the day. The train actually broke down about 100 yards before the station, so we had to walk the rest of the way. Good thing we did though, because it looked like they closed down the train for the rest of the day. After the zoo, Zach fell asleep, so Dad dropped us girls off at the Domes. We really enjoyed them! I loved seeing all the different types of plants. The show dome with the provencal style plants was my favorite.

On Saturday, we hit up the public museum. It was very impressive, much bigger than we anticipated. I liked the walk-through butterfly garden (Zach did not enjoy this), and the hands on bug area. I held a millipede and Dad held a walking stick. The dinosaur wing was pretty cool, I was expecting a little more, but I still had fun. The IMAX film was really cool, we saw the Living Seas. We easily could've spent more time there, but since it was getting late, we had to rush through a few of the halls and head home. We met up with Nana and Papa in Beloit for a quick bite to eat before our remaining 2 hour drive home. It was a great trip - a nice chance to take a break from the routines at home and learn some cool new things. I just love museums. I can't wait until my night to go Dozin' With the Dinos in November at the Field Museum.

I start my morning Dinosaur Camp this weekend. Needless to say, I'm pretty darn excited about it. This will be my last week of summer activities. Only 4 more weeks until school starts....I've got some serious slacking off and screwing around to catch up on!

Hope you had a fabulous weekend. Here are some pics from the trip!
Katherine

Cowboy Clean

The blog has been a little neglected lately, I guess there hasn't been a whole lot to say that is blog-worthy. My swimming lessons were canceled most of last week b/c of the weather, but Dad was able to take me this week. I still have a long way to go...not putting my head under yet and still plugging my nose, but we're getting there. I had a private lesson with someone yesterday that went much better. The kids that teach us at the public pool are nice enough, but they are softies and have their hands full with 15 small kids for 3 instructors!

We went to the cabin last weekend. The first day was spent just cleaning up the joint and getting things ready. The boat didn't start the first day, but Dad figured it out and got it running on Sunday. We got one nice boat ride on the glorious Rock River. My favorite part of the weekend was playing with Ben and making s'mores. Zach calls him "Ben-Ben", must be because he gets called "Bud Bud". FYI, s'mores made with Reese's PB cups are the bomb!

Dad is taking another week of "non-voluntary, unpaid vacation" this week -- translation: layoff week. Most of the plants are shut down for the week, so most of the Daddies in our neighborhood are home. He's been keeping busy -- washing the cars, cleaning outdoor stuff and screwing around with us.

We've got our mini-vacay to Milwaukee coming up on Thursday. We plan to visit the Domes, the Zoo, the Museum/IMAX and the beach. Should be a nice little get away for us.

My tooth is still hanging in there, literally! I better take my tooth fairy pillow on vacation just in case.

Later!
Katherine.

What's a Video?

I caught Mom watching TV today and since that never happens around here, I figured I better ask what was going on. Mom tried, very much in vain, to explain to me the significance of the memorial on TV. I'd never heard of Michael Jackson until today, so it was hard for me to figure out what the big fuss was about. I liked watching the people sing songs and speak nicely about him though. So when it was done, Mom showed me some old videos on youtube and tried to explain it best she could. I really liked the old videos from when he was just ten years old. I even liked Thriller, I thought the dancing zombies were funny just like Mom did when she was little. She said that Papa used to make her watch it, even though she was crying scared, but I don't buy that...surely Papa would have never tortured Mom like that :)

When I was done getting my education about the moonwalk, Billie Jean, Beat It and the Jackson 5, I turned to Mom and asked her square in the face "what's a music video"?. Sigh. Looks like that will probably be an ancient artifact for my generation. We'll all be too busy twittering and texting to notice the death of good music videos, back when they were productions of art, rather than just the bunch of computer-generated junk they have turned into.

Someday when I'm older, I'll know who MJ was and if I ever want to know what I was doing around the time he died, maybe I'll come back here and read about it. In the meantime, I'm going to get back to practicing my moonwalk!

Ka-Blooey

That kind of sums up the weekend right there! The rain on Saturday put a damper on both our weekend boating plans and our firework plans. However, being the astute meteorologist that she is, Mom talked Dad in to taking us to a small display on Friday night in a nearby "town". Town is in quotation marks because it is probably more of a village, but we get in, we see fireworks really close-up, we get ice cream, we get out. Easy cheesy. We were hoping for the grand display on Saturday, but we didn't want to chance the rain/storms, although they did end up going off in the end.














Firework viewing in the trunk, woot woot.








Instead on Saturday, we went to see Ice Age in 3D. Mom is not a fan of 3D. She's very flinchy and her eyes water. BUT, this was really cool and we all had a great time. Zach wouldn't keep his glasses on, so it was more like fuzzy-D for him, but he sat very still and laughed a lot. We managed to salvage the day and have some fun family time.

Today, we went to see Grandpa D in the hospital. He had a bout of stomach pain which turned out to be nothing major, but still enough to warrant a hospital stay with antibiotics. Even though it was more time in the car than actually visiting, we were glad we went and they were too. It was hard for me and Zach not to jump on Grandpa, because that is kind of our thing.

Last week was kind of nutty. Had playgroup here and it was utter chaos...over a dozen kids and the house got pretty trashed. Zach was not having it and I was a little moody and mom was all sorts of stressed out. The rest of the days were spent schlepping around town and trying to keep busy during the cold, rainy week. Mom was moping around alot since Ryan and Leah left. I did go to a really cool place on Wednesday and make a Jurassic Garden, which was a plastic tote filled with ferns, plants, rocks, bark and of course, dinosaurs. We love the local nature center and need to make it a priority to go more often.

I will start swimming lessons tomorrow. I would love to tell you that I am excited for them, but I am not. Not a big fan of the water. Actually, I like the water, just not going under it. Hopefully, we can gain some ground, er, water, this week.

The moron neighbors are STILL shooting off fireworks and keeping me up each night. Didn't they get the memo that the Holiday is over? Oh well, can't beat a 2 for 1 sale I suppose!

Hope you had an enjoyable weekend. Thanks to the new wave of troops in Afganistan right now fighting for the independence of us and others, we hope they are safe.

Ciao bella!