Rah ah, ooh la la

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We had a lovely Thanksgiving with my dad’s family. My dad cooked and sent us home with lots of leftover, which we managed to make last through most of the weekend. I did not remember to take pictures until the very end, but I did get one of Romelie sitting on my bed reading some books and one of Chase, my cousin Brandon’s son, toddling around. He just turned one around the same time Romelie turned two, but he’s walking like a pro.

My dad kept Romelie overnight on Thanksgiving (thanks again, Dad!), so I got to sleep in and then head to Target and Best Buy for some awesome Black Friday deals without the crazy 5 am rush line. I got a bag of Legolos for Romelie for $10, a cheapie DVD player for upstairs, and a fancy, brand-spankin’ new phone. It’s a Samsung Instinct, basically Sprint’s equivalent of an iPhone, and it’s awesome. And because of Black Friday (and me renewing my contract for another 2 years, which I would have done anyway), I got this $600 phone for free, plus some other random accessories that I will never use – such as a Bluetooth. I have since downloaded “Wheel of Fortune,” “Carmen Sandiego,” and “Oregon Trail.” Who picks nerdy apps for her fancy phone? This gal. But Crystal told me about a website (phonezoo.com) where you can create awesome ringtones from mp3 files, so I now get to hear the opening of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” when anyone calls me. For those who haven’t heard the song, it goes something like this:

Rah-ah-ah-ah-ah
Roma Roma-ma
GaGa ooh la la
Want your bad romance

Trust me…it’s awesome.

Finally, yesterday at morning church Romelie and Linus, a boy a few months older than her, were the only two kids in the daycare for the first hour or so. They were playing really well together and laughing, and then Romelie went over to the pack-and-play we have and wanted to (pretend to) go night-night. After I put her in, Linus came over and wanted to (pretend to) go night-night, too. The crib isn’t super big, and Romelie has a tendency to cry when kids at the daycare breathe too close to her, let alone share an enclosed space. But I scootched her over and laid Linus down…and they just hung out in there for about 5 minutes. They would fake snore, then one would make a funny noises to “wake” the other, and then they’d both giggle their heads off. It was adorable.

Go Vikes! 10-1-0, baby. Suck it, Packers.

Romelie is two years old!

Happy birthday, kiddo! Okay, so her actual birthday was last week, but still worth a big bloggy celebration, don’t you think?

For Romelie’s birthday, we went to the Mall of America. Romelie has only been there once before, and it was to get her picture taken with Santa. I figured we could get that taken care of before Thanksgiving and it wouldn’t be so crazy busy. And I was right. Check out the super duper cuteness.

After pictures, Chason, my mom and I took Romelie to dinner at Bubba Gumps (it was convenient) and then down to Nickelodeon Universe. Apparently if you go on your birthday, you can get an unlimited ride wristband for free. Which is what we did. It was not crowded at all, being a Monday night, but it was pretty late, so we only went on three rides. Romelie rode on the merry go round with me, on a train ride with Gramma Carol, and then on her first (kiddie) roller coaster with her dad! She thought it was great the first three times around the track…then cried the last 4. Ah, well. She half-enjoyed it.

We also visited the doctor on her birthday for her 2-year well-kid check up. She’s healthy, growth is right on target (38” tall!!!), and no red flags. In light of her turning two and no longer needing to drink as much milk, we have also officially said bye-bye to the bottle. It’s all sippy cups from here. Romelie had already stopped using bottles at day care, so the transition didn’t seem to disrupt her too much. And because she’s drinking less milk, we’re letting her eat more yogurt and cottage cheese, which she loves but didn’t really need before. Everyone wins.

In other news…we had a big rake-a-thon a couple weekends ago. Romelie helped. The weather has been relatively warm the last week, so we’ve been able to play outside, which has been a relief for everyone.

Also, I made Romelie a t-shirt! There isn’t a lot of Yo Gabba Gabba merchandise out there, and she love the show so much, I wanted to get her a shirt to wear. So I bought some fabric markers and a plain white long sleeved shirt, and I did some old fashioned tracing and coloring. She seemed excited about her shirt, and I wanted to take a bunch of pictures of her wearing it before I wash it. It’s supposed to be water-proof, but just in case…

Going to my dad’s for Thanksgiving this year, and then he’s keeping Romelie for the night so I can (possibly) check out some Black Friday sales. Wish me luck!

We love you, Houston!

I love comments on my blog. It's nice to know that people read it and it makes me smile to hear nice things said about my family. But seriously...viagra spam? On my tiny little family blog that 10 people read? Give me a break. Since I can't delete the stupid spam (check my last blog entry if you have no idea what I'm talking about), I have changed my settings. Now I will have to approve all comments before they can post. So friends, please don't think I'm trying to filter you - you I love! Say what you like!

Happy Halloween, everyone! I know, it's been a while. I didn't take too many pics of Romelie in her duck costume, but I know my mom took a ton the previous weekend so I'll post some of those when I see her next and steal her camera. We had a low-key evening. We decided to surprise my grandparents (my mom's folks and my dad's mom) and spent a little time hanging out at each of their homes, and then we put on some aluminum foil hats and headed over to Chipotle for some free burritos. Best free promo ever.

Volleyball season has ended. We came in 6th place out of 30 teams, so I'm pretty proud of the players. The girls gave me a volleyball-themed blanket with all their names and numbers embroidered which was very thoughtful and is super warm, and now I'm just enjoying having my afternoons with my family. Granted, I start coaching speech at BSM on Tuesday. It's a short break...

And we're back from Texas! We had a nice, relaxing time in Houston. We spent most of Friday with Chason's mom and with Bronwyn and her family. There was a fall festival at Torin's school, so we went there and had snowcones and got balloons and tattoos, then headed to Bronwyn's for dinner. The kids played pretty well together, and I rocked out on Torin's "Rock Star" game. Because I'm awesome.

Saturday we had a birthday party for Romelie at the Dancers' home. Romelie got to see her family, play with some kids, eat some cake, open presents, play with balloons, and get lots of hugs and attention. It was a really nice way to celebrate her birthday. Thank you so much to everyone who was able to be there, and thanks especially to Angel and Steve for hosting and putting so much thought into making the day special for Romelie.

Chason and I got to see a movie on Sunday night, "The Men Who Stare at Goats." Not bad. First movie I've seen in a theater since "Twilight," so I enjoyed the night out!! Sunday we relaxed at home, and Monday we visited with our friend Trisha and her daughter during the day and then we saw Aunt Crystal in the evening. It was so wonderful to spend time with our friends, and unfortunately I'm a total schmo and didn't take any pictures. Boo. But we love them and can't wait to see them again when I will take hundreds of pictures to make up for my slacking.

By the way, Crystal completed The Breast Cancer 3-Day in Dallas/Ft. Worth while we were in Houston! She walked 60 miles in three days to raise money for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust. I'm so proud of her accomplishment, but she's not done yet. She still needs to finish up her fundraising to reach her (required) goal of $2300. If she doesn't reach this goal, she pays the difference herself out of pocket! She's already done so much good, so if you can help her out, you'd be giving to a wonderful cause as well as congratulating an amazing accomplishment. Click on this link: http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/DallasFtWorthEvent2009?px=2145147&pg=personal&fr_id=1295 Give $5, give $100, give whatever you can afford; any amount will help. And yay Crystal.

Finally, we saw Cinderella last night at The Children's Theatre. As some of you know, this is my favorite play/production of all time, and it's the reason I purchased season tickets to CTC this year. The production hasn't been done in 10 years (due in part, I'm sure, to the fact that Wendy Lehr, who has always played the role of Pearl, one of the stepsisters, is no longer with the company), and I wasn't sure what sort of changes they were going to make. I won't go into too much detail (mostly because I'm sure I care about it way more than anyone else would), but although I was disappointed with a couple of the changes, overall it was a wonderful show. I dragged Chason along, and both he and Romelie managed to sit through the entire performance - a big achievement for both of them, I promise. ;)

Romelie turns two on Monday!! I'll tell you all about it next week. Meanwhile, here's more pictures from her birthday party.

The circus and other craziness

Wow, the circus. What a crazy thing. I had only been to the circus once, I think, when I was a kid. And I've decided I should probably not go back to the circus again. Don't get me wrong - it was pretty cool. But they do very dangerous stunts without any kind of safety net that I can see, and I had to look away for half of it because I was so scared for the performers.

Here's an example - man and woman are on a trapeze-like thing, except instead of swinging through the air, they do crazy stunts. Their finale was this (picture it if you will): Man is hanging from the bar by his TEETH. His teeth. No lie. He is flexing his feet, and the woman is lying perpendicular to his body and to the ground across the tops of his feet. And then they spin really, really fast. He's holding up both of their body weight with his teeth, holding her up by the strength of his foot flexing, and they are spinning! And this was only the second act. I also sat through crazy motorcycling on tightropes, running around a big spinning wheel wearing a blindfold, and a guy being shot out of a cannon. I was terrified; Romelie loved it. And she got to ride an elephant, which is kind of cool.

Romelie's been a little off the last couple of weeks. Her sleeping patterns have been weird (she's had a couple nights where she wakes up repeatedly - very unusual for her - and she's had days where she doesn't nap), she cries throughout diaper changes, and she throws more fits that last longer than usual. Not really sure what's going on there. It didn't help that a lot of this happened last week, which was an incredibly difficult week for both Chason and me at work. I had to teach four different lessons at five different schools AND perform our newest play on energy (this sexy picture shows Thomas Edison - me - and Nikola Tesla. I did the costuming, by the way. You're impressed, you know it). So I was pretty sleep deprived and stress-y. But hopefully this is just a phase or something. We have our 2-year well-kid check up in a couple weeks, so I'll mention it to Dr. Dukinfield if it's still going on.

Also, Chason and I had an extended weekend without Romelie. It was very strange. My mom took her up to her home from Friday through Tuesday. Chason and I didn't know what to do with ourselves! We did go out for lunch one day, but we mostly just sat at home and relaxed. Which is okay, right? We missed our kid, though, and we're both glad she's back. Granted, she totally hurt our feelings by refusing to let either of us hold her on Tuesday night and crying when we did. So mean...

And now we're just getting back into our regular routine. We've got some fun plans for the weekend. Romelie and I are going to go to BSM's Varsity volleyball sectionals match Friday night, and then Chason and Romelie are going to a Halloween party Saturday morning while I'm at my last volleyball tournament of the season (we won again and we're in pool 2! My team rocks). Then our neighborhood is doing a Halloween party in the evening, so I think we'll just go to that and skip any actual trick-or-treating (since no one in our neighborhood seems to do it...). I'll take pics of Romelie in her costume. This pic, by the way, is not her Halloween costume. She's going as a duck this year, but there are some dress up clothes at the church nursery, so a couple Sundays ago, I dressed up the four kids that were there and took a few photos. It was pretty cute. At any rate, I'll take more pics of Romelie in her duck costume and post them before we go to HOUSTON next Thursday!!

Finally, a few more cute photos and a video for you to enjoy. Romelie has started to do some creative play or whatever you want to call it. She does things like put diapers on her stuffed animals, feed sthem, cleans them, puts them to bed, etc. So here's Romelie taking care of her "friends" (as we've started to call everyone).

And here are two videos. In the first, she's waking everyone up from naptime and letting them play and bounce. In the second, she's singing Twinkle Twinkle. And not listening to her mom. That's not too unusual, though.

...and now, welcome winter!

Apparently we skipped fall in MN. Actually, we didn't skip it; it lasted two weeks and it rained the entire time. Just as a quick reminder, go ahead and scroll down two posts. Take a look at the pictures of Romelie playing outside in the water fountains at the zoo. That was September 6. Labor Day weekend. She's outside, shirtless, soaking wet, and having a great time.

This was Saturday, October 10:

Now, the snow melted by the afternoon. But it snowed again Monday (most of the day, actually). That snow has also since melted. But it's supposed to snow again this weekend. Minnesota...you are one cruel bastard.

On to other news. Let's see...Romelie has a new favorite song. It's "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." She likes for you to sing it over and over again. I did it in the car the entire way home from church last weekend to keep her happy. That's a lot of repetition. She can also basically sing the song herself. She doesn't get all the words out, and she stops halfway through, but it sounds something like "Tinkle, star, How-I wonda...are. Up abuh...hi...die-muh...sky..." And she seems to understand the melody, too.

She also had a couple of coloring incidents. Since the snow, we moved her little play table inside and it's become a coloring table in the basement. Well, on Saturday she was coloring in her book and apparently thought to herself, "You know what would be even more fun to color on? Me!" So she did. She was, by the way, wearing a shirt. She actually pulled her shirt up to color on her belly.

Of course, after her success at coloring all over herself, she must have decided that she couldn't be restricted to coloring just on paper. So she colored on our dresser. Unfortunately, and this is entirely my fault, she did so with a black permanent marker which I had stupidly left within her reach. So now Chason's underwear drawer is a little scribblier.

In other news...last night, we went to see "Bert and Ernie, Goodnight!" at the Children's Theatre again. I got 4 free tickets through a free theater promotion, so Chason, Romelie, my mom and I went to the show. Romelie started off a little strange (she got scared when we walked in the theater and wanted to leave), but once the show started, she was good to go. I think we're just going to relax at home tonight, because tomorrow we're going to the Shrine Circus! I haven't been to the circus since I was a kid. Hope Romelie likes it.

Two weeks left of volleyball. I haven't talked about the season too much in this blog, but if you want to see how awesome my team is, check out our season so far: http://bsmsports.org/fall-teams/volleyball/junior-high-red/. I'm pretty proud of them. I'm also ready to be done in two weeks. Also two more weeks until Halloween! Less than three weeks and we'll be in Houston! And Romelie's 2nd birthday is one month from today! Exclamation points are awesome!!

Beaty Beat Clap Clap and Funny Faces

Yo Gabba Gabba has become an almost daily routine - especially since the crappy weather has cut into our outside time. Here are a couple of videos I caught of her on Monday night. Who says TV can't be interactive and fun?

First, the beaty-beat-beat-beaty-beat-clap-clap video (you'll understand):

And of course, funny faces:

Welcome Fall!

Sorry for the delayed update. I'm blaming working three jobs. Trump that.

We'll just try to go in chronological order. Indianapolis was fun. We re-wrote a script, ate at some local downtown restaurants, and played in the museum. Here's a picture of my boss playing on a toy truck. My boss is awesome. The Bakken education dept also went on a field trip to Cummins, where my dad works, to get a tour and learn a little about the company. It was fun, we got a cool idea for how to use a generator in our new energy play, and I got to introduce everyone to my dad and vice versa (and feel all proud). I had one of my co-workers take a picture because I'm immature.

Romelie and my mom and I took a trip to Chuck E Cheese. It was our second time there, and Romelie seemed to have a lot more fun this time. She even earned herself a few tickets and got some stickers. There's a machine where you can get a picture "drawn" of you. Here's a quick comparison of our picture from February to our picture from September:

We also had a chance to visit with my Grandma and Grandpa Schwantz, and Romelie was mostly good...until we tried to take pictures of her with them. Pretend she's smiling in these pictures, though, and they suddenly become lots cuter:

Last weekend we took Romelie to the zoo again. She remembered the water park area, so that's where we spent a good 20 minutes. It was really nice outside, which was lovely. Unfortunately, it looks like we've seen the last of the nice weather because it has been cold and rainy for the past week. We had to turn on our heat on the first day of October. Ah Minnesota. You are a cold hearted beast.

Other general Romelie news...she has started singing. She attempts to sing her ABC's (though she misses most of the letters), she sings a couple of the words of Winnie the Pooh, and this morning she was singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the way home from church. Actually, she was just singing twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle over and over again, but she was doing it to the right tune. Close enough. She also has number recognition for numbers 1-9 and letter recognition for about 9-10 letters. She knows 4-5 shapes, most of her colors, and she's learned how to take off her footie-pajamas at night (which involves unzipping them all the way and then pulling them off). As long as she doesn't figure out how to take off her diaper...I'm okay with this.

We've got a couple of play dates coming up. Like, actually going to see some plays. We got free tickets to see "Bert and Ernie Goodnight!" again at the Children's Theatre, and we're seeing "I Like Me" at Stages where we saw "Wizard of Oz" a few months back. She's done great so far, so hopefully she'll continue to be entertained and happy during the performances.

I could write more (there was a lovely incident where I took away her ice cream because she wouldn't share even though we'd already talked about how she could only have it if she would share and then she screamed for 20 minutes...), but instead I'll leave you with this cute video from the zoo.