Sponge Rollers

I love sponge rollers. Love. Summer doesn't seem to mind them either, she can sleep in them just fine. She doesn't mind much when I put them in after her bath. I love the way they transform my little mostly straight long haired girl into a curly bouncy short haired thing. I can't believe how different she looks with curls! Why won't my hair do that with sponge rollers - or will it?




Not to mention how cute pink boots are - and sweater dresses, ok fine, everything about her is cute and she knows because I tell her. How could I not, look at that face!

Halloween - Recap

I know, Halloween is 14 days past but I never posted about our parties, silly me! I took some cute pictures of my little witch and I wanted to share those too.

Friday Night, October 29th, was the party at Rachel's house. Or maybe you know her as Carissa's mom ... either way her party. Summer dressed as her scary witch and I used an old costume and morphed into Raggedy Ann.



I didn't take many pictures at the party but these two, here is a picture of all the kids being scared by a monster while playing unsuspectingly in Carissa's room. Playing or destroying - yet to be determined really. Out of the 5 kids, 2 of them were scared into tears, somehow, to my surprise, Summer was not one of those kids.


In fact Summer was willing to hug the scary monster once we told her he was nice and she realized he was only pretend.



Saturday night was the party at the Springston's house. We dressed up as a lumberjack family and headed out. We ate, we played games, we ate, we ran into yet another monster! He was a twister master but apparently Summer is more than a master because she won that game.




On Sunday, October 31st, we finally got around to carving our pumpkins. Sorta, Kris and I got around to it while Summer stood back and held her nose. She wouldn't even put her hand in the scooped pumpkin to let me get a picture!



We went trick or treating around our neighborhood, which proved to be a success, her bucket filled up quickly, so fast we decided to go home early and then Summer gave out candy - which she truly enjoyed.

Backing up just a bit, earlier on the 31st we decided to do the family thing, get haircuts, or at least trims. This was the first time Summer had her hair cut and it was such a small amount you really can't even tell, but no doubt it was needed, those ends have been there since the beginning.


She did fine with the trim, she sat there and paid attention for the entire 5 minutes it took the lady to trim her hair. I even got a little paper with her hair taped in it for her baby book, yes I am still updating that baby book!

So there, better late than never!

Apples & Eggplants & Bears - Oh My!

Another early start to our day resulted in a trip to the local orchard. I hate the word orchard, I can never say it correctly, but anyway, the orchard normally cost $3 to drive in, free to walk in. Since it was very chilly this morning we wanted to drive. They didn't charge us because they said the place was a mess - we didn't notice. We saw lots of vegetables still edible, and ended up picking out two nice size eggplants. I have a recipe from the mother in law that I will make in a few days, I need to find another.

We also wanted apples, green granny apples, and apple cider that they make fresh. I have never picked an apple off a tree until today and it was so much fun. The trees were full of apples ready to be picked. Summer found a nice smaller sized apple that she started munching. I tasted it and was surprised to find out how sweet it was, I figured it would be sour since it was so small, not at all.






Overall it was a great hour, we all got some fresh air, we got some fresh fruits and veggies and took a few pictures, what more can you ask for?

She can read?

I decided to start schooling Summer this past August when all the other kids went back to school, mostly because I had time and I thought she would enjoy it. At first I figured we would spend about 3-4 hours a morning on school, after we started and reality set in it was more like an hour at the most. In the beginning I planned out elaborate lesson plans and spent a lot of time on the computer researching and finding ideas. It was a lot of work!

Background: When Summer started actually watching TV she enjoyed watching Sesame Street. At some point Summer found Word World and every night before bed Summer watches World Word to help wind down and learn a little. My point is - it wasn't all me!

After a couple months of busy school and seeing what did and didn't work I took a new approach, I would not work on letters because Summer knew them all, somehow, uppercase and lowercase and all their sounds. She cannot write them very well and really has no interest in trying to write the little letters in the lines, so we stopped trying, instead we took the bucket of foam letters, dumped them on the carpet in the middle of the room - away from the kitchen table where we started originally, and created words. I would give Summer three letters, for example a C O W in random order and tell her to sound out and spell cow. Then I would put it aside and do another word. Most of the words were three letters words, besides her name. After we spelled about 12-15 words, that I had set aside, I had Summer try to read them back to me, so not only was she sounding them out and spelling the word, she was also sounding out the same words and reading them. I didn't think it was really working until this weekend.

Dr. Seuss, he is amazing, and thanks to some of his silly books I realized that Summer could figure out the words in the books. She would say little and if the word was small I would say no sound it out and she would figure it out. This went on all weekend and I figured she might actually be able to read more. At the bookstore today I bought a pack of first word flashcards. I got home tonight, opened the pack, and to my shocking surprise, Summer was able to sound out and read the words!

I am in shock. My child, at 3 years old, can read. I said she would be reading by 3 but I didn't figure it would be this early, she just turned 3 in July! She has work to do yet but she has the general idea, thanks to Sesame Street, World Word, and foam letters!



Being a mom is so rewarding!

All Better and Busy

Summer recovered quickly, as expected it was a 12 hour bug, by the next morning she was completely better! We decided to take the new camera to a place just outside the city and see if we could get a few Fall photos while enjoying the lovely day.


After we played outside we headed to the strip to do some looking and shopping. Las Vegas has so many cool (but expensive) shopping areas, we really like to walk around, look, shop, eat. We headed to the Canal Shoppes in the Venetian and some other fancy stores by the Wynn.

I would love to tell you where we were exactly here, this waterfall was really neat but I just can't remember where it was exactly - yah we walked that much.


This staircase is located in Barneys New York, Kris wanted to smell some of the fancy smancy colognes they have.


I don't know what this soap store was called but we ended up buying some bath balls/bomb things, you put it in the water and it smells up your bath and turns the water a different color. We bought three of the balls, Summer and I enjoyed a very orange bath last night.


Pictures walking between casinos to stores.


This lady, princess, queen, whatever we told Summer she was, magically showed up after Summer watched her perform with some jesters and after Summer had made a wish with one of the 10 pennies I gave her into the waterfall wishing that she would show up and hug her. She didn't get to hug her but the fact that she showed up was really exciting. She sang opera earlier during our walks through the stores.


Besides shopping, walking, eating, we also had some Italian ice cream, twice actually, once when we first arrived and again before we left - see I told you we were there a long time! It was good too, so creamy!

I guess I like living here, Las Vegas has its cons but it has pros too - like today we are only in the 60s but the sun is shining and at least it looks warm out!

Throwing Up

This morning at exactly 7:42, well I think, somewhere just before 8:00 AM, I heard Summer wake up, get out of bed, open the gate, come down the stairs and into our room and announce WAIT - before I tell you what she said let me tell you how she normally wakes up, normal is closer to 7:00 where she yells from her bed "MOM IS IT TIME TO WAKE UP?" to which I say Yes as I stumble out of bed and meet her at the bottom of the stairs, so as she was walking into our room I thought to myself, wow this is nice, she can come crawl back in bed with us, until she announced that she had thrown up in her bed and it was all over her hair and arm and she was sick. I decided it wouldn't be a good idea for her to crawl into our bed and I had better get up and clean her up. Luckily she was in high spirits and thought it pretty cool to have gotten sick, to be sick actually, because her friend was just sick and now she was sick like her friend. I guess - kids.

She had thrown up sometime earlier in the night because chunks of dinner were stuck in her hair. I had her get in the shower and washed her hair twice, conditioned it once, to no avail, pieces were still there but I figure they were clean by that point right?

She felt pretty good most of the morning, threw up again in the toilet before she made it out of the bathroom, threw up again in a bucket while watching cartoons, and again all over her bed, again on the couch while napping to Alice in Wonderland, which is good because I really don't think that movie is a kid movie, I put it on because she wanted to watch it knowing she was going to fall asleep.

Anyway here it is 1:31 and she has been asleep for about 30 minutes, and therefore hasn't puked in the last half hour. I hope she is starting to get over it, she wakes up hungry and eats then throws it all back up. She has been drinking a lot of water but not like it stays down. At least she doesn't have a fever, at least her friend had it so I know what to expect!

Until she is better we are staying home and (not spending money) and hanging around the house. Laying on the floor ... or on the couch with a throw up bucket under her arm and her butt in the air.



Whatever works. I figure I will probably get it soon and so I am eating a ton of Halloween candy in preparation. Hah, likely excuse!

Halloween Peanut Butter Reeces Cookies

Halloween Peanut Butter Reeces Cookies - I really don't know what these are called but they are delicious and I wanted to make them for a Halloween party tonight. There really isn't a lot of desserts that are easier than this one - not to mention how delicious they are, so I decided to spice this up a bit and give it a spooky feel. First you need two miniature cupcake pans and some miniature cupcake papers. I actually found little orange pumpkin papers to use - score!


Next you need to buy a package of peanut butter cookie mix from the baking isle in the grocery store. It will cost a few bucks if that and my package needed oil, water, and eggs. Make the cookies as directed. When they are all mixed, form the cookies into little balls and set in the papers inside the pans.


Don't even bother trying to get 48, I always end up being 2 short for some reason. After they are all balled and ready to go, open a bag of Reece's Peanut Butter cups. Here is the annoying part, you have to open each single reeces being careful to remove the foil and paper. Then you stick the reeces into the middle of the cookie ball in the baking pan like so.


It isn't really hard, it just takes some time. A lot of recipes online will tell you to wait and stick the chocolate in after you are done baking the cookies, but I don't know why you would want to wait.

Bake the cookies for about 7-8 minutes, do not bake them the time indicated on the cookie mix bag, they will burn and it will stink, not that I would know :o) Anyway I only baked mine for 7 minutes and they were perfect.

The chocolate will be hot and gooey, let them cool - or if you want them to be more spooky add fun Halloween sprinkles! I made a silly centerpiece out of the foil from the reeces and balled it together, then I covered with a black napkin, tied it together with parts from the reeces bag and glued on a paper lining hat!


Oh I almost forgot to mention, there are only about 38 reeces in a bag so make sure you buy two bags if you want to make 48, or 46, cookies.

Cool and enjoy, they are easy and very delicious but probably unhealthy. They are super rich so don't eat more than like 10 at one time.