My Hands May Be Small...

But I can still wrap Daddy around my finger!

Elsha is a Daddy's girl to the extreme. To be honest, I don't think James minds. This is a piture of him getting ready to go to work. See... he's putting his shoes on... oh, he's not??? That's right, Elsha was awake and he couldn't tell her no when she wanted some attention.

The other day I learned that she had followed him into the bathroom and insisted that he hold her. Oh, how I wish I had a picture of him sitting on the pot holding her!

Another time James was holding her (a very common thing in our home) and turned his head to talk to me. Elsha firmly grabbed his chin with both hands and turned him back to face her.

According to Elsha no one and nothing shall detract from the attention she gets from Daddy!

One Day Down...

Xander started pre-school today. We've both been excited for his new class to start. He'll be going 2 days a week (instead of one) and the best part - THERE'S BUS SERVICE from my front door to the school and back again. YEAH!

I asked James yesterday if he thought it was weird that I'm not emotional about the kids going to school. In fact I'm more than a little excited for both to eventually be in school and am thinking of starting an advent calendar of some sort. I shall title it "Days To Mom's Sanity." James assured me I'm normal and everyone that gets emotional are the weirdos. Well that did it - I was fated to get emotional over something.

We got ready this morning, had a big breakfast and talked about what was going to happen today. New school, new teachers, new routines, first time on a bus (and without parents to boot). It was going to be a big day. Xander was happily singing "School Today, School Today" while running around the house and trying to convince me we needed to leave NOW. I decided to pass on the bus ride to school for the first day and would take him myself (all planned ahead with the driver of course). We arrived at school about 10 minutes early - perfect timing if I do say so myself. I talked to the teachers and said goodbye to Xander. I got a little wave as he ran in the classroom - obviously not going to miss me!

On my way back to the car I stopped to talk to the bus driver to confirm Xander's trip home and that he'd be being picked up on Monday. The teacher told me it would be a different driver & bus for the trip home. WHAT!?! I told his teachers to be sure he would get on bus #64 and now there won't be a bus #64?!? The bus driver went on to tell me that he didn't know who the other bus driver was or what bus number it would be. Luckily, one of the teachers was outside with me and said she'd have it all figured out before the kids got done with school. I looked at her and whole heartedly said "You get my boy home safe" She smiled and casually said "We'll get him home." That's when it hit me! I felt the emotions building up in my throat and I couldn't talk. It was part awe that my son is growing up so fast but mostly fear that I wouldn't be bringing him home. This is a whole new experience for me - trusting strangers with my kid and on the road no less!

Class got out at 1:30 - I figured the bus ride would take up to an hour. How many horrible moms put their toddlers on a bus? Not many probably - he'd be home in no time. 2:00 rolled around and I started getting ancy. I wanted to get a picture of Xander coming out of the school bus so I had my camera ready and was on watch. 2:30 came and went and I was quickly turning into PANIC-MOM. I had the front door open because I wouldn't want to waste precious seconds opening the door when he got home. I was sitting, on the floor, looking out our glass door waiting and waiting and waiting. It was HORRID and the longest 15 minutes of my life. Finally, I could see the promised bus coming. I went outside and started down the walk. The bus stopped in front of my house and then started up the road! WAIT! The bus backed up when she saw a crazy woman in the mirror waving. I climbed on board to get Xander - he was the last one on the bus - and completely forgot to get a picture! ARGH!

Keeping Me Guessing

I came in from weeding and I could tell something was different but I wasn't sure what it was. It took me a moment to pin it down but I did... Elsha was sitting on the couch with Daddy watching football (yes she likes football - crazy girl), Jaxson was downstairs watching a show - I could hear the TV going. Where was Xander? It was just too quiet!

"Honey, where's Xander?"

"Um, last I checked he was in his room but the door was closed so I didn't bother him."

"HUH? You're his DAD you're SUPPOSED to bother him."

"He sounded like he was getting in bed - I think he wanted to go to sleep."

"HUH? Xander doesn't do naps. It's a fight each time."

I went to check on him.

I slowly opened the door just in case he was asleep - but really I was just trying to be sneaky so I could catch him red handed getting into whatever trouble he was getting into.

The lights were off.

He was in bed.

His was snuggled under his favorite blanket.

SLEEPING!

(OK! I can't get the picture to load in the right direction and it's really, REALLY frustrating! I'm done messing with it so you get to see it sideways - sorry)

See that green strap under his blanket. He got a new backpack for school today and wouldn't take it off, apparently not even to sleep!

Idaho and Yellowstone 2009

I've been waiting to post about our trip to Idaho and Yellowstone until I get some pictures that are on my Dad's camera. I keep forgetting so I'll just post these for now and when I get their pictures I'll share them too...

Last weekend we went to Idaho to visit family. It was the first time Elsha was going to be able to meet her Great Grandma Decker and her Great Aunt Liz. We had dinner with them on Friday night at one of Jaxson's favorite restraunts - Golden Corral. After dinner we went to their house to let the kids run around and destroy as much of the house as possible. Okay, not really destroy... maybe explore is a better word - and explore they did!

The next morning we went to visit Great Grandma and Grandpa Kidd. I'm VERY frustrated I didn't get more pictures because every time I pulled out the camera Xander decided HE needed to be the one taking the shots. Needless to say I have A LOT of pictures of odd things - but not many of people... grrr. We had a yummy breakfast in the backyard and enjoyed seeing them again.

After that we met my parents at Bear World. Neither of us knew we were both planning a trip to Bear World and Yellowstone until about a day before we left. It was fun having them there. If you haven't been to Bear World I highly recommend it! Most of the pictures from Bear World are on my Dad's camera so I can't share all the fun right now but they have it set up so you can drive through the enclosure for the mountain goats, deer, elk (they have a white elk!) and the BEARS! Bears, bears and more bears all around the vehicle! There are so many and they come right up to the car if you stop too long! They also have 2 wolves (that I could see) roaming around.

The petting zoo was a blast. Xander loved petting the birds, goats and deer. So cute! (I'll share pictures of this soon). Elsha wanted nothing to do with touching the animals but enjoyed the time with her Daddy and looking at all the critters from a far. Jaxson cracked me up - he didn't want to touch the animals at all. Then he went around a bush and was petting a baby deer just out of sight of the camera. I'm not sure if he didn't want anyone to take a picture of him petting the animals or if he just wanted to conqure the fear of touching a wild animal off on his own. Either way I STILL SAW and it was adorable!

"Yeah! Grandma & Grandpa are here!"

There are a handful of rides that are all included with the price of admission. I expected Xander to go from ride to ride for hours that day. He rode the first ride - a car ride - with Grandma and didn't want to ride any more! The ride looked fairly calm and it would've been (we think) but it was extra bouncy with an adult in the backseat. Xander FREAKED out when the ride started doing more than around and around. The bounce was just too much. I'm glad Grandma rode the ride with him though. Xander probably would've crawled out - moving ride or not.

The only other ride we were able to get Xander to ride was the train - I guess it looked calm and safe enough.

Shopping in West Yellowstone was fun UNTIL Xander broke a ceramic stage coach that we needed to then go buy. That pretty much ended our shopping for the day.

Yellowstone was exhibiting some buffalo artwork. We eached picked our favorite and took a picture with it. I tried asking Xander which was his favorite but he didn't really care as long as he could run around and through their legs they were fine with him.

WAIT! Where's the pictures from YELLOWSTONE. Well you see... We went to a BBQ place Saturday night for dinner and James got food poisioning. He was up all night spending time in the bathroom at our cabin. I drove through Yellowstone with James asleep in the passenger seat, Jaxson and Elsha both asleep behind us and Xander in the third row intently watching Blues Clues. I wanted to get a picture of all this fun so bad but the camera was in the center console and James was sleeping on it. Maybe we'll actually visit Yellowstone on our next trip to Yellowstone.

Little Photographer in Training

One of Xander's favorite toys is my camera. I nearly have a heart attack everytime I see him playing with it. After about 6 months of constant fighting with him to leave it alone I finally decided to just show him how to use it and teach him to be extra careful. I also figured if he did break it I would be able to convince James to buy me my dream camera somehow - so why not Xander, PLAY AWAY!

We had a play date with a good friend yesterday. Xander had a blast taking pictures of everyone. Here are some of his best - I don't want to bore you with pictures of shoes, toys, and his swim shorts :)

Mind you he is just barely 3 - so it is VERY likely I will be begging James for a new camera soon. He did very well yesterday with the camera until he was done and then chucked it at me from across the room - I caught it - whew!

hmmm... apparently I was falling asleep or something... But that's the model's fault not the photographers...

I Shouldn't Complain

The other morning we woke up to an invasion of ants. Creepy, crawly little black ants by the millions! Upon investigation I found the dry cereal Xander was snacking on the night before crunched up into little crumbs at the edge of our family room. Xander thought the ants were gross and continued to yell out "GROSS ants" until I got everything cleaned up.

Now, Xander absolutely LOVES using the sweeper vac we have. Any little crumb on the floor and out it comes. Often times he is talking about no more ants while vacuuming.

I really shouldn't complain but when the sweeper vac is going ALL DAY LONG it gets a little old. I guess there are more annoying things he could be doing so I'll just be grateful my kid likes a clean house and is willing to take on some of the work himself.

The CURL-hawk

We have the strangest phenomenon in our house. Elsha’s hair style changes after every nap. Sometimes she wakes up with a head full of tight curls, other times it’s wavy and looks much longer, sometimes it’s loose big curls. My favorite is when she wakes up with the CURL-hawk. The top and back get SUPER curly and poofy while the sides stay close to her head. LOVE IT!

New Blog

I've created a new blog to focus on my different creative endeavors. Feel free to check it out
http://satisfyingmycreativebeast.blogspot.com/