Ah, to be three again!

I guess when you turn three, you have life all figured out! I took Quinn to her free trial class at The Little Gym. I wasn't sure how she would do since this was an independent class for her (she did My Gym last year, which was parent participation). She did great! The first half of the class they did gymnastics and the second half was tap dancing (she got a little scared because it was too loud but got over it and went back in) and ballet. It was too cute!

Anyway, after her class we were on our way to Payless to get her tap shoes and ballet shoes. She told me, and this is pretty much word-for-word, "I'm going to go to school tomorrow. But I'm going without you Mommy. All of the Quinn's get to ride on the bus. I'm just going to miss you. But I'll be back." Huh? She repeated this a few times and threw in a "I'll miss Sydney too" here and there. It was so funny. I just don't know where she comes up with this stuff! Cracks me up, that's for sure!

Now I get it!

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm all of a sudden getting the days off from work that I requested and wondered if it had anything to do with my current boss transferring to another store. It doesn't. Shortly after I was told I couldn't get those days off, I requested my start time to be 5 or later during the week and also requested my hours per week be kept to around 24/26. Turns out they met me half way and gave me the two days off that I originally requested and made my start time 5 or later for 2 out of the 3 week days that I work during the week. I only had 24 hours last week but that's because I had Saturday off for Quinn's b-day! I'm still scheduled and working right around 30 hours per week.

I'm not going to complain however! I know there are lots of people that would snatch that job away from me in a heartbeat! I'll just adjust and smile every other Friday when I see that money in my account!

In other news....I think I'm going to sign the girls up for some classes - dance/gymnastics for Quinn and a sort of tumbling (from what I gather) for Sydney. We are going for our free trial classes this week - Quinn tomorrow and Sydney on Thursday (so much for my nights off!) so we'll see if it's something they'll enjoy. All those extra hours I didn't want will fund those so I guess it all turns out for the best in the end!

Quinn's Big Birthday Bash

It's hard to believe but our little Quinny turned 3 today!

K.C. and I decorated her room in the middle of the night. She came into our room this morning telling me all about the decorations in her room and adding "but it's not my birthday". She's been hearing that it's not her birthday for I don't know how long now! Once I gave her the good news, that it actually IS her birthday today, she got the biggest smile on her face. It was priceless! Here are our decorating skills - don't expect too much, it was midnight after all!


She slept through the decorating process!

Doing her happy decoration dance. She never sits still!

Moved the happy decoration dance to her bed.

Next up was Quinn's requested breakfast - cinnamon rolls!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

And every authentic Princess MUST have a Cinderella moment. Or, as is this case, a Quinnerella moment:

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Next up was the party! And I have to say, only MY daughter can plan her own surprise party and actually be surprised! As for the dress, I don't normally get Holiday dresses. However, when I got to work on Friday night and saw this particular dress, I knew I'd be leaving that night with two of them (yes, Sydney has a matching one so watch for the Holiday pictures.) They were cheap enough to justify spending the money on them as I figure after the holidays they can use them to play dress up. I may even try to make them into their Halloween costumes too! Anyway, here is a 'scrapbook' of the party:

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Make a Smilebox scrapbook

As you can see, we had a great time at the party. We wish you all could have been here but are very thankful for the friends that were able to come help Quinn celebrate! She's already planning her 4th birthday party! If you ask her how old she is, she'll probably tell you that she's going to be 4 on her next birthday. Oh lordy!

Big Girls & Bad Cars

So Sydney does this thing where she likes to stick her hands down her diaper. Short of cutting off her hands and/or duct taping her diaper to her, I have no idea how to fix this. Such is the case as this morning, she will often times stick her hand down the back to 'collect' the treasures that are sitting and waiting. Then I find poop wiped on her top and sometimes on other things and she'll even, dare I say it, stick it in her mouth. Gross, I know, but I have no idea how to stop this! That really has nothing to do with her being a big girl so don't know why I even brought it up other than to have it documented so that I can torment her with it when she's older:) Anyway, as I'm changing her diaper first thing this morning I ask her if she wants to go potty. She says "yes" very enthusiastically. So, thinking that she has no idea what I'm talking about and is just saying yes, I let her get up before putting the clean diaper on her and she runs to the bathroom, lifts up the lid, turns around and waits for me to pick her up and set her on it! I was truly impressed by this! She even pushed a little to try to get something, anything, to come out but the damage was already done in her diaper. So, I go through the whole motion of wiping her off and get her down off the toilet and she flushes it. I was hoping that watching Quinn do this, she would pretty much potty train herself. Without jinxing it, I think she may be a little easier and earlier with the potty training! Yippee! This picture is of our second try after we got home from stroller strides. Nothing was deposited but as least she's willing to try!







While still in a good mood at the thought of an easy potty training ahead, we get in the car to go to stroller strides and I find that my stupid, freakin' seat is broken and I can't scoot it up! It's always something with that car! I panic at first, thinking there is no way I'll be able to drive around like this. Then I remember the old school way of reaching the pedals and run inside for some pillows. I have to say, I feel a little white trashy but what else am I going to do?! Quinn was kind enough to take a picture for me but insisted that she get her picture taken too. Silly kid!

It's Official...

After a year and 8 months of living here, we are officially Pacific Northwesterners with our first purchase of rain boots! I got the only pair in my size so will deal with the design I guess. Quinn got to choose her design as her size was available in a few different ones. Sydney, like me, had to go with the only design we could find in her size (those are horses on hers). K.C. wasn't with us so he'll have to be assimilated later:)

Just in the last few days...

Here's a run down of what my darling girls were up to in the last few days:

Quinn shoved a popcorn kernel up her nose on Friday. I thought it was a boogie so was trying to dig it out with a q-tip. When she protested I had her blow her nose and was actually shocked to see the kernel. Yes, I took a picture!



This is what they were doing when I left for work on Sunday:



Those cartoons were sure interesting!

And I found these pictures on the camera so I know what they did while I was at work:




We went to the salmon hatchery today but I couldn't find my camera so will have to post pictures whenever one of the other moms posts theirs on our meet up site. K.C. met us there so that was nice that we could all be there together. It was fun and the kids got to feed the rainbow trout, which seemed to be the highlight of the whole visit! Sydney was an expert and really impressed the docent with her mad fish food grabbing/throwing abilities. Yes, yes, our little one is gifted and we are so proud:)

***Here is a picture from the hatchery I got from another mom:

That's all of the antics so far but stay tuned - you never know what's going to happen around here!

I lived to see my first pay check!

Friday was pay day and marked two weeks and one day for me at Costco! I'm still trying to deal with the late nights but actually think that I'm getting too much sleep now. In my mind I think I need to sleep longer instead of getting up with the alarm so end up sleeping for 10 hours sometimes! That's easily fixed though. I'm not getting bruised as much so that's good and I'm actually starting to 'help' out people that are about a week behind me in the hiring process.

My boss is going to a different store so now all of a sudden my request for certain days off and certain start times are being honored. Don't know if one has anything to do with the other or not but I'm not complaining either way!

K.C. is doing a great job with the girls and the house. I've been trying to get a chore board in place for us but he's just stepped up on his own to take care of things so don't know that we really need it now!

The girls are loving their time with Daddy and don't ever protest when I leave for work (well, Quinn did once but she was woken up from a too-short nap in the car). That makes me feel good. I like that they aren't so dependant on me and actually go to Daddy when I'm home sometimes.

I've had my next door neighbors come through my line which was funny for both of us! I know the kids more than I know the parents so I'm sure I had a confused look on my face, as did they, when we saw each other. My friend Annie and her family were in too so found me to say hi.

I'm going to have to go shopping for smaller jeans again! Between the AdvoCare products (http://www.advocare.com/08081251) and all of the exercise I'm getting while working, my 'skinny' jeans are too big for me now! BONUS! I've almost got my pre-baby body back so that means I'll probably get knocked up again:)

So, all in all, the job is going well and everyone is adjusting to it just fine. I loved seeing that check and loved that I didn't have to split it with anyone because of child care this time! Instead, I sent it ALL to the credit card company:( I only have to do that about a dozen or so more times before I can start calling it all mine! (sigh)