A star is born ....

Tonight's the big night - Helaina's first play.  Yippee!  Just like the line in one of the songs, "can you feel the magic in the air". 

Her celebration cake is ready ...

... and so are her flowers.

Now, if only Mommy can stop being so nervous.  Helaina's fine - it's me with the butterflies in my stomach!

Dinomania

Our local kids museum had the traveling Dinomania exhibit in November and Helaina loved it.  She got to see the dinosaurs that she loves from one of her favorite cartoons the Land Before Time (an oldie but goodie).  Triceratops is her favorite dinosaur and it was the first one she saw when we entered the exhibit.  You can see the excitement on her cute little face.

We'd work our way through the exhibit but Helaina would always run back to the Momma and 2 baby triceratops.  She was very impressed that all the dinosaurs moved and roared.

"It's just like Topsie.", a dinosaur from the cartoon.

They were all pretty lifelike.

The eggs hatching was another favorite.  They moved as they "hatched" from the eggs.

My fav, the t-rex.

Can't leave without taking on the rock climbing wall.

This kid cracks me up.  She was trying to use these pulleys to lift 2 weights off the ground.  When she couldn't do it she layed on the ground and braced her feet and entire body, grunting all the way.  Determined little tike, isn't she.

The last weekend of November was still warm enough for some final visits to the parks.

The "shakey bridge" as Helaina calls it, and monkey bar mania.

Monkey bars are not just for swinging across.  Superman style down the slide.

Yah, November was a good month.  So much for that.  It's very cold, windy and snowy now.  The party's over.

Mailing Santa's Letter

We had a few extra minutes the other day before heading out to school so Helaina grabbed her letter to Santa and asked for a stamp.  By the way, she's wearing "Snakey" around her neck - her pet snake.  Helaina has recently become infatuated with snakes - this from the girl who wouldn't even stand next to the reptile's glass enclosure at the zoo.  More on the snake obsession some other time.

"Mom, I need a REAL stamp."

Mailing her letter on the way to the bus stop.

And by mailing, I mean her putting the letter in our mailbox on the way to the bus stop and me taking it out of the mailbox on my walk back to the house.

The envelope containint the all-important letter.

I think that Helaina thinks Santa's going to build a basketball court in our backyard overnight on December 24th.

Sunday morning heading into the dress rehearsal for the play Helaina will be in Saturday night.  We were instructed to take her to the side of the theater and look for the "artist entrance".  Artist entrance - ha, our little performance artist!

Just a glimpse of Helaina's feathery bluebird headband.  She was so excited to finally be at the theater in her costume and get her chance to be on stage.  I also thought she was a bit nervous or maybe slightly apprehensive when her dance instructor came to line up the woodland creatures and lead them on stage to practice.  Jim didn't think so, but I think you can see it in her face in this pic.  It didn't last for long though because when they came back in between their scenes she was smiling, laughing, jumping with excitement and totally thrilled.  I don't know who is more excited about this weekend's show, Helaina or Jim and I.
Funny Helaina:
Helaina asked me a question the other night at dinner and it was a question she knew the answer to.  I gave her my usual response.  "Helaina, you know the answer to that question.  Why did you ask it if you knew the answer?"  Her response:  "Just to aggravate you."  Okay.....

One of Helaina's 4th grade pals at our bus stop is on the bus patrol this week.  Helaina was explaining to Jim and I what the kids to when they are on the bus patrol.  Jim said to her "I'm going to be on your bus patrol."  Helaina said to him "You can't.  You're an old man."  Oh my gosh, cracked us up.

Helaina has asked a lot of questions about marriage recently.  "When will I get married?  Who will I marry?  Will you come to my wedding?  Will you buy me pretty flowers to hold?"  Lately she's expanded her daily 1,000 questions to babies.  Her most recent question centers around the fact that we've told her she has to be in love and married to her husband before she can have a baby (we can only pray!):  "How will the baby in my belly know if I'm married or not?"  Talk about forward thinking.

More November niceness

Shortly after Halloween we attended the zoo's annual Squishing of the Squash which was held on another nice day at the beginning of November.  There are pumpkins for the animals to play with as well as an underwater pumpkin carving demo in the penguin pool.

Joshua trying to get his small pumpkin out from behind the rock.  When he got it he walked around his enclosure holding it in his mouth.  We just love the lion exhibit at our zoo.  The entire area is enclosed with a floor-to-ceiling wall of glass and the lions are always hanging out near the glass.  It's so cool.

Helaina insisted on bringing her baby in to the zoo with her that day.  It's kind of a heavy doll and we tried to talk her out of it because we knew she'd get tired of toting it around and pawn it off on us.  We made it VERY clear to her that Jim and I weren't going to take it off her hands when she got tired of carrying the top-heavy doll.  The time eventually came: "Mommy, will you carry my baby?"  No.  "Daddy, will you carry my baby now?  She's too heavy."  Uh, no, told you so.  Meanies, aren't we.

Penguins are so cute, in an awkward kind of way.

How many divers does it take to carve a pumpkin under water?

Two.

Pretty cool.

Wild haired baby and Helaina on the teeny tiny elephant statue.

These lemurs were funny.  Their heads would almost turn in unison when someone walked by.

Our little actress, really.  Helaina saw one of her friends perform with our local children's theater over the summer in the production of Wonderland (as in Alice), and she begged to be able to sing and dance on stage just like her friend.  She absolutely loves to sing and dance and act out scenes from her favorite movies, so, suckers that we are, we signed her up.  Since September Helaina's been taking weekly classes at our local children's theater.  She has three 25-minute sessions each week.  Acting (yah, ha!), singing and dance.  She's had a blast and it's good for her.  Anyone who knows Helaina knows that she's exploding with energy and needs to release it some way.  Next weekend is her debut in the Rockin' Tale of Snow White.  She's playing one of the woodland animals (all the 5-year olds are woodland creatures).  Helaina's the bird, she has one line in the play, and is in several of the song and dance numbers with the entire cast and one song/dance routine with Snow White.  Thrilling for a 5-year old.  She's worked very hard learning the songs and the sometimes complicated dance routines.  Tomorrow is her dress rehearsal at the theater where they will perform.  Squeal!

Oh, yah.  That brings me to costume making.  I searched high and low for a bird costume around Halloween but no such luck.  I found Big Bird and the Angry Birds (whatever oddity those things are), but no "woodland creature" bird costume.  I checked every store and internet site I could find with no luck.  I DON'T sew, but I'm good with a hot glue gun so my internet search began.  I took ideas from several sites (Martha Stewart and "ask how" sites), combined them and came up with a vision.  Well, after MANY craft store visits (with enough miles put on my car to drive to Florida and back), trial and error mishaps, changes in plans, swearing, tears, frustrated phone calls to Jim, hot glued fingers, countless hours, late nights and actually having to cut one of the completed "wings" off the costume and start over again, I finished the bluebird "costume", wings and headband 2 days ago.  It took 26 felt squares, a million glue sticks, a few feathers, a lot of cursing and a bottle of L'Oreal hair color to cover up my newly sprouted (but well deserved) gray hairs.  I must say, though, it's exactly as I envisioned  and I'm pleased with it.  First time I tried it on Helaina she got a huge smile on her face, started flapping her "wings" and danced around the family room so it was worth it.  Man, what we won't do for our kids, huh?

November nice weather

December is now here but November was a considerably warm month for Central New York.  We had plenty of time to get yard work chores done and Helaina had an extra month for outdoor activities.

Helaina's into "driveway art" now.  She grabs her giant bucket of chalk and creates her masterpieces.

By the time she's finished drawing she's covered in chalk dust and driveway dirt.  She's sporting Barbie hair clips in her hair.  I especially like the purple one!

Voila, done.  A self portrait, a picture of Zoey and a few other oddities.

Helaina was riding her bike one Sunday morning and who came speeding by?  Uncle Jack.  The second Helaina figured out who it was she yelled to him "Want to have a race?"

Helaina and her rickety old Barbie bike beat Uncle Jack on his spiffy wheels every time.  Imagine that!



Turkey Day

Thanksgiving is over, the Fall decorations are coming down and the Christmas decorations are going up (reluctantly).  Helaina is very anxious to decorate for Christmas.  Today she asked when we're putting up our tree and when will it snow.  We put up her little pink tree and yellow chick and plugged them in to keep her quiet.  I think if the decorations are up she believes Christmas (and snow) will get here sooner.  We put up outdoor lights the day after Thanksgiving because it was so nice outside but planned on waiting at least a week to turn them on, but Helaina insisted that the house be lit up, so it is.  A little too early for me, but the outdoor wreath and holiday doormat is out too. Yikes.

Helaina's Thanksgiving hat she made in school.

Yah, my birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year.  Every 6 or 7 years it falls on Thanksgiving, depending on when a leap year rolls around.  Needless to say, it was a working birthday for me.  We went out for my birthday dinner last Saturday night because who goes out to dinner Thanksgiving night?  That was my birthday cheesecake that Jim ordered for me.  Amaretto, yummy.

Um, whose birthday was it?

Anna wasn't in the mood to be photographed at this particular moment.  She was too busy walking around wearing Helaina's wedding veil and asking people to marry her.

Sophia, on the other hand, is very photo friendly.  She's too young to know that cameras are clicking in her face every few minutes.  She's 5 months now and smiles even when you just glance at her.  I think she had just stuffed handfuls of mashed potatoes in her cheeks and was saving them for later - ha ha.  Too stinkin' cute.  Her hair at this age is exactly like Anna's was.  We're waiting for it to go into a wave then the ringlets just like Anna's did.

I found this turkey at Walmart and had to have it.  I thought it was artificial until I picked it up to put in my cart.  It's a real flower.  Clever.

Some school art.  "I'm thankful for my mouse"?  Hmmm. What mouse?  Is there something she's hiding in her room we don't know about?

Just love the school projects she brings home.

Yum, multi-color peas or cranberries.  With Helaina, more likely M&M's.

We're running out of room to display Helaina's school projects.  She brings home at least 5 papers, drawing or projects daily.

My little helper in the kitchen.  Mixing peanut butter cookie dough is tough work.

The annual tree lighting ceremony is held every year on the day after Thanksgiving.  Helaina loves ringing her Salvation Army bell and counting down to the flipping of the switch.  Then she yells, rings her bell even louder and jumps up and down like crazy.

I don't even know how long we waited in line for our picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  It was a LONG wait and Helaina was actually more patient than I was.  It was a warm night though so at least we weren't freezing while waiting.  It's actually been an extremely warm November for Central New York.