Lessons Learned

Yesterday Cotter learned two important life lessons:

Number 1: If you stick the eraser end of a pencil up your nose, the metal might cut you.

Number 2: If you take fingernail clippers and clip off all of the bristles of your hairbrush, you will have unhappy parents and a pretty worthless hairbrush.

[Okay, to his credit, lesson Number 1 was actually learned vicariously through a classmate, and I don't think Cotter will try it any time soon!]

Looking for Ideas

Kaitlyn turns two in about 6 weeks (Nov.3), so I started thinking about what I might want to do for her birthday. I'm not going to kill myself over a 2-year-old party, but I'd like to invite a few neighbors to come over to celebrate.

Since her passion is shoes (well, clothing of all types, but especially shoes), I decided I'd throw her a "shoe party." Maybe it's the first shoe party in the history of the world! (You never know.) And, I figured rather than adding more toys to her over-crowded room, I'd ask the guests to go to the thrift store (or any other cheap store) and select a pair of shoes for Kaitlyn. She'll be in heaven! So, there you go. We are having a shoe party.

With that in mind, I am looking for ideas of how to carry the theme out into food, games, party favors, invitations, etc. So, if you have any ideas, please chime in! She'll probably have a handful of little girl friends (age range 1-4) along with some big brothers thrown in. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Wow, it just occurred to me that ALL of her little girl friends in the neighborhood have big brothers. Hmm... maybe that's just because we got to know the families first through our boys playing together. But, that does give hope to any of you out there who have your boy(s) and are trying for a girl! :-)

You are Me and I am You

At my sister's suggestion, we decided to play a little game. Everyone pretended to be someone else for the evening. So, Aidan was me, Cotter was Kaitlyn, I was Aidan and Kaitlyn was Cotter. Roy wasn't in town at the time, so he got left out. Although, it would have been helpful to have him around, because Aidan did wonder who was going to be the cat! We decided to dress in each others' pajamas, aside from Cotter, who had to just dress in whatever works from Kaitlyn's future wardrobe. Here are some pics from our evening. And, despite what some people are thinking, Aidan is not waxing his upper lip--it's just bad lighting.

My Little Tomboy Princess

Kaitlyn is a fairly complex individual. This picture pretty much says it all:

You may not be able to tell, but underneath all of that dirt, there's a fresh coating of pink nail polish! She very much wants to get down and dirty with the boys, but, just as much, she wants to imitate her Mommy and do anything she sees Mommy doing. Despite her adventurous spirit and rough and tumble play, there's a little girly-girl in there for sure. Two of her biggest passions are shoes and clothing. Give her a bag of shoes or a pile of clothes, and she will be entertained for quite a while. This morning, we had to dress up all of her babies in little dresses out of her closet, complete with bloomers. And, Kaitlyn is also quite opinionated as to her own wardrobe. Daddy laughs when he comes home from work at the end of the day, because you never know what combination of clothing Kaitlyn has insisted on wearing that day. (I didn't know it started this early!) And, let's just say, her sense of style still needs a little refining.

Here's a picture of her (in her too-big PJs), and her babies all dressed up and ready for a snack.

More Pics from the Trails

Trying Out Our New Camera!

I'm now a proud owner of a new Canon Powershot SD1000 (for all you camera geeks), so I decided to try it out yesterday on our outing to some birding trails. I haven't bothered to sit down and really learn how to use it yet. I know there are lots of cool settings for action shots, outdoor photos, etc., but I chose to just do plain ole point and shoot for now.
Our hike was especially eventful, because we even got to drive to the nearest fire station to report a forest fire! Smokey the Bear would be proud!