11-11-11

Princess brunch!

far fewer princesses, FAR better experience.

lily takes handing out balloons very seriously.

with fewer princesses lily had time to get her hair and makeup done, play in the cardboard castle, even got to eat food! (this has not all been the case in the past, unfortunately)

our little charlie enjoyed princess brunch and got a nice break while rah rah took him for a nap mid-day (THANK YOU rah rah!)

sweet prince charlie!

Thanks for thinking of our little guy and sending him a costume so he didn't feel left out, Grammie Betty!

in celebration of our Nainie, who passed away at the end of October (and who LOVED princess brunch, and was so looking forward to seeing all the dear princesses) we let our balloons float up, up, up after one of the readings. fun!

can i just tell you how happy i am that my little girl loves being fancy? because i love it, a lot.

11-1-11

You may not know this, but a little PRINCESS turned five! today.

(Birthday Princess! Click this pic and make it bigger. Could she get any prettier? Look at that sweet face!)

Liliana is FIVE!!!

I cant believe my darling baby is a kid! A big kid!

We woke her singing happy birthday and carrying a candle laden tray of cupcakes. Then we hung out and opened gifts and waited for my phone to ring with a call from Princess Ariel to wish lily a happy birthday. This kind of blew lilys mind a little. The rest of the day was up to Lily, her birthday wish was an afternoon out with mom and dad (read: no brother please) so we had our nanny come hang out with charlie and we took lily to lunch. She requested we "try something new" so we took her to a sushi place to try some types of sushi. Then we took her to the movies. She decided to wear her Rapunzel dress all day. Now she's at the restaurant because "its Liliana's birthday and Liliana's' birthday, so I should be there. For just a little while. Customers will want to see me." Totally the cutest kid ever.

10-31-11

Happy Halloween from Rapunzel and Bucky Badger. We had a blast! We trick or treated from 5:30-8:30 and Charlie walked nearly the whole time! I love that my kids excitement about halloween is visiting neighbors, admiring the beautiful fall leaves and enjoying fun/scary decorations. Fun!

10-19-11

My sweet boy is two!

(he is making a super silly face to say ChooChooooo! on the Vilas Zoo mini train.. he kinda thought it was the best thing EVER)

he is taking such quick strides toward becoming a strong, smart, independent and curious boy.

(these big red swings at our "castle park" are the best! its like a giant swinging recliner. so fun!)

he tackles "the big slide" all on his own!

this little guy is super silly. i so wish i had gotten this pic to be totally in focus and adorable, but i had one second of him holding still and an iphone camera. at least i got it!

he is so funny!

so he's growing and changing and getting so big, but i sure do treasure the glimpses of sweet little baby we still get. sigh. chubby cheeks and cuddling into my arms even though 90% of him is hanging off my lap. calling for mama anytime he's nervous. the look of total betrayal when something hurts him (like, you know, furniture he's jumped off of/on to or the ground jumping up and slamming into him while he's minding his own business running around like a tornado)

i look forward to what TWO has to offer. before his next birthday I foresee:

-starting potty training

-full sentences

-big boy bed

-favorites (favorite color, favorite food, favorite toy, favorite place, etc)

-many, many more boo boos. i have a daredevil!

mostly i just look forward to him being able to communicate all the funny little things he'd like to tell us!

10-1-11

Happy October!

We've had an insanely stressful several weeks that I really don't even want to get in to, but Ta-Da! We survived. Live and learn.

So I've gotten us mostly back on track around home but hadn't had much time to sit around and use the computer, not even to share pictures from our super fun trip to the museum of science and industry, in Chicago! Oh my. That'll be coming soon.

But today, oh.. it was one of THOSE days.

Do not read the following. It is just way too whiny

[I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Two huge cups of coffee and I still felt totally drained and run down. I had too many customers and two dogs peed in their kennels (what is it about having more than three dogs at a time that guarantees someone is going to need a second bath? i dont get it! And today I had 6, so, that's what I get). Then the kids... Dave has been working a lot which is totally fine, needed and great, but the kids miss him. And they are getting a little cranky about it. He left today and I was working so the kids had to be in the basement. This sent Charlie into it's-one-hour-before-my-nap-and-you-all-better-do-whatever-i-want-or-i'll-make-you-pay-dearly mode. Lily for some reason took of all her clothes and started putting random objects into the dog kennels (safe objects, but i had to keep checking all the time and scolding her), Charlie fell off like 4 pieces of furniture in a row. Lily drew me a picture and Charlie put it in the litterbox, which made lily way more upset than it really should have. I dropped a huge pile of dog hair on him while clipping a dog. It was a comedy of errors.]

The day continued pretty much exactly like this. Charlie took an unusually short nap so I couldn't get anything done after my customer checked out and we were all cranky and sick of being cranky by mid-afternoon. So I was nagging the kids to help me get all their toys from all over the place back into the playroom and I noticed I was alone.. So I go looking for Charlie And here is what I found...

oh yes. Drinking apple cider out of the jug and half a dozen smashed eggs on the floor.

there are not words for the frustration! we declared it bedtime and we'll hope for a better day tomorrow.

9-19-11

Charlie had his first haircut today! He went to Daddy's barber. The one he's been going to since he was a little boy. So cute!

Sitting so still!

All handsome! So proud!

9-13-11

never before blogged photos gorgeous Parry Heide photos from our New Orleans trip! I can't believe I never posted these. They are my favorites!

Lily and mama on a REAL steamboat! In New Orleans!

Camilia Grill (Do you see little charlie in front of Dave?)

Gorgeous Lily on a streetcar

Bayona! I wish I could eat there every day!

LOVE!

Green Goddess. Amazing six course custom menu in their wine room, served by the chef himself. Amazing amazing night.

Drinking a French 75 at French 75 in New Orleans. Love.

BEIGNETS! Cafe du Monde beignets and Cafe au Lait with my little New Orleans lovin girl.

9-12-11

ewwwww. chocolate syrup. never again.

9-11-11

Brown bear, brown bear
What do you see?

Here is sneaky doorway footage of lily reading a bedtime story to charlie.
as all you parents know, the cuteness would have stopped immediately if they knew we were videotaping.

9-10-11

Wuhooooo!





I've been making an effort to participate in just about anything charlie says Wuhoo! about. Running around in circles laughing hysterically, taking breaks only to throw our arms in the air and say "WUHOOOOO". Putting all our toy cars in a box until the box is overflowing and then tipping it on the floor, "WUHOOOOO". Jumping up and down and wiggling our butts to that annoying song he loves, "WUHOOOOO!"
Mostly we've been trying to find mommy's awesome due to this blog post from another parent. Because I rarely wake up feeling that awesome. And my kids deserve a mom who thinks she is AWESOME!

you should go read their blog and see the adorable pic of their kid but here is the text of the post.


There was a time when you were five years old,
and you woke up full of awesome.

You knew you were awesome.

You loved yourself.

You thought you were beautiful,
even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers.

You loved your body, and the things it could do.

You thought you were strong.

You knew you were smart.

Do you still have it?
The awesome.

Did someone take it from you?
Did you let them?
Did you hand it over, because someone told you weren’t beautiful enough, thin enough, smart enough, good enough?
Why the hell would you listen to them?
Did you consider they might be full of shit?

Wouldn’t that be nuts, to tell my little girl below that in another five or ten years she might hate herself because she doesn’t look like a starving and Photoshopped fashion model?
Or even more bizarre, that she should be sexy over smart, beautiful over bold?
Are you freaking kidding me?

Look at her. She is full of awesome.

You were, once. Maybe you still are. Maybe you are in the process of getting it back.

All I know is that if you aren’t waking up feeling like this about yourself, you are really missing out.


also,
Ive been posting a lot! Make sure you scroll down/click the previous posts thing to go back to see stuff from the last few days.

9-9-11

An ode to my little son.

I love this baby boy more than I ever ever ever thought I could. Don't get me wrong, my daughter is a ray of sunshine for the world to see. People write such beautiful things about the joy of little girls, and everything they write is true.

But I bask in the quiet and constant love from my boy.

Mama friends of mine, most of you all have girls and I know when I found out I was having a boy... well I couldn't even say "son". I couldn't think of names I liked. It felt odd. I'm a mama to a little girl! I knew how to do that.. but oh, mamas. Just you wait.

If you are lucky enough to get a glimpse into the world of the little toddler boy....it changes you forever! Funny (Soooo funny!), sweet. Loving and so imaginative. He pretends to betough, trying to be independent and without missing a beat, cuddled back in my arms.

He sees the magic and possibility of the world, and he's taking us all with him on this adventure.

i loooove him!

i love his silly fake pout

his glorious long eyelashes and his crazy hair!

the way his nose crinkles when he makes silly faces

his faint and fading little "stork bite" mark on his forehead. exactly as it was the moment i met him. but disappearing a bit each day, like all the signs of the baby he was.

and it just get better and better every.single.day.

9-8-11

Toward the end of summer, every year, we get the opportunity to go bask in all that summer means to us at a lovely little cabin in the woods with Dave's parents, sister Anne and her husband Mike. Amazing fun time. This year was extra special because Dave's birthday gift was a daytrip on a party boat (float boat? is there a proper name?)

boat baby!

charlie & papa (do you see how big this boat is! and i'm taking this pic from the middle of the boat! there is another half behind me!)

that's pretty much it, except this lovely picture of me & mike enjoying many margaritas with a baby sleeping in a carrier on my back.

yay! up north! can't wait till next year! Thank you Thank you papa and rah rah for a super fun summer getaway!

9-7-11

the heide family homestead had a bountiful summer!

planters of basil, cilantro, dill and chives. the back planter along the fence in this planter was sort of an afterthought filled with extra seedlings of peppers, beans and a few heirloom tomatoes that miraculously reseeded from last year all on their own.

and here is where mountains of tri color beans, 5 varieties of tomatoes, 4 types of peppers and our eagerly anticipated brussels sprout plants grow.

this is the same garden bed from the tomato end of things

this has been my daily haul from the garden pretty steadily since july

and the chicks! they are all grown up and moved out (THANK GOODNESS OMG MY POOR GARAGE WILL NEVER EVER BE CLEAN AGAIN. SO DUSTY! EW!)

look at the cute home dave built them!

big girls! (and probably a boy, we'll see)

EGGS! we get about a half dozen a day, they are fairly small so we're going through them all at home (yum yum yum) for now but we hope to get enough to supplement at the restaurant some also.

We have been having adventures and staying busy. life is fun.

8-10-11

Princess Day at the Madison Mallards.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Free admission for little girls in princess costumes. And princesses to take pictures with. And free carriage rides. Oh my!

Three cheers for daddy's who wear paper crowns to make little girls happy

and princes that sweep the field!

and princes and princesses that dance on the field during the dirt sweeping process (yes, i know the process probably has a name)

charlie wore his sunglasses for more than 3 seconds.

he even made silly face in them.


princesses + baseball = a really good time. who knew?!