Shaeleigh had her 5 year well visit on Friday and officially weighed in at 34.9 pounds, 40.5 inches tall.  Growing at a good steady pace.  She went BALISTIC over getting her shots (she needed two) but she has a history of that so it wasn't too shocking.  She can hold her own with a nurse and a needle.

Chance, I forgot to note, did finally get his hearing re-testing and passed with flying colors.  We weren't worried at this point, but it is good to have it confirmed. 

And, in the spirit of economy, Chance got his first haircut with the new home hair clippers.  He's a funny kid, seemed to think the whole thing was a joke.  He was giggling away as we had his poor head smooshed down against his chest while Kenn tried out the different attachments.  In the end, his fastidiousness got the best of him.  He is not a fan of having "stuff" on his fingers.  Kid can go through some napkins.  Anyway, he got hair on his hands and was no longer amused.  Cut looks pretty good though.  By the time he's old enough to really notice, we'll have it figured out. 

I'll try to post some photos tomorrow or Tuesday.  The kids and I have a long weekend as both Monday and Tuesday are a holiday here thanks to the inauguration (for governement employees and kids at anyrate, poor Kenn still has to work).  I start a new job on Wednesday.  Pure coincidence. 

Okay, I'm back (perhaps you didn't miss me but if you checked in earlier there where only some photos I had dumped in.  Chance had an unauthorized premature wake-up from his nap.)  Where were we?

Shaeleigh is officially five.  Kenn and I spent the second New Year's Eve in a row decorating the kitchen with balloons and streamers.  For the second year in a row I found it very difficult to find a balloon at 8:45 PM on New Years Eve.  We had balloons, but she wanted a "girlie" balloon for her birthday.  Although the answer is somewhat obvious, when she mentioned wanting a girlie balloon, I had to ask, and here's what I got:

Me:  What's a girlie balloon?

Shaels:  A balloon like a heart or something.  Oval is okay.  I like any shape but not a boy balloon.

Me:  Mm.  What's a boy balloon?

Shaels:  Oh you know, like Thomas or penises or something...  like Spiderman or Hot Wheels.

Needless to say, I am glad I asked.  I did go with the heart shaped balloon, but if I hadn't asked I may have decided on one of the many penis balloons that we see everywhere we go.  hehehe. 

The big five year old

Birthday Princess.

Shaeleigh's cousins had an ice cream cake for their birthday and she thought it was delicious so she ordered the same from Kenn this year. 

A girl and her horse.

A boy and his hat.  No, that's not right....

A boy and his dog, wearing the hat.  (that's Paint)

And if the first dog won't wear it, just move on to the second.  (that's Pea-Eye)

The dogs got their Christmas presents on Shaeleigh's birthday.  They had been in a bit of hot water on Christmas after eating an entire loaf of Stollen (for the second year in a row!).  Then we forgot that we had hidden them in Shaeleigh's underwear drawer.  Well, "we" didn't hide them there but that's where they were hidden.

Chance, big fan of My Little Pony.  It's not easy.  Shaeleigh doesn't want to share.  We convince her that it would be a good choice.   She conceeds and distructo breaks something within the first 5 minutes.  We put the set in Shaeleigh's room which I'm sure is some mythical playground Chance dreams about at night - a room full of teeny tiny plastic wonders and assorted breakable marvels.

And of course, a thousand "stuffy wuffs...."

And so Chance has learned from watching is sister, that dragging stuffed animals around is part of life.  Here he is hugging, "Baby"  his favorite rabbit.  It's funny that Shaeleigh, Kenn and I all call her stuffed animals "buddies" but Chance always refers to them as his "babies."  (He's a bit of a wild man but he really is a sweet little guy).  In the morning, Shaeleigh won't leave her bedroom without carrying as many as she can (and that doesn't mean 4 or 5, we're talking upwards of 15-20).  And so now when Chance wakes up, the first thing he'll say when you go in his room is, "Hi."  Then he says, "baby, baby, baby" and scrambles about his crib picking up as many as he can.  We are doomed.

Earlier in the week Shaeleigh decided that she would share her snack with me because I was "Old.  Really Old.  Really, really old."  Today she was showing me how wide she could open her mouth.  She then asked how wide I could open my mouth.  I gave it my best and she says, "Wow, I think I saw your heart."

I think she is going to be a scientist.  When I dropped her off the other day she started tell me about the experiments here class had been doing with water, ice and steam and she said, "Did you know there were three things?  There are solids, liquids and bonkies."  It took me minute.  (and for those who may not quite get it, you must remember that "bonkie" is the family word for fart).

So there you have it, words of wisdom from the Smitheroni house.  I am off to bed.  Forgive the typos and spelling errors, I didn't really proof-read anything.

Wait, Santa...  come baaaackkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hehehe.  Poor Chance, such a bevy of blackmail photos we have.  And yet, despite this photo, we had a wonderful Christmas and long about 2:30 when Shaeleigh, Chance and Kenn were all napping, and I was enjoying the fact that the only noise in the house were the peaceful sounds of snoring, I realized that we had gone all morning without a single meltdown.  In fact it wasn't until today (the day after) that the stress and the excitment and the lack of sleep took it's toll.  The plan is to get out of the house tomorrow and see if we can start to return to a somewhat normal schedule.

But, it's been ages since I've posted so here are some photos of the season.

Chance taking in the Christmas tree farm. 

The gang, hauling our tree.  It was so cold the day we went but we spotted our tree in one of the first rows and decided to cut, drag and put it in the truck and THEN go wander up and down the hill.  Needless to say, by the time we got it into the truck we were done and just decided to head on home.  I couldn't help but remember that it was just a year ago that we'd gone for the first time with Chance and he had screamed the entire way home (he wasn't used to the car seat yet).  Kenn had blocked the memory out but I had seared it into my brain.  What a difference a year makes.

Chance's language has taken off in the past few weeks and he is now making little sentences and asking very specifically for things he wants, "cacker plesss"  (i.e., cracker please).  He still doesn't seem to care about some differences though - most noticeable, he will call both Kenn and I, "Mommy" or "Daddy" and doesn't seem to get that these are different and he still insists on calling Christmas, Halloween and Santa "Snowman" but all in all I would definitely say he is caught up on language. 

Which one is this again?  Snowman?  Hohoho?

Chance is subject to the craft festivals that Shaeleigh and I hold in the kitchen.  He does change the flavor of things as he still puts everything into his mouth and if I take my eye off of him he will be on the table, eating glue, looking for sharp objects or just generally tossing things about merrily.

Here he is filling socks with rice for his teachers (we made them neck warmers).  He looks so skinny without his clothes but the kid does not sit still long enough to eat and he burns calories faster than he can put them in.  He is completely off bottles now which is good in general but I am not sure he is making up for those lost calories - at least those were guaranteed.

Of course, keeping an eye on Chance means Shaeleigh is often left to her own devices.  She can be a bit of a tornado (yes, yes, like her mom).

Chance gets away with eating his dinner on the floor because at least he is eating.

He has figured out the camera - you can barely get a shot taken and he is leaping up to see what you got, "I see, I see, I see"

I think my favorite sentence this week was when he was trying to push past Paint and said, "'scuse me....  dog."  hehehe. 

Shaeleigh decorating the tree (thanks to the long winter's nap that he brother was taking).

All dressed up for Christmas Eve mass.  Shaeleigh has her hand back to tickle Chance so he will smile.

And here is Shaeleigh's new bud.  Butterscotch the pony.  Santa hid him behind the couch because if Shaeleigh came out of her bed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, she had a clear view of the tree and the presents. 

THANK YOU SANTA!!!

Who doesn't love a pony. 

Ah, the tool bench.  Does it help contain the hammering to one spot?  Or does it simply mean that the kids now have the tools to completely dent and saw the furniture to pieces? 

Santa also brought both kids ride on toys - as expected, Chance LOVES his tiny little three wheeler (video to come) and Shaeleigh...  well, the jeep, is loud and moves too fast.  She has come around though and now rides the little one so we think that once the weather dries out, they will both enjoy riding outside where they won't seem so loud and they'll have more room.  If not, Chance will be riding a jeep as soon as his legs grow long enough to reach the pedal.

So yes, despite the fact that Santa did some of the shopping on Craig's list, we have not been able to keep from spoiling them since they don't know what's used and what's not.  Here's to undoing the damage in the year to come

So one thought on Santa - I have to admit Shaeleigh stumped me.  She is clearly not completely drawn into the Santa myth - she over thinks things.  She starts her conversation about it like this:

"Santa is real.  St. Patrick is not real.  St. Nicholas is real but St. Patrick is not right?"

So there you go.  I was in a pickle.  I start by explaining that St. Patrick was real but that he died a long time ago but then I'm stuck because St. Nicholas is dead too but I can't go implying that Santa Claus is dead and of course once I mention that St. Patrick has died I have all the questions about Heaven and death and then we wind back to Santa and good grief...  can't we just go back to the elves?

Oh what a tangled web we weave.....

It's funny how she connects things.  She also said one day, as we are driving along not talking about anything in particular, "In January we will have a new President.  A President looks out for you.  Just like God...  and Santa Claus."

Here she is looking out for her brother by giving him a complete make-over.  She went to a friend's birthday party two weeks ago and got a bunch of glittery make-up.

Here you go Chance!

Ah, Kenn's hunk of meat!  Kenn cooked a fine Christmas dinner this year.  Three cheers to the chef.

Traditional Christmas cracker hats!

The whole gang looking goofy (yet another tradition - getting this shot, that is).

I love Christmas.

Me too, but I'm all worn out.

So we decided to do the "Family Photo Thing" at one of those madhouse photo chains.  That was an adventure.  Probably one you only need to experience once in your life.  Although... in retrospect, I think if we went oh say in February, instead of December, three weeks before Christmas, it might not have been so bad.  And the truth is, we dressed the kids in brown so they pretty much blended right into the tree and poinsettia background so the "non-Christmas" photos actually came out much better.

The family photos well...  what can I say, Kenn and I are pathetic.  If I had the time I would crop the photos of our heads in all the family shots and create a collage of all the goofy faces we can make between us.  Not one single family shot that didn't have one of us with our eyes shut or our mouths open.   Good grief. 

We did get all the shots on disk (very low resolution) so we do have family shots now - just not ones we plan to develop and/or share.  The only one we had developed is below.  Hahaha.  The only thing I really like about it, is Kenn's big ol' dirty sneaker.  Reality.

Luckily, the kids are photogenic and even Chance loved sitting in his little pose smiling.

Yeah, we didn't develop that one either but it's a nice Cheese and Ham shot.

This one was determined to be the "winner" and was used for the advertised package of assorted sizes.  We got a bunch of other shots as part of the package too but this one we got more than we'll ever need of.  Anyone need something for their wallet?

This one was cute too but the brown outfits and dark hair sort of make them disappear into the backdrop.

Ah, Shaeleigh the Irish Dancer.  They took four shots of Shaeleigh in this pose and they each looked EXACTLY the same.  She didn't move a muscle.  We decided the best one based on the way her hair was looking.

Happy boy.  He did really well.  Luckily we didn't have to wait too long before our photo shoot. The wait afterwards to view the photos was horrific and ended in Chance and Kenn going outside while Shaeleigh and I picked the photos but that's where coming in February would make it painless.  You have to view the photos the day of the shoot as they wipe out the computers each evening (no doubt all a big marketing ploy) and you can't go any further than 2-3 minutes away from the store or you risk losing your place in line.  This left us with Arby's and Giant.  We did what we could but there were at least two people pining for a Starbucks!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Hopefully everyone remembered to leave their shoes out so that St. Nick could swing by and bring you some goodies. 

Not a great shot but you can barely make out the shoes on the table.  Both kids got a kick out of it (hehehe).  All in all, not a bad way to start the morning.

And then on to the bigger events of the day.........

Shaeleigh's first ballet recital.  Okay, well not so much a recital as much as a chance to watch the class (usually it takes place with the parents outside and there is no way to look in).  It was very funny though - the girls are all so cute and they did a very sweet little candy cane dance at the end.  Shaeleigh was sooooo excited and could not stop smiling - particularly when Sara appeared   Shaels has come a long way since last year when we had to back out of ballet after the second class because she wouldn't leave my leg.  

The cast of Swan Lake 2029.

Sara took this cute shot.  They are so intent on what's coming next.

That hurts me to look at but all the girls could just whip their legs right up there.

More shots from Sara below:

The butterfly.

Candy Cane dance.

Tada!  The final certificate!

Chance seemed to enjoy watching the show.  He sat very still saying, "ballet, ballet."  His vocabulary is growing.  I'm embarressed to say that the first two words he put together were, "Go Away,"  and the second two he put together were, "Stop It."  He lately has a habit of demanding both of these things of me every morning as I change his diaper, "Go way, go way, go way, stobit stobit stobit stobit....." 

Chance has an interesting way of learning language.  Shaeleigh learned a lot of words but pronounced them all the same ("baw" meant ball, bottle, Spongebob).  Chance pronouces fairly clearly but chooses one word to use for categories of things.  For example, Chance likes to say, "apple" but he could mean apple, grape, orange, pear, banana.  He does always use it for fruit but all fruits are apples to him.  He also latched on to "Ha-a-ween" which meant any kind of halloween decoration.  Now he says, "Ha-a-ween!" everytime he sees Christmas displays.  He just seems to enjoy saying certain words over and over.  We were out walking to dogs last week and he started shouting, "peeyie peeyie peeyie" over and over.  We thought he was just babbling until he said, "Peeyie peeyie (pause) grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" with a realistic growl.  Ha - he was imitating how Kenn growls at Pea-Eye when he starts licking the carpet. 

He turned 21 months today and the day was marked by being his official bottle free day.  We've been a bit delayed in weaning him off (some good reasons, some a bit more lazy) but finally decided to bite the bullet last week and have been decreasing the ounces in his bottle during the week.  He was still drinking 2 bottles a day, plus one in the middle of the night at least 4 times a week.  We had a few rough moments today - poor guy crying "waddle, waddle, waddle" to no avail but it wasn't too bad.  I'm not sure how we'll handle the nights because he flat out won't go back to sleep once he wakes up.  Well, we'll just play it by ear but I put all of the bottles away so I would not be tempted to give in.

Enjoying one of his final full bottles.

And lastly.... 'tis the season for decorating Gingerbread. 

And eating it. 

Tomorrow....   we get the tree!

Happy Thanksgiving - Now hurry, the turkey's getting cold

Babcia Guzowski (Joanie's Grandmother) turns 100 years old this week!  We celebrated her birthday a tad early yesterday and a good time was had by all.  100 years young and still living on her own(Hey, she even walked into her own party!).  Kenn made the cake but Shaeleigh helped to put the flowers on.  She really has a good eye for flower arranging.  She is big into flowers.  She'd come home from the grocery store everytime with a big bouquet if she had her druthers.  I may have made a critical error by taking her into the florist to get the cake flowers.  Today she comments, "let's go to that other store - the florist store!" 

Good ol' Bobbycakes as she is known.  The woman who gave us the word, "Bonkie."   I will have to put together some Babcia stories for the blog. 

Here are two of the great-grandkids running amok.  This was supposed to be Shaeleigh's Christmas dress (Costco already had the fancy dresses up) but I guess there's no sense in wasting two good months of wear and tear. 

Shaeleigh's favorite photo, "Chance is showing us his bottom. HAHAHA"  Shaeleigh is big on showing everyone her bottom these days.  A princess with questionable manners at times.

This is Chance's favorite - whenever you say, "Who wants XXX"  he raises his hand and says, "Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."  You can say anything at all and he'll sign-up for it. Such a little hambone!

Cinderella loses her glass slipper whilst playing football in her ball gown.

Awww... if only I had managed to get the spoon and the fruitloops out of his hand.

Dapper Dan (complete with drool marks all over his shirt). Doesn't he look like he's modeling?

Pumpkin patch ballerina (and Mr. Dave).  Mr. Dave recently lost a piece of his/her nose (Mr. Dave's sexuality tends to waiver).  We have still been rotating the two Mr. Dave's but now we are in a pickle. 

Shaeleigh's "Please take one" sign.  Since we went trick-or-treating in Pionkeland, we left a bowl of candy in front of our door.  Kenn was sure we'd come home to an empty bowl (in a first kid takes all the candy sort of way) but we came home to almost a full bowl.  If it wasn't for the fact that the ratio of peanut butter cups to everything else was low, we would have hardly known anyone had stopped by at all.

Boo!  (And no, it wasn't our pumpkin that scared the kids into honesty.  Sadly, our pumpkin went bad the week before Halloween.  It was stinky, leaky mess.  Gross.) This scary faced punkin' was a Shaeleigh design. She sketched it on paper for Dad to cut on the pumpkin. Cool.

Toodles.  I will try to get some videos for the next post.  I have been on a mission to get a funny 10-15 second video as I found a site that makes "flip books" out of little video clips and I thought it would make an interesting Christmas gift for the kids.  So far though...  well, they won't be calling me "Hollywood" this Christmas.

Cheers...............

Happy Gotcha Day Chance!

We celebrated Chance's Adoption Day on October 30th.  As usual, hard to believe it's been a year.

I don't know if 20 months is too young to be able to grasp the idea of mocking but I am fairly sure he is doing just that.  He practices his faux ballet moves and then laughs and laughs at himself.  He apparently finds himself quite amusing.

More photos of Halloweenie on the way.  I didn't get any really good shots but the kids really enjoyed it. 

In case you can't tell - Shaeleigh was a princess riding a unicorn.  Chance was the Incredible Hulk.

Been busy having fun....   let's see what's in the camera:

It was Farm Tour weekend in Culpeper last weekend and a friend from work (shout out to Gail) has an Alpaca Farm.  Shaeleigh is still really into farms and loves to hear stories about the alpacas so she was very excited to go see them.  It was a bit of a drive but it was gorgeous and since both kids zonked out fairly quickly, it was very peaceful.  I had headed out with some crazy mapquest directions and only got lost once.  Luckily, it was at the perfect time because a) it was right at the last big town and there was a gas station to stop out and get directions and b) we were only about 15 minutes away and the last 15 minutes was particularly scenic.  I had to wake everyone up to go into the gas station so they both enjoyed the scenic last bit of the drive. 

Shaeleigh is also interested in directions lately so she always likes to know the name of the next street and how far away it is and which way we are going to turn.  At least I think she's interested.  Maybe she just doesn't trust my sense of direction and figures she will have to guide me back.

Here are couple of the alpacas munching away at the grass.

They are really cute and very very soft.

I dressed Chance like a farmer but Shaeleigh dressed herself like....  Shaeleigh.

These were the youngest little babies.  I think they were 3 months old.  So friendly.

Shaeleigh was being particularly sweet - kept pushing Chance over and telling him to pet them.  (hm...  somehow this photo escaped my gigundo black border).

Ah, this is my favorite photo.  The big one is the llama.  Shaeleigh has somehow fixated on how I once told her that the llama keeps the alpacas in line.  She loves to hear about the llama.  Ha.  Of course she does.  Sometimes I think we are a household with a few too many llamas.

Farmer Shaeleigh planted Marigolds by seed.  These stinkin' Marigolds must be over 3 feet tall.  They're insane.

Walking through the Marigold forest.

I will never buy another Marigold plant - just seeds for us from now on.

It was school photo day last Thursday so I took a few "pre-photos" before we left in the morning.  We haven't had much luck with the school photos but I think that's the way it's supposed to be right?  Shaeleigh said she smiled this year (she has a history of scowling at the photographer) but it was reported that Chance cried. 

Oh well - we'll see what we get. 

Both kids are doing well at school.  Shaeleigh has settled into her new class  - loves her new teachers and is learning sign language.  One day she came home and signed "good morning" and "friend."  A week later I asked her if she knew any new signs - she rattled off/signed away a whole book "good morning, good evening, good afternoon, this means apple, this means tree, this means hello friend and this is the letter A and Y and R and....."  She stores a lot up there. 

Chance walked into his class this week and as soon as he got through the door he took his shirt off and then strutted across the room pounding on his belly and saying, "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh"  I half expected him to say, "I'm home.  Anyone got a beer?"

What are these you ask?  Family Fun Magazine had a recipe for fake rocks that you could hide little treasures in and then bake.  The recipe called for several cups of used coffee grounds so I figured it was perfect for us (no there's not always food in the house but we are never short on used coffee grounds.)  I made about 3 dozen thinking we'd use them on Shaeleigh's half birthday party but they ended up being really messy when you broke them open so I was afraid some parents might not appreciate it.

And so one day when there was nothing better to do - I hid them all over the backyard.

All for me!

Speaking of Farms...  There is this little Farm Museum up the road from us.  The first time I went (when Shaels was just a baby) I thought it was possibly the lamest museum ever.  However, now I see that it is perfect.  There is never anyone there - twice we've been the only people and the 3rd time we went there was 1 other family (who left shortly after we arrived).  The place is not big at all but it is completely interactive.  The cow above you can milk - both kids are freaked out by it though.  They have a little country store FULL of fake produce and a cash register and a post office area (with laminated old post cards and mail).

The store has all sorts of fun stuff.

Oh, and it has these two horses (Genuine Risk and Secretariat) and you can push a button to play the race sound track.  You can ride the horses plus they have all the grooming supplies so you can groom them.

There's also little tractors you can ride, a puppet theatre you can play with.  It's great.

And it's much cleaner than say...  painting.  Here Chance seems to be getting the hang of it.

Here...  not so much.

But he'll be a great fan for some football team out there.

Shaeleigh and Sara made Halloween cookies.  I pretty much spent the morning playing llama to Chance.

Maybe I'm wrong.  I don't know what he's thinking but maybe we could use a few more llamas around here.

Yes, it's true.  I went to Disney World without the rest of the family.  Me.  Me who would not know Aurora from Belle if it weren't for Shaeleigh. 

I have to admit it was tough to leave everyone but clearly I left Kenn in good hands.  Hehehe.  Kenn rocks and there's nothing like a cheerful blog post from afar letting you know everything is going just fine (dead racoons and all).

Our class got prime viewing of the parade.  I got good shots of all the Princesses!

I would have never guessed I would have been so excited about nauseating princesses.

Everything was decked out for Halloween.

Oh, and the training was good too.  Yes, I was very well trained.  Tough work that Disney Institute.

Ah...  my little Prince and Princess.  We went to the Wolftrap Festival last weekend when it was 100 degrees.  Oh sure, THIS weekend is in the 70's. 

This is how she dresses in 100 degrees.

He'd rather be naked.

They were toast by noon so we headed on home.

Toast.

We found this really sweet Lion puppet at some other fair this summer.  I plan to make a really big one just like it.  Plan.

Budding puppeteer.

Big Boy.  Chance is doing his best to persuade us to ditch the high chair.  He wants it all.  Plate, fork, knife, cup.  But really, you need to wear rain gear if you sit next to him.  And if you sit him up to the table and look the other way for 5 seconds he'll climb right on (just helping myself to the potatos Mom, need anything?)

And he's big into the markers too.  Shaeleigh, although her sharing skills are sketchy at best, has been a champ about sharing her markers.  She lectures him about putting the caps back on but really, she hasn't made a single stink about him chewing the tips off or banging them so hard into the paper that the tips are flattened like pancakes.  I think she likes a drawing partner.  They colored pumpkins together tonight and for the first time he went the entire time without putting a singer marker into his mouth.  I noticed but didn't say anything (didn't want to jinx it) but as we're cleaning up Shaeleigh says, "he didn't eat a single one Mom!"

His new thing - if he sees you with the camera he looks up and says, "Cheeeeeeeeeeese"

And Shaeleigh - she's gone crazy.  She's suddenly getting very detailed about what she draws.  We got her some of these "How to Draw" books a few months ago but she wasn't too interested.  Last week she picked them up and goes page by page drawing the people and animals.  These are her ballerinas above.

I'm liking the big green dress

Pumpkin Head.