Halloween Fun... Or Not...

Tori decided to be Barbie again this year, however, she's "Cheerleader" Barbie this time. Abbie decided to be a Cheetah/Leopard/Tiger. I think it was actually a Tiger costume, but she kept changing her mind on what exactly she was.

We went to Tori's School's Carnival. They had a haunted house there done by the older children in her Elementary School. She was adamant to go to this Haunted House. We warned her many times that it was going to be scary, and that we didn't think she'd like it, but she was set on going. I tried to keep Abbie from going, but she insisted that "Tori would protect her." Well, I figured it couldn't be that bad, since it was an elementary school and all you know?! Well, we were wrong. It was pretty dang scary. The girls were horrified, terrified, and traumatized. Abbie literally crawled up Brad up to his neck and they were screaming and crying hysterically the whole time. So their makeup/face paint was all smeared off before we even went trick or treating. We didn't do that a whole lot till tonight at the ward Trunk or Treat. But that was fun. So we learned our lessons, no Haunted Houses. But DANG they looked cute!!!

Houston... We Have No Problem

We decided to take the day yesterday and drive to the coast. It's been since last December since we saw the big blue so we decided... Why Not? It was truly one of our most favorite memories now. We had so much fun! It was a perfect 79 degrees, the water was probably about 65-70, not bad at all, we jumped the waves, threw sticks for Nali, and just really enjoyed the time as a family. Can I just say that all the bad talk about Texas really is just from people who haven't been here, or rarely come. Who can really turn down a late October day at the beach in 79 degree weather? I mean, seriously. It was amazing. We didn't go to Galveston for obvious reasons, and didn't see any destruction in Houston besides lots of signs needing repair/replacing and some skyscrapers with windows boarded. Besides that I was extremely impressed with the amount of clean up and repair done in Houston, it looked pretty normal to me. We went to the Children's Museum in Houston first and they went "trick or treating" there, where I got go do face painting on them (kitty cats), and they really had fun, for those of you from the Pacific Northwest, it was a lot like OMSI. Anyway, it was definitely worth the drive and I'm becoming more and more a fan of Texas. The pride is there for a reason, really... its awesome here!

The Cuddler

Abigail is quite a cuddler. Whenever she manages to sneak into my room and get in bed with me in the middle of the night, she always pushes me over to Brad's side and manages to take up more than half of our King Size Bed.

Poor Tori, Abbie insists on sleeping with Tori, and then she pushes her almost off the bed because she cuddles so much. I walked in to check on them and found this, you'll see Tori dangling off the bed while Abbie is clearly on Tori's side, leaving a huge space (where Abbie should be) empty. I think its adorable.

Election Fun

So Tori asked me yesterday,

"Mom, could you explain to me who John McCain is? I keep hearing his name, who is he?"

I was kind of taken a back thinking, "Wow, she is listening." So we decided to take the opportunity to teach her a little about Politics. So I said,

"Tori, do you know who George Bush is?"

thinking that I could start with who the President is now. She said...

"No... *pause* Wait, do you mean George Lopez?"

Brad and I had a good laugh, you know your child goes to a Spanish School when she knows the name George Lopez more than George Bush... that or she watches too much TV, hmmm, probably both.

WOW... wow.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning finally letting my body agree with my head that its time to get up. So I got up and started cleaning things up a bit when I heard some laughing and talking in the girls room. It was still dark out and I thought, wow, what are they doing up? Their light in their room was off, and I just thought it pretty odd. I opened the door and VOILA... it was CLEAN! They were just putting their last toy away! Tori went to bed at 7:00 last night, so she got up early, thought it was still night time because it was dark out, and decided that she'd better get her room clean for the house fairy before morning, so she woke up Abbie, and they cleaned it all before 6:30 in the morning. Seriously, this works! Prior to this there isn't anything I could have done to or for Tori to get her to clean it by herself without asking, let alone "in the middle of the night" I'm just amazed. THANK YOU HOUSE FAIRY!!! www.housefairy.org

House Fairy

Sometimes I blog just to get the other blog entry further down in the list, I hate being reminded about the "caca" incident, so I'm putting this on because its a much more pleasant entry. My wonderful sister introduced us to the House Fairy.

http://www.housefairy.org

Its done wonders for us, as it will for your family. I think its the cutest thing and Tori has responded so well. The house fairy is Santa Clause's sister and she comes when you least expect it to make sure your room is clean and bed is made, etc., and if it is, she leaves a surprise, and if its not, she only leaves her fairy dust so you know she came, and she also leaves a note. You can pretty much tell your child anything you want through the house fairy and they accept it and listen to it, like, "Next time you need to be nicer to your sister," or "make sure you don't leave your toys in the living room," or "Make sure to do your chores" or "have a better attitude tomorrow" and the kids really listen! I told Abbie she needed to help without complaining and let her sister teach her how to clean, and SHE DID! I'm just shocked. Anyway, check it out, its definitely worth trying. Its actually motivating me to clean my room too cause Tori keeps saying, "Mom, the house fairy didn't leave you a treat cause your room is dirty."

Here's a good one for you

First of all, I always try to have pictures on my blog posts, but here's one I purposely did not include.

It all started out like a normal day. I woke up early, around 6:30, got ready, got Tori off to school, and started work. Things were going great until *sniff sniff* something STINKS! And it smells like Poop! From here on out I will use the term Caca. I believe that is Spanish for Poop, and since we're here in TEXAS, I think that's appropriate. I'm doing this to soften the disgusting nature of the following...

SOOOooooo... as I was saying, I smelled Caca, and it wasn't pleasant. I figured it was the cat doing her business in the kitty litter, as her caca always smells quite strongly and nasty, so I went to go clean the kitty litter. It was empty, and the smell was still there. So i sighed and looked all over the bathroom and closet floor, trying to find the source of the disgusting smell. I looked all over going in circles trying to find it, but to no avail.

I was pretty perplexed, trying to use my sniffer to figure out the location, but the whole bathroom smelled nasty, so it was hard to figure out what area it was coming from. Finally, as I was leaving the bathroom, I noticed some liquid on the floor right next to our little trashcan that we had by the door. I thought it was odd that there was liquid on the floor so I opened up the lid (one of those step on cans). All I saw in the shadow of the lid was a dirty diaper with dark around it.

Now I thought to myself, the last time a friend was here with a baby that had diapers was probably around 3 weeks ago. Now granted I'm sure this stinks, I'm positive that the source of this caca smell is not from this diaper, as that has been there for 3 weeks without me knowing. So I closed it and kept looking, but looked back at it and tried to figure out why there was liquid coming out of the bottom of the garbage can, which had no liner in it because we never used it... so I thought.

So I decided to empty the miniature garbage can into the large garbage can and that's where the fun began...

I'm going to spare you from all the gory details of what it looked like and smelled and leave that to your imagination, I'll tell you how it happened.

Abbie enjoys scooping the cat caca from the kitty litter with the scoop every time she goes caca. She has told me that she has either put it in the toilet and flushed it or put it in the garbage can. Well, I assumed the garbage can she meant was the one RIGHT NEXT to the kitty litter that had a garbage bag in it. Apparently for the last 3 weeks, she has been putting the cat caca into this miniature garbage can, with no liner...

So what about the liquid you ask? I was perplexed as well. The conversation went like this:

"Abbie, did you go potty in the garbage can?"
"NO, I did not."
"Abbie, are you sure you didn't go potty in the garbage can?"
"Nope, I didn't."
"Abbie, did you spray the water bottle in the garbage can?"
"No."
"Abbie, I promise you, I won't be mad, and you won't get in trouble if you did go potty in the garbage can, did you?"
(Abbie pauses, looks deep in my eyes to see if I'm telling the truth)
"I was just kidding, I did go potty in the garbage can."

So let me explain. My wonderful daughter Abigail who is the most adorable child in the world, seems to think its a good idea to go #1 in the garbage can. I don't know why, I don't know HOW, but she does. She started at my Mother's house last April for some really odd reason, and admitted it a few weeks later and continued to do this about once a week in my little garbage can. And I had thought she had quit doing that after a few months. Well, apparently NOT, because there was PLENTY of #1 in that garbage can to make a nice outhouse out of it to greet me this morning with all of its glory.

So i think this was 3 weeks worth of #1 from Abbie and #2 from the cat, and trust me, it was worse than ANY outhouse you have EVER been in. Especially since I got so up close and personal while I cleaned it out. It soaked in bleach in the tub after a good rinsing and I put my hands in the bleached water to bleach my hands, and then I've scrubbed them about 8 times now thoroughly, and somehow, my hands, still have a hint of outhouse on them. Definitely by far, wins the most disgusting mess I've ever cleaned up award.

There's a good laugh at my expense for you :)