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Sunday, January 23, 2011

100 Day Project

Tomorrow is Sami’s 100th day of Kindergarten! They have been counting the days until this fun milestone, and will be celebrating tomorrow in class! As part of the celebration the students were asked to complete a “100 Day Project” to bring in.
The teacher had given a few ideas to get our creative juices flowing- 100 toys cut from magazines and pasted on a poster board, 100 legos built into a creation, 100 sugar cubes made into an igloo….
I asked Sami if she wanted to glue 100 pennies onto a poster that we could make into the shape of a piggy bank. She informed me that sounded “lame”…hmm…well…after I picked myself up off the floor from shock I asked her what SHE thought would be a good project.
“I want it to be about Disney” she said…
Oh BOY! I’ve corrupted her and now she is thinking Disney all of the time!!! She bounced around a few ideas then asked if we could do it together and use the Cricut….
Disney and the Cricut???? That’s my girl!!!!
She came up with the idea to have 100 Mickey balloons that she would be holding! So…we took her picture…
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And we cut it out and put it on the poster board. I said “How many colors do you want the balloons to be?”
Her reply: “We should just use 10 colors because we can do 10 Mickey’s on each sheet.” I stared at her for a moment…and she said “Ya know…cause 10 by 10 is 100???”
Her little mind amazes me sometimes….
So I taught her how to use the Cricut…and she was off!
She was able to figure out doing all of the Mickey heads, and I helped her with cutting out the castle….
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Pay no attention to the mess that surrounds her!!! Ha!
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And the finished product…
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Happy 100th day of school!!!!!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Silly Sami…

Twice tonight Sami had me giggling so hard I had tears in my eyes!!! She kept singing this song…”Come and get it….supper’s ready” I thought it was cute. She is always making up songs. Then I listened closer and realized she was singing it to the tune of Madonna’s “Holiday (Celebrate)” , so I asked her if that was what she was singing. “Yeah mom…but she says Come and get it…supper’s ready!” He,he,he….no no! She says…
Holiday Celebrate    Holiday Celebrate
If we took a holiday      Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life       It would be so nice…
“Oh…” Hahahaha! We both laughed hysterically!

Then tonight as I was walking out of her room after tucking her in she said “wait…I forgot to pray for baby Canaan…can I add a P.S. to my prayer???”
After I nearly died laughing I said…”yes honey God takes P.S. prayers!”
Who knew she knew about writing a P.S.????
I love you Sami! Thanks for the laughs!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Disney Family Movie Night- Dumbo

I haven’t watched Dumbo in so long I had a hard time remembering what it was all about!  I did remember that Dumbo is part of the circus, so planning was pretty fun for this week!
We started with our craft. We decorated lunch bags to use for popcorn while we watched our movie.
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The finished product…
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Matt found some circus music online that we listened to while we put on our own little circus.
Sami was a tight rope walker…
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Matt and Skylar tried their hand at juggling. Matt was pretty good at using two…and Skylar just thought we were throwing balls around! It was fun…
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Then the girls dazzled us with their “ring of fire” tricks…
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Then we played Wii Carnival Games
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For dinner we had fun food you might eat at the circus. I made WAY too much, but it was fun!
On the menu:
Hotdogs
Peanuts
Popcorn (for the movie in our bags)
Cotton Candy
Soft Pretzels with Cheese
Elephant Ears (tortilla shells cooked in vegetable oil sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar…yummy!)
Clown ice cream cones for dessert
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And these are our ice cream clown cones. My ice cream had started to melt by the time I found the camera…poor guy was looking a little sad!
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A friend from dance will be taking her family to Disney this fall as well and they have started Disney movie nights! She asked me how I came up with what movies to watch. There were rides and characters we met that we weren’t 100% familiar with. So I went through the list of every Disney movie and picked out ones with rides and character encounters that I wanted us to freshen up our knowledge on!
Here is us after we rode Dumbo this last year…
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My tip for Dumbo:
Ride it FIRST thing in the morning! It is a slow moving line, and a favorite amongst kids of all ages. Be sure to grab a fastpass for Peter Pan first then head straight to Dumbo! You won’t be sorry! =)
We had a lot of fun this week! Up next week…Bambi!

Relief for Skylar

Our precious 18 month old little Skylar finally got her ear tubes yesterday!
This is what Skylar’s hair looked like at the end of October…
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A few weeks later she started to pull out her hair….
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You can see in the above picture she started on her right side. It was determined she was pulling her hair due to pain from ear infections. She had 12 ear infections last year. She had none in the summer, so as you can imagine she had a rough time. In November we noticed she was in even more pain. She had pulled all of her hair out by this time. She went from saying about 18 words to only 3 or 4. She was laying around ALL the time, and banging her head against us.
Poor baby…just little peach fuzz left…
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The pediatrician and I had discussed the possibility of seeing an ENT for tubes in late Spring. I didn’t want to put her through surgery if it wasn’t necessary. As I previously mentioned all summer she was infection free, but once fall hit it was all down hill.
I had been doing research on my own, and asking friends whose children had tubes on who the best ENT would be for us. When the pediatrician recommended the same physician I had been looking into I knew he was who we wanted. The week before Christmas we met Skylar’s miracle. Dr.Baroody who practices at Comer Children’s Hospital at The University of Chicago. We are lucky he has an office about 30 minutes from our house. He agreed that she has been on too many antibiotics in her short little life, and we scheduled her surgery that day. He was so sweet and kind with her. When I told him about her hair he held her little hand…looked in her eyes and said… “You poor sweet baby. We will fix you right up!” I think he may be the kindest doctor I’ve ever met! Then he gave her a Tigger sticker…and Skylar decided she liked him too!
Surgery Day…
Thankfully he schedules surgery from youngest to oldest, so she didn’t have to go a long time without eating or drinking anything. The only down side…we had to be at Comer (in Chicago) EARLY! We were supposed to be there at 6:30 am!!! YIKES! We left our house a little after 4:00 am. We knew this was way too early, but we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time. We stopped for some caffeine and still got there around 5:45. For those who know me I would much rather be 45 minutes early than 45 seconds late to anything so this was fine with me!
We filled out paperwork at 6:30 a.m. while Skylar flirted with another little boy who was there to get tubes. A little after 7:00 a.m. we went back and changed her into her little gown.
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They took all of her vitals and put on her little id bracelets. We chit chatted with the nurse a bit. She went on to tell me that Dr. Baroody is the best at what he does…. I said oh yes that’s what I’ve heard!!! Then she said “Kids come from other countries to have him perform their surgeries!” I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped to the floor. I KNEW she was in good hands now.
Skylar checks out the guys parking cars down below…
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By 7:15 A.M. Dr. Baroody came in and went over everything with us one more time…asking if we had any questions. Next we saw the anesthesiologist. I could not believe how kind he was! He wasn’t only great with Skylar, but he was good with me. You know…the bundle of nerves mom who was about to hand her child over to him to put her to sleep! YIKES! 
Just after 7:30 A.M. we walked her to “the big red line” and then handed her over. She of course cried. I knew there was nothing I could do…so I turned around and booked it for the waiting room. I texted with my friend Michelle almost the whole time we waited…sadly her children are at Comer all too often for surgery so she knows the ropes. I was so relieved when she said Skylar’s anesthesiologist was one of her daughter’s favorites (so sad that they know them THAT well…) so I knew God had a hand in that. It brought me a lot of comfort. Michelle was great at distracting me…and before I knew it they were calling us back to her bedside.
As I was walking down the hall I could hear her crying…so I did the only thing I could think to do. I RAN to her side. I’m pretty sure the nurse thought I was a crazy woman! “It’s ok Mom…she isn’t actually awake!” Matt and I took turns holding her as she fought off the anesthesia…and boy did she fight! Once she started to wake up she let the nurse know she didn’t want her anywhere near her by shooting her some majorly evil looks! They were actually pretty funny!
It took about 45 minutes of her fighting to fully wake up enough to take a drink, and change her clothes. Her nurse went over all of our at home instructions, and Dr. Baroody came over to check on her one more time before releasing her. He said “alright…you little cutie…go home and feel better now!” We were in the car by 9:00 A.M. It was a whirlwind of a morning!
Here is a picture of her sleeping on the way home…
004She slept it off yesterday, and today when she woke up it was as if nothing ever happened.
She learned a new word today… “down” which we have been trying to teach her for weeks! A sign to me that she really needed this…and finally has some relief.
If you ask her what the doctor fixed she will smile and say…”eeees!” =) Too cute!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Mummy Deals- GIVEAWAY

One of the blogs I regularly read Mummy Deals is hosting a giveaway for 4 tickets to see Disney’s Toy Story on Ice!

When Sami was two she went to see the Princesses on Ice, so I think this show would be a lot of fun!!!

The contest ends January 17th, so be sure to check it out HERE and enter to win!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Check out this GIVEAWAY!

One of the blogs I like to read Disney Dreamers Designs is having a giveaway for a 2010 Love Struck Solutions Cricut cartridge!!! How neat is that???

You can check it out HERE

Good luck! 

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Counting Down…

I love my little countdown ticker until we are back at Disney World,but I wanted something the whole family could see change everyday.
I thought about making a paper chain, but we are at 259 days as of today…that would be A LOT of strips of paper! Ha! Plus I wanted to make something that could be reused year after year (or however often we go back) so I didn’t feel like I was wasting paper.
This is what I came up with:
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I think it will be fun to move a Mickey Head each day and watch the number shrink…at least I will enjoy it! He,he!
I have some blogging friends who are GREAT at giving tutorials…I didn’t think to take pictures as I was making it, but it was pretty simple.
1. I used the back of an old picture frame (the glass was cracked) to make the easel part so it would stand up. I used black paper to cover it then cut the cute Mickey paper down 1/4 inch smaller all around and mounted it on the black.
2. The Mickey heads, excited Mickey, numbers and letters were made with my Cricut Expression. I used the Mickey and Friends and Mickey Font cartridges.
3. My calendar can count down from 365 days…well…399 really, but I thought any numbers higher than that would just be cruel to countdown from! So there are 23 Mickey heads and they each have a number from 0-9.
4. I punched holes in the easel and numbers with my Making Memories tool kit. I tried to use a hole punch, but I couldn’t get far enough on the page.
5. The numbers are attached with binder clips.
That’s pretty much it! What do you look forward to and countdown to???

Friday, January 7, 2011

Disney Family Movie Night- Pinocchio

This week’s Disney Family Movie Night was “Pinocchio”. I had a volleyball game to get to later in the evening, so I had everything ready to go when Sami got home from school. I cut out stars with my Cricut, and we wrote our wishes on them…you know…wish upon a star…

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When we were done decorating them Sami hung them up as decoration for our puppet show. Our wishes were (as they appear from left to right…)

Matt- a “long” job Sami- “Get a dog” Skylar- “Dog Dog” Me- “For 260 days to go by quickly…”

Then we all took turns putting on puppet shows…

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Skylar decided she liked watching more than being in the show…

Pinocchio 006Pinocchio 007Pinocchio 008 <-------- I love that little face!

I had to get a little creative with the menu tonight, but it worked out.

We had:

Stromboli’s Pepperoni Stromboli

Geppetto’s Green Beans

Figaro’s Fudge brownies for dessert

(Skylar had spaghetti to keep with the Italian menu)

The stromboli was really easy to make…and a nice change from regular pizza.

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The little bowls have extra pizza sauce for dipping.

I love hearing from people that our movie nights have inspired them to start a similar family fun night at their homes! My sister in law in Texas and I were texting ideas back and forth the past few days. VERY fun!

So enjoy your family time! Up next week….Dumbo!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Our Family Christmas

In the past years we’ve been out really late on Christmas Eve at family parties. Last year Sami was so exhausted when we got home (it was well after 11 pm) that she forgot to put out cookies and milk for Santa. While that may not seem like a big deal it really broke my heart. I know there aren’t too many years left for her and the magic of Santa. Matt and I both decided that from now on things would be different. They will only be little once. We didn’t want to eliminate the extended family gatherings either though because those too are important. This Christmas we were home and in bed by 9:30 pm. Now that is more like it!

I woke up about 8:30 and the girls woke up a little after. When we came downstairs Skylar didn’t know what to think of all the packages under the tree. Sami of course was super excited!

A few days before school let out Sami brought home her “December Journal” from school. There were various pages that had a sentence the kids were to finish. My favorite answers…

For Christmas I want….”my family to have the best Christmas togeter” (together)

Christmas is….”the burth of baby Jezus” (birth of baby Jesus) with a very nice little picture.

At the beginning of the school year we talked and prayed about pulling her out of public school and putting her in the Christian school. There were various reasons, but we felt we should keep her in public school. When she brings home papers like this it makes my heart smile and reassures me of our decision.

With that being said Sami is still a typical six year old and enjoys the fun that Christmas brings. This year she asked for two things from Santa : a Bitty Baby for Skylar and a Just Like Me doll for her.

Santa delivered…

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Christmas 2010 008 Her doll has blonde hair and brown eyes just like her! She has straight hair, but Santa knew that would be a slight bummer for Sami…so he also brought her the American Girl hair care set complete with curlers! Sami named her doll “Samantha” because she is “just like me”. She also got a cabinet to keep all of the doll clothes in, and a few outfits for her dolls.

Skylar has been playing with Sami’s Bitty Baby for a few months now. She actually became pretty possessive of her, so I think that is why Sami suggested Santa bring Sky one of her own! Santa agreed…

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I thought her poor little head was going to explode when she saw what was in the box! Poor Matt was trying to get it open and she was squealing in delight! Sami helped her name her…her name is “Sophia” but they call her “Sophie” for short. Skylar just calls her baby. Winking smile

I decided the girls’ dolls needed Mickey Mouse ears to wear in preparation for our trip to Disney, so I asked my friend who I met on Facebook if she could make some. They turned out great! Thanks Little Blessings!

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Matt and I had decided we weren’t going to exchange gifts this year. He has really been wanting a new pair of slippers, so I thought I would surprise him with a nice new pair under the tree. Much to my surprise he had gotten me a few things too! A docking station/speakers for my Ipod touch (which has prompted a few impromptu dance parties) and a lovely new purse and cosmetic bag. I drooled over this Dooney Bourke purse when we were at Disney World, but felt bad buying it for myself. I really like designer purses, and obviously really like Disney…so for these two loves to unite…ahhhh…..

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Thanks Matt!!!!!

My mom and dad were kind enough to offer to come to our house for Christmas. Which meant no rushing around to be anywhere else! It was SO nice! In fact Sami stayed in her pj’s ALL day!!! My mom even made dinner ahead of time and brought it with! All we had to do was warm it in the oven! Thanks mom!

Nana and Papa also brought gifts…

Sami has been wanting the American Girl doll “Kit” for a long time now…but I think the expression on her face tells you that!

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Skylar loved her gifts as well…

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I haven’t done an update on Skylar recently, but for those who do not know she is still suffering with a severe milk allergy. She has accidently had things with milk in it a few times recently and it was not pretty. Sad smile Nana (my mom) is so sweet…she made Skylar her very own sugar cookies she had made with vegan soy butter she had left over from making my sister some peanut brittle. I don’t think Skylar has ever had a yummy cookie. She REALLY enjoyed them…

Feeding her cookie to her new Pluto “dog-dog”

Christmas 2010 031We had a nice afternoon playing Wii games and just enjoying each other! I hope you had a fabulous Christmas as well!