Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Obligatory "can you tell that our kids decorated the tree?" picture:

It's the first tree the kids have actually seen get put up because The Evil Wire-Chewing Cats are currently banished to the laundry room--the first and only other time we put the tree up, it took Merry and Sam about 36 hours to chew through all but 1 strand of the lights on our pre-lit tree.  The kids were really excited to see it and put the ornaments on themselves.  Nora squealed, "Oh look!  It's Christmas!" every time we opened a box.  But my sappy "aw, don't 'fix' it, just let the bottom third of the tree be decorated because that's how far the kids can reach" idea backfired because Addy has pointed out about 50 times that if I would just go to the store to buy more ornament hooks, I could put up the rest of the ornaments and fill in the "barefoot" spots on the tree.  Yup, she's definitely my kid. 

Once Upon Another Time...

Once there was a princess who lived in a castle.  She was dancing and she had a cat in her hand!  Her name was Asia and the cat's name was Fooda.  Fooda was pink, like Strawberry Shortcake's cat, and had pink stripes.  Asia was wearing a pink dress that was pink like Fooda, and she had on shoes called "slippers."

Asia lived in the castle with her 4 sisters.  They all had cats, too.  Each of the princesses lived on a different floor of the castle (except for the twins, who lived together on the same floor).  Asia was the oldest and so she lived on the top floor of the castle.  Next was Fooie, Fia, Fia, and Daygwyn.  (Fia and Fia are twins.)

Kid-isms

Nora took a sock off after snack today (yes, she took one off and left one on).  She was asked why she did this.  "So I can feel the floor," was her response.

In a separate conversation today, Addy was sitting at the table and Miss C pointed at the cup in front of Addy and reminded her to "be sure to not just eat pretzels, but also drink that, too."  "You mean the liquid?"

Chapter 3

[Part 1 is here.  Part 2 is here.  This is the thrilling conclusion of "The Animal Friends."]

After they finished watching the surfer girl movie, the animal friends had some lunch.  They had peanut butter and nutted sandwiches.  [A nutted sandwich is when you add extra nuts to your peanut butter.  This time, the chipmunk went outside to the back yard and picked up acorns to chop up for the sandwiches.  She had to be fast because there was a squirrel outside, too, and you do NOT want to eat acorns that squirrels have eaten!]

After the sandwiches, everyone put on their jackets so they could go outside.  The chipmunk's jacket was pink, the elephant's jacket was green, the pig's jacket was purple, the monkey's jacket was dark orange, the gorilla's jacket was blue, and the baby bear's jacket was yellow.  They all ran around in circles and were very dizzy outside.

After that they were ready for an adventure!  Everyone packed a flashlight, a backpack, and a sleeping bag.  But nobody packed a tent!  They went next door to the horse's barn for their adventure.  The horse was nice and opened the door for them.  She also put together a tent for them to sleep in.  It was a big tent--big enough for everyone to fit--and it was yellow because that's what color tents should be.

They also had a campfire and roasted marshmallows and hotdogs.  They didn't tell ghost stories around the campfire, but they did read a story about Monster Pinkfoot.  He's a boy.  He's pink.  He's a pretty nice guy.  And then, while they were reading his story, he showed up so he could sing them a song.

"I .... like to sing.  Oh, I ... like to sing!"

That's the end of the song.

And that's also the very end of "The Animal Friends" story.

Chapter 2

[This is the exciting continuation of the epic story "The Animal Friends."  You may recall that at the end of the first installment the pig, monkey, elephant, horse, baby bear, gorilla, and chipmunk had been playing games together since 3:00.]

The horse had to go home at 4:00, so he did.  The other animals wanted to watch a movie together.  It was about 4 surfer girls.

The first surfer girl wanted to check out the bottom of the ocean, so she did.  And do you know what happened?  She got stuck!  Stuck under a rock under the ocean!

The second surfer girl wanted to check out the waves, so she did.  Do you know what happened?  She got bonked on the head by a wave and couldn't get back!

The third surfer girl didn't know what she wanted to do.

The fourth surfer girl wanted to go surfing, so she did.  She surfed in the waves and then wanted to check out the sand, but when she got to the sand, she got stuck!  (It was just regular beach sand, not quick sand.)

After that, the third surfer girl figured out what she wanted to do: she wanted to go rescue the other surfer girls.  First, she went to the bottom of the ocean to rescue the first surfer girl--the one who was stuck under a rock.  She had to puuuuull reeeaaaally hard to get her unstuck, but it worked.  Then she went to the waves and rescued the second surfer girl.  Then she went to the beach and tried to rescue the fourth surfer girl, but it didn't work very well at first because she didn't realize she needed to dig at the sand.  Once she figured that out, it worked much better and the fourth surfer girl got rescued, too.

After everyone was rescued, they had to go take showers because they were covered in sand.

And that was the end of the surfer girl movie.  All of the animal friends liked it.

Some Nora-isms

Nora is very keen on knowing what the rules are and correcting anyone who might be breaking them.  Case in point: We went out to dinner at a restaurant that had football playing on several TVs.  Nora looked up after an exciting play and said "Dat's enough running!  Stop the running--all the TVs!  Stop running!  Stop clapping!"  This evening she looked out the window of the car and saw some birds on a utility wire and told them "Get down from there!  Get down, birdies!"

The Animal Friends

Addy told me this story tonight while we were getting her ready for bed.  It will be even more epic after there are illustrations, but, for now, I need to write down the story so I don't forget it.  Part 2 can be found here.  Part 3 is here.

Once upon a time, there was a pig, a monkey, and an elephant who lived together on a farm.  They went for a walk in the woods one day and got lost.  Then they found the path in the woods that leads back to their house, so they walked on the path and got back to their house.  Then they were unlost.

When they got home, they decided to celebrate by spinning in circles.  They used a bicycle, a scooter, and a rocket sled.  They took turns because they were nice friends.  Then their friend the horse came over and they all rode on the roller coaster together.

After that, they were hungry for dinner.  They had spaghetti.  It had butter and cheese on top.  There were oranges on top of that and spaghetti sauce on top of that and some kind of peach-like things on top of that and some blueberry-banana yogurt on top of that.

Next they needed a nap.

The 4 animals--the pig, the monkey, the elephant, and the horse--all worked together and the flipped the couch over so that it would make a cave.  The pig, the monkey, and the elephant all got in the cave to sleep, but the horse wasn't tired.  He went outside for a while.  Then he came back inside to check on the other animals.  They all still had their blankets.  Then they all woke up.

That's when the baby bear, the gorilla, and the chipmunk all came over and they all played games together.  The horse was still there because it was only 3:00 and he didn't have to go home until 4:00.

The end.

Phew, October is over and done with!

October is kind of a busy month between the dodging all of the pink breast cancer awareness barf that permeates everything, Spina Bifida awareness (which doesn't permeate nearly enough!), Nora's birthday, Halloween, etc.  Anyway, time moved forward, life as we know it continued, Little Bit turned 2, and we didn't go Trick-or-Treating.  I'm ready to move on into November, a.k.a., Birthday-Palooza with some Thanksgiving on the side.