Blink of an eye

I blinked, and November disappeared. It's a poor excuse for my lack of posting this month, but there it is.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving week, during which we took no pictures. I know. Boo and I did a bit of Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. We had a great time until the very end when she took off through men's clothing and the only way I found her was because she was laughing hysterically at having given mom the slip.

All three of us ventured out on Black Friday, which we have never done before and will never do again.

So this has solidified my decision to do all my Christmas shopping online. Most of it will have to be shipped anyway, why not let someone else do it?? So Cyber Monday, here I come.

If that doesn't work, I'll try cjane style: "By-the-way I have decided that I'm doing all my Christmas shopping at Target. If Target doesn't stock it, don't ask me for it. And, I am going to do it all in one day. Shop from nine to noon, take an Archer Farms catered lunch and resume from one to eleven. Don't call me that day."

We did get our Christmas tree up and lit in one afternoon, a far cry faster than last year. It still needs ornaments, hopefully that will get done this evening. Boo loves the lights on the tree, and the lights on the houses. She calls them "creamy lights".

And for those of you who are anxious for pictures of Boo, visit my parents' blog, where my mom put together a slideshow of pictures of our trip to music. About half of the pics are from Fairy Tale Town, the post still sitting in my draft box. :)

Blueberry Muffins

We had a gray, rainy morning today, and tried out these fabulous blueberry muffins.

First day of school

Boo went to her first day of preschool this week. And loved it. She was excited every time I mentioned 'school'. When we walked into her classroom, she hung her coat and bag on the hook and walked right over to circle time. She put her picture up on the tree like she'd been doing it all her life. I watched from the back for a few minutes, but she never looked back. Well. So much for mom.

So, sans Boo, I ran errands at the speed of light and listened to grown-up radio stations.

She was still happy as could be when I came to pick her up. We're both already looking forward to next week.

Mimi's Cafe

My brother and his wife live in Sacramento (ish) so we got to play with them twice during our trip.

Tuesday we drove down to Sacto to meet them at Mimi's Cafe for dinner. It all started out so nice...Boo got crayons and a kid menu, a snack of cheerios and soda crackers. Then my strawberry lemonade came. Man it was good. Boo loved it too, and drained it right down. Mimi's has unlimited refills, so another one appeared, hooray! I should have thought this through a little better. A few minutes later....

"Potty quick!" says Boo. We run to the bathroom, and she runs her hand along all the tables (even the occupied ones) as she goes. She runs gleefully into the stall, then does an about face and pastes herself to my legs screaming "NO FLUSH!" It's of course one of those automatic flushing toilets. Which I love. If I had my way, all public bathrooms would be as touchless as possible...like the ones in the airports, with no outer doors, and automatic flushing, motion sensor water faucets, soap dispensers and paper towel dispensers. But I digress.

So I peel her down and sit her on with reassuring words, hoping we can get out of the stall before it flushes. And we do. Hand washing is a delight. She notices that I use my paper towel to open the door, so she tries to do it with her paper towel too. And back to the table she goes, touching the other tables as she runs (even the occupied ones).

Then we repeat the above routine (EXACTLY) FOUR MORE TIMES. We finally finish our meal and Grandpa races home before we hear "Potty quick!" from the back.

Happy cows come from California

We just got back from a week in California. And it was happy...

We spent a lot of time w/ Grandma & Grandpa.

It smelled SO GOOD in California.

We wore short sleeves and played in the yard.
And in Grandpa's horseshoe pit.
We played with James and Sabrina.
And great-grandma. (And Pete & Mel, but didn't get a picture w/ them).
I introduced Boo to Jamba Juice and In-N-Out Burger.

Boo got a new puppy from Grandma & Grandpa.
Boo got her own cup of Yo-Yo Yogurt with Oreos and rainbow sprinkles.

There was this awesome rocking horse.
Great-grandma made Boo her own pumpkin.

We had a great trip to Fairy Tale Town...more on that later.

And the best strawberry lemonade ever.

One more Halloween post

Getting ready to go out.

Even though we only went to about five houses, Boo came home from trick-or-treating with the mother load. She squeaked out 'tik-o-tee' and got triple helpings from each candy bowl in return. By the end of the night she was even saying "Happy Halloweeeeeeen". The next morning she picked up her pumpkin and was ready to go out again.