Howell-A-Palooza

Our school district, Francis Howell, organized a district-wide event this week called "Howell-a-Palooza".  When I attempted to google it to get exact times and directions, google thought I meant "Lalapalooza".  It may have been the first time in history that google's suggestion is NOT what I intended to write.

Jason and I thought we'd try it out since they were supposed to have lots of Early Childhood activities, plus performances by the local high school bands, dance teams, cheerleaders, etc.  Amelia and I decided we would meet Jason at the halfway point since he would be coming from work.  Ultimately, due to the popularity of "Howell-A-Palooza", a ride that should have taken us about 20 minutes, took close to 40 minutes. 

Once we arrived and parked on the soccer field (?!?!--Isn't is boy's soccer season??), we followed the rest of the families walking toward the school.  We met Amelia's friend, Natalie, and her family in the parking lot.  Luckily, we encountered a woman passing out maps who said, "I'll give you one of these now because God knows you won't find them inside". 

The map was our savior.  I am sure without it we would still be roaming the hallways looking for the Early Childhood activities.

Once we found them, though, Amelia loved all of them!  She kept going from one station to the next.  She enjoyed playing in a pool of balls, making an American flag, throwing bean bags at a target, and playing in a huge tub of cornmeal.

  

She spent most of her time, however, playing in the "musical parade".  Everyone grabs an instrument and marches in a parade while playing their instrument.  This is something we do at home pretty often, so she jumped right in and didn't want to leave!

When we finally peeled her away from the parade, we took her outside to see the fire engine sitting in the parking lot. When it was her turn to sit in the cab, she told the

 fireman to "close the door".  She was denied, thankfully.  Although the picture doesn't quite show her enthusiasm, she loved sitting up there and pretending to drive.

By this point, we are all starving so we headed over to "taste of Howell", which we thought sounded like we'd be sampling the various cafeteria offerings from around the district.  In fact, it was a gathering of 40 restaurants in the area and after you paid $10 at the door, it was an all-

you-can-eat type set-up.  However, when we arrived they were out of food!  Apparently, the organizers didn't anticipate so many attendees.  

So, our family and Natalie's family opted out of the band performances that were starting on the football field and headed to Bandana's for dinner instead.  We were shocked as we were leaving that the traffic to get in was still backed up for miles!  

Jason, I, and Natalie's parents decided that next year we are

 getting a hotel out by the "venue" and tailgating beforehand.  Oh, the popularity of Howell-A-

Palooza!  

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

I haven't noticed much going on today to remember 9/11.  I only ventured out briefly this morning to the grocery store, but I saw no flags up around my neighborhood.  I didn't see anyone wearing red, white, and blue.  And it hasn't been the top story today on CNN.com--my only connection to the outside world since I rarely watch TV for listen to the radio during the day. 

It could be that my isolated self  is just missing all of the 9/11 talk.

Either way, I was wondering what I could do with Amelia to remember the day.  There isn't much you can do with a two year old to memorialize a tragedy she cannot even begin to understand. I decided we would put a small, American flag out by our mailbox.  Then, I remembered the book I have (The Man Who Walked Between the Towers) about a man who tight rope walked between the World Trade Center towers back in 1974.  The tale is true and an interesting one and the book has great illustrations.  At the end of the story, it mentions that "now the towers are gone" and shows a picture of where the towers once stood.  On the next page, a ghost of the two towers remains and the author says, "But in memory, as if imprinted on the sky the towers are still there.  And part of that memory is the joyful morning, August 7, 1974, when Philippe Petit walked between them in the air".  Needless to say, this book was part of our day today.

Its hard to believe its been 7 years already.

Rainbow Brite!

We did a variation of this activity this week.  This may have been Amelia's favorite activity we've ever done.  She kept giggling and saying, "More colors, mommy".  

We started out with four colors.  I put a tiny drop of food coloring in each container.

Then, I gave Amelia a small measuring cup of water and showed her how to pour it into the container.  Before she started pouring, I asked her to guess which color the water would become.  

After we did the first four colors, she begged for more, so I tried to do some variations with the colors.  I was only moderately successful at this, but it was fun anyway.  Amelia guessed the color "black" for what was supposed to be purple and she was more right than I!  During the last go around, I made sure to give her different amounts of water to pour so we could talk about "most" and "least".

We couldn't resist the temptation to add all of the colors together at the end to make a horribly disgusting brown color.

It's the little things!

Who knew styrofoam and toothpicks could be so much fun?  

Apparently this woman!  Amelia loved this and has come back to it several times since I first showed it to her.

Guess I'll add styrofoam to her Christmas list :)

Saturday Night's Alright

Saturday was great!  Grandma came to pick Amelia up in the morning and then Jason and I headed out for the day.  We had lunch at Olive Garden (we were both craving the soup, salad, and breadsticks combo) and then went to see my friend Tracy's play (which was excellent!). While we were killing time in between plays, we decided to do some shopping at Target and ran into a very old friend of ours.  Jason and I met in high school because we both worked at Target.  The girl we ran into worked with us there, too.  She mentioned that the St. Blaise (Holy Trinity) picnic was this weekend (she also went to the same grade school as Jason) and talked it up so much, that we decided that after the second play, we would take Amelia out there for the evening.

We met up with Grandma and Amelia and made our way to Holy Trinity.  Dave met us in the parking lot and Amelia was super excited to him.  Unfortunately, Amelia was too short to ride on any rides alone, so Uncle Dave stepped right in and offered to take her on the dinosaur ride she had been eyeing.  For those of you who don't know, Dave is 6'6" and built like a football player.  He hopped into the dinosaur and Amelia squeezed in next to him.  With his knees up to his chin, he struggled to clip the seat belt around him and Amelia.  He decided he couldn't do it and was about to get out when the carnival ride operator came by and didn't seem to notice or care that the seat belt was not fastened.  Looking at the two of them in the dinosaur, it was clear that Amelia wasn't going anywhere, seat belt or no seat belt.  What a sight to see them in there together!  At one point, a passing teenage girl looked up, saw Dave and said, "OH MY GOSH! Is he going to fall out of there??"

Again, I assure you, neither Amelia nor Dave were going anywhere.

She also enjoyed a ride on the cars, which was only captured with Grandma's camera for some reason.

We grabbed some dinner and enjoyed the live music in the "beer garden".  After listening to a few songs, Amelia said, "Beauty and the Beast?" and pointed to the band.  I guess that was her attempt at requesting a song.

She played some games after dinner, including the Price Is Right inspired "Plinko" where Amelia's cute face (not her Plinko-playing ability) earned her a stuffed monkey.  She also grabbed some ducks at the "Duck Pond" and won some fun prizes there.  One of the prizes she scored was a parachuting soldier that we've been chucking off the second story balcony at our house!  

One More Thing....

Did I mention what Amelia was doing while Jason and I were slaving away on the bathroom last weekend?  She got to go to a Labor Day party with GG and Papa.  Apparently, her and the sprinkler got along really, really well.

Laboring Through Labor Day

We decided last Friday evening, that we would renovate or half bathroom during the long Labor Day weekend.  We had rough plans.  We knew we wanted to tear out the vanity, light, and mirror.  We knew we wanted to paint.  We did not know whether the hardwood floor went under the current vanity and we really did not have a new vanity/mirror/light fixture in mind. Nor had we decided on a paint color.

On Saturday morning, we set off for one of SEVEN trips to the various hardware stores in the area during the weekend.  To make a long story short, the bathroom is nearly finished.  Here is a sneak peek of the changes:

Our old vanity, although I didn't get in there with the camera fast enough to get a shot with the sink in as well.  Suffice it to say that the sink (especially the faucet) matched the ugliness of the vanity.

Our new vanity and faucet!  You can also kind of see the color we chose here.

Our old light fixture, which we still have in 3 OTHER locations in our house, ugh!

Our new fixture!

We are still in search of a mirror and need to hang some things on the wall.  I will attempt to post again when the bathroom is complete (so be looking for a post around March sometime).

Pizza--Mediterranean Style

I am not much of a cook, but I think I'm getting better.  Although I've done it a time or twenty, it hardly seems fair that I stay home all day long and then ask Jason, "What's for dinner?" when he comes in the door at 5:30.  Slowly, I am building an arsenal of recipes that I can pull off for weeknight dinners (thankfully, Jason is still the sole chef during the weekend).

Without further ado, here is a recent addition to my "collection":

Mediterranean Patio Pizza

Pampered Chef

Crust:

1 package refrigerated breadsticks (11 oz.)

olive oil

1 garlic clove, pressed

Cheese Spread:

1 can artichoke hearts in water, drained and divided (14 oz)

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled, divided

1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves

Toppers:

2 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1/3 cup pitted ripe olives, sliced

1/3 cup cucumber slices, quartered

1/4 small red onion, sliced into thin wedges

2 tbsp. pine nuts, toasted (optional)

1/4 cup red wine vinegar and oil salad dressing

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 375 F.  For crust, unroll bread stick dough; separate into strips.  In center of round cookie sheet, coil 1 strip of dough around itself in a spiral pattern.  Add second strip to end of first strip and pinch ends; continue coiling dough.  Repeat with remaining dough.  Roll dough to edge with rolling pin to within 1/2 inch of edge of sheet, pressing seams to seal.

2. Lightly coat dough with olive oil and press garlic clove over dough using garlic press, spread evenly.  Bake 14-16 minutes or until golden brown, cool completely.

3. For cheese spread, chop artichokes to make 1/4 cup.  Combine with cream cheese, half of the feta cheese, and oregano; mix well.  Spread mixture evenly over crust.

4.  For toppers, quarter remaining artichoke hearts.  Seed and chop plum tomatoes.  Slice olives and cucumber.  Slide red onion.

5.  Arrange vegetables over cream cheese mixture.  Sprinkle with remaining feta cheese and pine nuts, if desired.  Cut pizza into wedges and drizzle with salad dressing just before serving.

Tonight, I just served it with a simple cracker, fruit, cheese plate and it was perfect!

Looking for Something to Do this Weekend?

Busy this weekend?  You can go next week, too!

Go where, you ask?  

To see my super-talented friend Tracy's play, Women of Strength in a New Nation. This is an original one-act play that she has written and is directing as part of the History Theater Festival at St. Charles Community College.  It explores great moments in the lives of Sacagawea, Lydia Roosevelt, and Sojourner Truth and starts Friday, September 5th and runs through Thursday, September 11th.

As an added bonus, another of my friends, Melissa, is one of the actresses in the play!  I am so giddy!  I can hardly wait to support these two!

There are tons of other performances during the festival too.  We will for sure see the Amelia Lives play as well (for obvious reasons).  Click HERE for the complete schedule. Hope to see you there!

In Mourning....

After Amelia's first Halloween (when she was the cutest pea pod ever!), I very clearly remember counting the number of Halloweens in her life she would have where she would be able to dress up and trick-or-treat.  I figured she would have about 12 different Halloweens, give or take a few.  With one Halloween down at the time, I made a rough list in my head of all of the things I would like her to be at some point during those 11 more dates:  Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, Little Red Riding Hood, Minnie Mouse, the Statue of Liberty, maybe Raggedy Ann?

Then came her second Halloween and I ran some of my ideas past Jason.  He had a good point that she didn't even know any of the characters on my list and we should try to follow her lead. Since she loved animals at the time and was constantly learning about new ones, we thought we would find an appropriate animal costume for her to wear.  As many of you may remember, this brought on the "costume crisis".  More specifically, I guess, the "crisis" was more Amelia's than mine.  Actually, looking back, it was probably not much of a crisis after all :) But, since I cannot link back to the old website, let's recap:

Last year, I found three equally adorable animal costumes for Amelia and was having trouble deciding which one she should wear for Halloween.  So, I bought all three and asked my fellow website readers to vote on their favorite choice. 

Of the three costumes, the skunk was the overwhelming winner.  So, the other two costumes went back to the store and our Little Stinker was born.

So, this brings us to Amelia's third Halloween.  I had high hopes this year of sneaking in one of MY choices (because its all about me anyway, right?).  But much to my surprise, Amelia had her costume picked out way back in June when she was first introduced to "Beauty and the Beast".  First, the book, then the movie, and now the soundtrack.  Somewhere along the line, I must have jokingly said, "You can be Belle for Halloween" and apparently it stuck.  Now, if you ask her what she wants to be for Halloween, she replies, "Me, Belle.  Daddy, Beast.   Mommy, Chip.  Truman, wolf.  Dave, Gaston". So, not only have I introduced Amelia to a character NOT on my list, but I also suggested she be that character for Halloween.  She, in turn, has assigned everyone else a role for Halloween which could make for an interesting evening! (I am pretty sure that her Uncle Dave has no idea who Gaston is or that he is supposed to dress up as him for Halloween).

Its not that I have anything against Belle, I don't!  I think she's lovely, she likes to read, she's smart, and she speaks her mind.  I particularly like her anti-discriminatory attitude as well as her unwavering love for her father.  But, I really thought I had a couple of years before the Disney princess thing kicked in.  I guess it could be worse, Amelia originally wanted to be the Beast.....

Ashamedly, though, I must admit that I went to the library and found a neat Halloween book with lots of kids dressed up as different things and I gave Amelia one more chance to change her mind. She did not waver--Belle it is!  So, I sucked it up and found a pattern for a toddler Belle costume on ebay and GG and I went out on Monday to buy some fabric. She will be so happy, which is really what its all about!

But, just for good measure, next year around this time, I may just show her the "Wizard of Oz" and hope for the best!