Phoebe's Birthday Party

Autumn was invited to a Princess birthday party by her friend Phoebe from our playgroup. Specifically a Disney Princess party. Autumn is clueless about princesses, so I wasn't sure what to do. Luckily, she knew who Tinkerbell was, so we borrowed a dress up outfit from some friends. I get that Tinkerbell isn't a "princess" but I wasn't going to introduce all the princesses just for a party when she isn't all that interested in them. She isn't really a dress up kind of kid, so if she seems a little hesitant in the costume, that is why.

Here she is sort of fake smiling because she's not so sure about everything.



Getting a closer look.


Showing off her wings!


So we get to the party and see some friends and everyone is dressed up in princess costumes.  She does pretty well running around with everyone until...Belle shows up.  This "young lady" (I put that in parenthesis because I really have no clue how old she was, but she wasn't a teenager) in a huge yellow dress and a large wig comes in with a booming princess voice.  So, here is how my daughter reacted.


Hiding behind that chair.  I tried to coax her out, but it took awhile, and also her best friend, Anna, to get her to come to the front of the chair where the other guests were already watching Belle's performance.


Here are the two girls looking towards their mommas because they are a bit concerned about Belle.


Finally starting to warm up!


Captive audience.


I must say that her favorite part of the party was the balloon.  She was very concerned that she wasn't going to be able to take it home and kept asking me to keep an eye on it for her.


And, here is Belle!


Autumn's first time playing Hot Potato at a party. I don't know that she knew exactly what was happening at first, but she has really good deductive reasoning and is very good at watching to see what others are doing. Poor Anna was the first one out and I was afraid she was going to be really upset but she took it like a champ. I think if Autumn was out first she would have been really confused and upset. Though I think it helped that they got a necklace when they were out.

Decorating Her Tree

Here is Autumn's Tree.  It is first up and last down (stretching until the end of January even).





The next day doing some tweaking.




And after these pictures I "lost" all the blue/purple dum-dum lollipops.


Dec 2010 - Decorating Her Tree from Deb on Vimeo.

Last year's tree decorating

Sad to Happy

Everyday Autumn has school, I take a picture of her in front of the door. Here she is showing off her personality. All these pictures were taken within 30 seconds.





I almost got a smile here.



Now she's extra grumpy because she almost smiled.  Oh boy, look at that stare!  Daggers!







Oh, there she is! I know that girl!

Misc November Photos

Oh boy, she wasn't feeling it this morning!

Playgroup fun!

My little Helper Bee in her overalls and windex!

Cutie before school!

November 11
When she wants us to tell her about something she says, "You want to talk to me about ______?" This morning she heard the bumps on the road as I changed lanes. She wanted to know what it was and so I explained about staying in our own lanes. She said, "You want to talk to me about lanes?" Which means keep talking about them until I change the subject.

Facebook posts about Autumn"

This endless "why" stuff is going to be the end of us.   - November 2, 2010

Letting a kid stay up past her bedtime is all fun and games until the fun and games comes to an abrupt halt and there is a complete meltdown in the bathtub.  -November 6, 2010

Up one hour early is one hour too many before school. Bad behavior abounds. We are the third car in the drop off line. Take my kid, please!   -November 8, 2010

I'm thinking of instituting a new bedtime rule. If she is awake at 6:46 am then she goes to bed at 6:46 pm. 12 hours seems to be just about my limit these days.   -November 18, 2010

Autumn's version of "are we there yet?" is "I can't see Gram's house!"  -November 24, 2010

Texas HWY 14 is a study in small towns. When we turned off of 45 Autumn looked up at the two lane road and asked "Are we lost?"   -November 28, 2010

November 2008

November 2009

Thanksgiving

Nov 2010 - Gobble Gobble Gobble from Deb on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving was spent at Gram and Grandpa's house this year.  Here we are on a walk around the block.  Grandpa goes for walks and likes to take Autumn along, and that is really nice.  On this walk we were headed out to the end of the neighborhood and across the street to see the horses!

I have to say that this was Autumn's first time wearing a skirt with thick winter tights and she was OH SO CUTE! I decided then and there to make this outfit reappear for the rest of the winter.



The horses were already in the back pasture by the time we visited.  Slowly but surely a few of the horses decided to come see what we were there for.  They slowly trudged up to us, and I felt really bad that we didn't bring carrots or an apple, because they seemed to work so hard and we had NOTHING!

MDO Thanksgiving Party

Today was Autumn's Mother's Day Out Thanksgiving party.  They decorated placemats with things they were thankful for!  Let's see, off of that plate of food, Autumn ate the cheese and some ketchup!  She might have had a tiny piece of bread, I'm not sure.

Here comes the hoards!

"God our Father
Once again
We ask your blessing
Amen"

Making Chili

Autumn donned my old apron (that my mom made for my 8th birthday party?) and helped me make chili for my MOMS Club dinner swap. We cook as many meals as there are participants (usually 4-5 batches of the same meal) and then get together and swap for what others made. It is really nice to have some meals in the freezer that you didn't make and that you don't really have to clean up much after (you know, aside from the initial cooking day).








Nov 2010 - Making Chili from Deb on Vimeo.


Later that night we ordered Chinese food.  Autumn had some wonton soup and then went to TOWN on the sweet and sour sauce.  She probably ate about 1/3 of the container, and probably another third went on her shirt and mouth!  ("No pictures, Momma!")