Five Things to Know About the Christmas Parade.

1. It was cold. Not "too-dangerous-to-be-out-there" cold but cold enough for snowpants and hats and gloves and frozen adult bottoms from sitting on the concrete.
2. Number of chairs Glenn suggested we bring with us: 2. Number of chairs we actually brought because I was like "Nah, we don't need them. It's not that cold.": 0.

3. Hot chocolate seems like a good idea because it's warm and yummy but it leads to three trips to the bathroom and subsequently missing seeing Santa which was the whole point of the bleeping trip anyway.

4. Trigger likes parades. Especially parades with horses and alpacas in them. Very interested in other things with four legs. He also likes it when people randomly drop snacks in his vicinity while watching the parade. 5. Important lesson. If your kid is coughing and sneezing and looking droopy, it's probably a good idea to go with your gut and not drag said kid to the Christmas Parade even though she wants to see the Parade because chances are, said kid will keep hacking and coughing and end up with a diagnosis of croup the next day.

Will flashes gang signs and Reina pouts

We've had a busy pre-Thanksgiving week. Glenn was buffalo hunting last week but came home without a buffalo this time. He'll have a few more chances before the season ends. While he's gone, I try to keep everyone busy with fun projects and crafts that they don't normally get to do. Last weekend I had the brilliant idea of having Will and Reina make some turkey stuff for Thanksgiving. We picked out a project and they were excited to glue and peel and cut and everything. I got all of the material set out and had everything ready to go. Will sat down for about 3.5 seconds, made his turkey and was done. Reina stuck around for a little longer but she was unhappy that Will had used a pink dot and blah blah blah. Needless to say, this was the best picture I could capture of the Art Project 2011. And I know, I want to reach through the camera and wash Reina's face! I mentioned in a previous post that Will is learning (and retaining) all sorts of funny stuff lately. He informed me this week that he knew how to say his name in sign language. Here we go..... W I......L.......

L!!

Reina looked especially cute for church last Sunday so I thought I'd take a quick pic of her radiant cheerfulness.
Let's try this again!
Hope everybody has a happy Fanksgiving!

November Stuff

We have all sorts of weird milestones happening at the Pauley household. Last night I overheard Reina's first (successful) attempt at tormenting her brother by repeating everything he was saying.

Will: I'm going to get a treat tonight.
Reina: I'M going to get a treat tonight.
Will: Stop saying everything I say.
Reina: Stop saying everything I say.
Will: I'm not playing with you.
Reina: I'm not playing with YOU.

And so it begins....

Brother and sister generally get along pretty well. Their big game lately is to play Lion King. Will plays the role of Mufasa (the daddy lion) and Simba (the boy lion) and Reina gets to be the mommy lion, of course. Trigger plays Scarf the bad lion. In the actual movie the bad guy's name is Scar but I can't bring myself to point that out to Will. Scarf is a much better villain's name, don't you think?

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Will is really interested in learning lately. He wants to count everything (number of Lego's to put back in the Lego bucket, how many bad guys are fighting Batman, pieces of antelope jerky he can eat for breakfast (I know, weird - but they both love it for breakfast). He'll willingly write his name on anything. Sometimes it comes out W-i-l-l, sometimes it's l-l-i-w depending on which side of the paper he starts on. He's very earnest about relaying the little details that he learns in school. "Mom! Did you know that the Indians lived in a tee.... what are those things called?" He gets very serious when he talks about that holiday that's coming up and I have to stifle a smile when he says "Mom! Did you know that it's going to be Fanksgiving next week? I fink it is!"

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Reina is so very two, still. She's talking up a storm but her personality is still very umm... mercurial? She's all smiling and hugs one minute and then screeching "NO! I'M MAD AT YOU!" the next. She loves to play kitchen and pretend that she's cooking up a feast of hot chocolate, 'sammitches' and tea. She wants to do every single thing that her brother does, and she wants to do it faster and better. How's that for a preview of coming attractions?

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Glenn and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary last weekend. By 'celebrating' I mean we went to a 5-yr old's birthday pool party and had a blast and then ate Japanese takeout in the kitchen with a couple of hungry kids hogging the tempura. This anniversary was the first time that the date fell on a Saturday since our wedding. All day I thought back to what I was doing in 2005 - getting my hair done, buying a bagel sandwich with my veil on, getting ready with all of my friends and relatives, seeing Glenn at the end of that long aisle. It was a happy day and I marveled to think of how much has changed and yet how much has stayed the same since then. We have a different house and dog and two crazy kids but we are still the same people who got married that windy day in November.

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At the pool party last weekend, both kids had a blast in the water. We had to drag them out kicking and screaming (literally) and Reina looked like a cast member from that last scene in "Titanic." Her lips were a lovely shade of blue. They both love the water and with the help of some floaty vest things, they splashed around and went down the water slide and had a great time. Will even jumped off of the diving board! I don't think I did that until I was 16! He balked on his first attempt and had to climb back down but after a pep talk and watching a few other kids have a go, he bravely climbed back up, walked to the end of the board, jammed both hands in his mouth and then jumped into the pool where Glenn was waiting to catch him. He ended up getting up there a few more times. I remain alternately amazed and terrified at his bravery. One thing's for certain, we are signing this kid up for swimming lessons next month.

Overheard at Target

"Look Mom! I'm a fly!" "But we neeeeeeeeed it!"

Reina is getting too big for the seat on the front of the shopping cart so I've been letting her run free with her brother. She's extremely helpful. Today I fished out of our cart the following items: a gold and silver ladies watch, that giant bag of gumballs in the picture above and a Barbie. We didn't notice the giant roll of blue duct tape that made it home in our shopping bag but apparently she has decorating plans that we don't know about.

Well at least we won't have to worry about in-laws

We had a weird milestone of sorts this morning in the Pauley household. Will officially proposed to Reina. Well, to be fair, I think his actual words were "We are going to get married someday, right Reina?" Her response was "ehhhh...."

I'm relaying this story for two purposes. One: to embarrass him when he's 13. Two: to remember to mention this story in the toast at his wedding. "Sorry new Mrs. Pauley but you should know that you weren't actually the first person that Will wanted to marry."

Will has weddings and relationships and couples on the brain lately. Besides Reina, he also wants to marry a cute little blonde in his class. I asked why he wanted to marry her and he said it was because she has long hair. Typical. He suddenly knows the terms "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" and any two people of the opposite sex on the television are suddenly coupled in a romantic relationship, instead of say, detective partners or people talking in line at McDonald's. "Is that her boyfriend?" "How come his girlfriend is shooting a gun?" Yeah. No more Law & Order episodes left lying around.

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When he's not plotting his nuptials, Will still has pirates on the brain. It's been cold and windy outside so we are stuck in the house after dinner. Tonight, Will and Reina talked their Dad into pulling them around the upstairs in a laundry basket. That's no ordinary laundry basket, mind you. That's a pirate ship. Complete with a princess-in-peril and her baby (?). That's one tough baby. Doesn't the pirate ship hauler look completely enthused? My camera has a special function that manages to capture Glenn looking dour and in pain whenever possible. He was having fun, I swear!

A few minutes after I snapped this photo, I was downstairs and heard Reina shrieking so I came up to investigate. Turns out the two were supposed to be taking turns riding solo in the pirate ship and it wasn't Reina's turn, hence the loudly vocal dismay. I catch Will and Glenn at the top of the stairs discussing the merits of taking the pirate ship down the stairs. Not, downstairs but DOWN THE STAIRS. I calmly and politely reminded Glenn of the trip to the ER earlier in the summer after Will rode the exercise ball DOWN THE STAIRS. After some rational discussion, I agreed that they could attempt a very controlled pirate-ship-down-the-stairs maneuver. After a short but bumpy ride, Will made it to the bottom of the stairs unscathed and cheerfully informed me, "See mom, I'm not bloody!" Yup, that's we measure success around here. No one got bloody. Hooray.

Race Day

We traveled down to Colorado this morning so that Uncle Matt and I could run a half marathon while the rest of the crew cheered us on. This is going to be a short post because I really want to go lay down. I'm tired! It was a fun race and one of the better ones I've run in that I didn't throw up or cry at the end. Yeah!! Here we are pre-race. It was a cold day but pretty nice for a long run. Trigger came with us too but he was still in the car at this point. Will's not plugging his ears on purpose, he's just jamming out to some tunes on my Ipod. He loves his music. Here I am approaching the finish line. Vicky took a bunch of great pictures but I chose this one because (a) I actually look like I'm running and (b) I'm not making an obscene gesture at the camera - not that I would EVER do that but let's just say that it was a long 13 miles and (c) look at the form, that smile, I actually look like a runner (unlike some of the photos from previous races where people are like, "why are homeless running down the middle of the street?")

So it was a nice Saturday. We are having one of those rare months-that-end-in-'ber weekend occurrences where both of us are home and no one is hunting anything. The weather was a little nasty when we came back home so we spent the afternoon and evening just hanging out. It was really nice. Now I'm off to find another handful of ibuprofen and resume my position on the couch. More tales of the Bronco Babies tomorrow....

The Cowgirl and the Pirate

First things first, Trigger (aka Secretariat) won second place in my office's Halloween pet costume contest. He lost to a cat with a kicky hat and witch's dress. Any cat that willingly wears a hat and dress probably deserves first place. But I think Trigger looks pretty good too. As a bonus, the costume made him a little humble and reserved. I think I'll put it on him every night. On Halloween, I spent a few minutes with Will's class for a Halloween party. The kids wore their costumes and had a parade around school and then changed back into regular clothes for a Halloween snackfest extravaganza. Each snack item was orange - wiggly jello bats, cheez-its, orange slices, cupcakes (made by the Bronco Baby Mom), cheese stick and orange juice. Very appealing for the 4-yr old set. Here they are singing the Montessori pre-snack song. The hand-holding and singing warms my heart. Will takes his wiggly orange jello very seriously.

I headed back to work for a few hours and then picked up the kiddos early to take the tour around the offices (all of their Cheyenne relatives are state employees and we take our office trick-or-treating very seriously!) and then home for a quick meal so that at least a few of the calories they ingested that day were of the protein/vitamin-laden variety.

Here's the official 2011 Halloween picture:

Reina is a homemade Jessie the Cowgirl. She was delighted with her hastily sewn cowhide chaps that are actually safety pinned to her jeans and her sale rack western shirt that she'll be able to wear until she's a 4T. Will is a pirate. He wanted to be Capt Jack Sparrow but he ended up looking more like a Three Musketeer/buccaneer variety pirate. He's got the jauntiness down pat.

The weather was pretty decent for a Wyoming Halloween and we all went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Both kids quickly figured out that ringing a few doorbells and shrieking "TICKORTEE!!" equaled a handful of candy in your orange plastic pumpkin and they were fully on board with the process, until we got to this house. If you zoom in closely, you can see someone coming around the corner.

Well, behind that person was a grown man dressed in full Darth Vadar gear, complete with flowing black cape and scary black head dress thing. I saw him before the kids did and as I scooped in to get Reina, I couldn't capture any of it on film. The Cowgirl took one look at Vader, her face fell and she quickly took a few steps backward to get the heck out of Dodge. She didn't cry but she must have figured that no amount of candy was worth the price of staying on that porch. Will, of course, was enthralled. "I know who you are!" It was definitely Will's favorite house of the night. Darth Vader, to his credit, pulled his mask off when he saw the terrified two-year-old and she did eventually go back up to the door but she was on alert for the rest of the evening.

After a few more houses, Will was cold and ready to peruse the contents of his plastic pumpkin and Reina was tired of being suspicious of each house so we headed home. The kids helped us hand out candy for a few minutes before crashing hard. The night after Halloween, we were hit with another big snowstorm so we made it just in the nick of time. Happy Halloween everyone!