Pickle's Ballet Recital

This past fall, right after Pickle was potty trained, she expressed a huge interest in ballet but I thought she was too young to start. Just for fun, called a local ballet school and was surprised to hear that they start as young as three--so I signed her right up!

And she has LOVED it!! She goes every week and never misses a lesson, plus the neverending amount of cute ballet outfits and kept her very happy (and us in the Poor House).

A couple weeks ago, the session ended with a very over-the-top ballet recital that featured the whole school in very ornate costumes and dramatic music. It was right up Pickle's alley! Apparently she loves performing on stage!

Here are a few pics of her Big Night:

Here she is dressed and ready to go. I realized this looks very "Tiaras and Tantrums" but she had to wear makeup for the stage lights. As you can see, she loves makeup...

Here she is at home before her performance with Gooser:

And here's one of Gooser because he looks so handsome!

And here she is after her performance with her bouquet:

Finally, here is the actual performance! Pickle is the one that barges out out of the line and ends up third from the right. She's also the one that shouts out the line "Quiet!." It's pretty cute...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxMhTCotM8Q

P.S. I know I keep harping on how irritating Blogger has been lately--but I'm really hoping someone can help me with this! When I upload (download? I can never get that straight...) photos and try to arrange them in the post, I used to be able to click on the pic and then drag it down if I put the cursor on the "down arrow" of the little window. Now it won't do it so it's nearly impossible (and way too time-consuming) to get the pic where I want it. Any advice??

Weekend Getaway: The Good, The Bad and The Scary!!

First off, I'm in a semi-rage because I wrote a looong post a couple of nights ago and uploaded a LOT of pictures--and the whole thing deleted--just like that! No back-up, nothin'. So I'm disgruntled, but I will regroup now and carrry on!

So what I was going on (and on) about was that the work on our new house is finally FINALLY done!! Well, mostly...we still have to do a little floor refinishing so we will have to evacuate in a couple of weeks for a few days--but after all that's gone on here, that doesn't seem too bad.

So now that the house is under control, we managed to go off for a little weekend getaway--well technically we were going out of town for a funeral because Don's aunt fell out a window (!?!) (although the details are sketchy and shrouded in mystery) but then there was confusion with the date of the funeral, so actually we missed it entirely. So in a nutshell--we went out of town for a non-funeral and to investigate the scene of the crime so to speak where the unfortunate window accident occured.

Are you confused yet? I am. Now you can see why I'm so mad my other post was deleted--I swear it made more sense the first time I wrote it!

So we drove to the farm town where Don's mom grew up (Trivia: Don's mom rode in a cart pulled by a pony to school every day.) (More trivia: The pony's name was Don! Is it weird he's named after a horse?).

Anyway, we went to this town which is very quaint and was extra-nice because of the fall folliage--also making for a great backdrop for photos of the kids!

Our first stop was the farm where Don's mom grew up (and also the scene of the window accident). There were so many beautiful spots for pics!

I made the kids lay down in the leaves for a photo op--though they were not too keen on doing it!
They look happy--but they were complaining.
Andy and Pickle were the only ones that enjoyed it!
Here are some of the kids in front of a shed:
The farm is surrounded by corn fields as far as the eye can see--so we ended up with lots of corn pics.
Pickle was really into the corn! It's grain corn and very beautiful:
All the kids posing with their corn:
Here's Pickle with some kind of grain. Hay? I'm not too good with the farm terms...
And Pickle checking out the well water (I love this pic):
And yet another one of Pickle hanging on a windmill:
The smokehouse:
This place was infested with lady bugs! I call this pic Potrait of suitcase and Lady Bugs:
Oops--another one of Pickle ringing the dinner bell:
After that, we headed down the road to the family cemetery. There were lots of cool picture opportunities there too.


Here's the cemetery with the cornfields in the background:
I liked the way the moss looked on this gravestone:
Poor Bony Bly! Struck down by one of those newfangled automobiles!
Gooser amongst the graves:
This Way Up:
Angel grave:
Miss Pickle:
After the cemetery, we did a little more sightseeing around town. Here are the kids posing by a river:
And by some beautiful trees:
I LOVE this pic of Pickle!!

Here are the kids with a cool statue:

And now for the scary part of the trip...

We went out for a nice dinner that evening and Pickle ate the usual kid fare--grilled cheese, etc.--but she had a bite of Teddy's raspberry cheesecake and things went rapidly downhill after that.

Right after eating it she said she felt like she was going to throw up--and as soon as we got to the hotel room, she did. All over everything...

But as I was changing her pajamas I noticed that she had a bumpy rash on her stomach and I realized she was having an allergic reaction.

Patrick has a peaunut allergy (nightmare!) so I always carry Benadryl in my purse and I gave her one right away. Then she had a bath and seemed to be fine, so I put her to bed.

About a half hour later, she started coughing. At first I thought Oh no--I hope she's not getting sick. Then, as the coughing continued, I started to worry that maybe she had aspirated the vomit when she got sick and it was messing up her lungs or something.

So I got her out of the crib and realized that not only was she coughing non-stop, she was wheezing and it sounded BAD.

She was kind of scratching at herself so I lifted up her pajama top and saw that she was COVERED in a horrible rash.

By now it was about 11:00 at night, but Don and I had no choice--we had to drive her to the nearest Emergency Room. Which was unfortunately not very close.

I decided to give her one more Benadryl before we left--and I'm so glad I did--because I think it made a huge difference in her breathing. Then we had to drive on these very dark and winding roads--not really knowing where we were going. And did I mention it was raining?

But we made it in one piece and they were able to fix her right up with some steroids and antihistimines.

This is what the backs of her legs looked like:

Basically, her entire body was bright red and covered with bumps. It was SO scary!

Poor Pickle!

But she's fine now--though I have to get to the bottom of what she's allergic to. I called the restaurant, thinking there must have been nuts in that cheesecake, but they say no...I'm having her allergy tested soon.

The next day we were all exausted from our night of terror, so we didn't hang around long--just for breakfast and a few more pics.

Here are some of Teddy looking like a little model!

Gooser and Patrick:

And, finally, the kids posing on some rocks:

OMG--can you believe how long this post is? Can you believe I had to write it TWICE?? Sorry if it's incoherent--it's late, but I'm determined to post it tonight.

Fishcapades

You know when you have kids and the house is just too quiet? And not a good peaceful kind of quiet--a "what are they up to?" kind of quiet. I had one of those episodes today...

I was in the kitchen with Pickle and she was happily playing with her Little Pet Shop animals so I called my sister and, while I was talking, walked into the living room to try and clean up a little while I chatted.

A few minutes into the conversation I that that sudden "it's too quiet here" feeling. Normally, very little time can pass without Pickle asking for something to eat or drink or making general demands--I knew something was up!

What I discovered was a most disturbing sight--water everywhere and Pickle near the fish tank holding a bag of cotton balls.

Upon closer examination, I realized that she had decided to fill the tank with the cotton balls while removing stuff like plants and rocks which were strewn all over the floor.

As I removed more and more of the drenched cotton balls, I realized one of the fish was missing.

I looked all over the floor and couldn't find him anywhere. Then I spotted the poor thing in a nearby basket. I scooped him up in my hand but he was totally lifeless.

On the off chance a miracle could occur, I plunged him into the water and he took a fish gasp and came back to life!

I don't know how long he was out of the water--but apparently a fish can look totally dead and still be alive!

Anyway, Pickle got in BIG trouble and had to go on a time-out in her room which she was not the least bit happy about.

But, when the time-out was over and she calmed down, she uttered one of the better Pickle quotes: I told her to go apologize to the fish and she said "I sorry fish. I sorry I killed you."

I had to hide in the other room so she wouldn't see me laughing!

Sorry I killed you...

Happy Birthday Pickle!!

How can my little Pickle be 3??? It doesn't seem possible, but it's happening--and although I'm sad that the baby days are pretty much behind us, I am excited about all the mom/daughter adventures in our future!

We are going to have a birthday lunch at American Girl Place and I'm going to let her choose a doll as a present. She is VERY excited about this! Tonight we chose a dress and shoes for her to wear tomorrow and when I wasn't looking she took off her pajamas and was attempting to put the dress on.

She was so bent on doing it that I helped her get it on properly and she REFUSED to take it off. At one point, she was hiding behind a chair crying that she wanted to wear her dress to bed.

But I finally got her to sleep (in her pajamas!) and I have to admit I got a little teary when she gave me her last goodnight kiss as a two year old.

I've been terrible about taking pictures lately, but I'll be sure to document our birthday adventures.

Happy Birthday Pickle!!!!

Birthday Week!

A little bacon-loving girl I know is having a birthday this week (Friday to be exact) and she's fully in birthday mode.Notice that she's wearing a princess birthday hat (with a bow) and carrying a princess birthday crown? She's ready to go!

Unfortunately, I don't have anything spectacular planned since we are still mired in the move and construction. See--look at the background which is my living room:

See how the floors are covered in paper and everything is covered in plastic? That giant thing looming behind Pickle is what I call the "plastic cage":

There's kind of a cool story behind why that's there, but I'm saving it for when the project is complete and I can do the proper unveiling.

But back to Pickle--my mom was planning on hosting a party for her this weekend somewhere away from all this mess, but we just found out that one of my sister's kids has the dreaded "coxsackie virus" (Kerri--if you're reading this-remember the Coxsackie Grandma!?) also known as hand, foot and mouth disease. Apparently it is highly contagious and the poor thing's mouth and throat are covered in blisters--so I think it's best to postpone the party until everyone is healthy and non-blistery.

So we'll have some kind of small family thing on her actual birthday and her bigger extravaganza in a couple of weeks. Which is just as well because she can't make up her mind on a party theme--she's gone from My Little Pony to princess to Strawberry Shortcake and back again.

In other news:

--Gooser was diagnosed Thursday with DOUBLE pneumonia (he is much better now but it was scary.)

--He threw up all over the Persian rug at the x-ray place.

--Then he threw up some more right after we gave him the much-needed antibiotics.

--I think my foot is broken.

--My wicker furniture for the new screened-in porch was delivered today.

--I now know that a "curbside" delivery means a bunch of giant boxes are taken off the truck and deposited on the sidewalk--fun!

--But it's really nice--pictures soon!

--Because my stupid dogs can escape from our new fancy fence, I had to waste money on purchase an "Invisible Fence" to restrain them.

--Today was Day One of "training."

--Apparently my dog, Cosmo, is immune to electrical "correction."

--He stood in the force field, oblivious.

--I use a lot of quotation marks.

--I just got into a fight with Don about what temperature to keep the thermostat on.

--I know you would all side with me in this argument!!

Princess Pickle

Today Pickle wore a full-blown princess get-up. Like the costumey kind you get at Target. I had bought it for her on her 2nd birthday--but she had never seemed all that into it and it was tucked away in the closet.

Lately, she has been stark-raving-princess, as in--she doesn't even want to wear pajamas because they're not princess enough!

This morning while she was still in her jammies, she insisted on upgrading them with a tulle skirt and some glitter shoes.

Then I remembered the princess costume and showed it to her while she was taking a bath. She could not have gotten out of the tub and into that dress fast enough!

Note: if you take a cute two year old girl dressed in a princess outfit to the grocery store--be prepared to stay for a long time! Every old lady shopping and every store employee will want to have a conversation with her! We were in that store forever!

And she was gifted a pink balloon to match her dress (as every single person we passed in the store pointed out).

When we got home I took her into the yard for a little photo shoot in her pretty dress and matching balloon:
I like this one--it reminds me of something out of a fairy tale!
I like her hair in this one!

Running:
Pointing at a donkey:
Sitting on a donkey:
Princess Pickle!
Please join Candid Carrie (the Queen of the Laundromat!) for some Friday Foto Fun!!