Scarlett is FOUR!

How is she not this small anymore?!

 Katie Scarlett turned FOUR-years-old last Sunday.  I'm not sure how so many years flew by already, but I do know that I'm excited for a million and four more!  Scarjo is me and I love it!  She calls me her bestie.  She is left-handed.  And grumpy!  When she's angry or frustrated she cannot control her body as she freaks out.  Me to a T.  I've learned self-control as I've aged and I'm sure she'll get there...  She cannot tell a lie and even if I'm in the other room when she does something that I've asked her not to do, she'll come find me, tell me what it is she did, and say, "Mummy, I'm so sorry I picked up Winnie!"  How can I get angry at that?!

Scarlett is sleeping in her own room always and wakes us up every once in a while if her blankets get un-tucked.  She sleeps with no less than 5 stuffed animals, no matter how many times I sneak some out.  Of course, Brandy, her monkey, is closest.  When she's hurt or in trouble, it's a toss-up between who she'll cry for; me or Brandy.  I have no idea where she came up with the name Brandy.  I'm guessing she stole it from the local flower store owner's dog's name???

Her favorite color is purple, animals are cats, favorite princess is Belle...or Repunzel, or Sofia the first, or Tiana...depending on the day/hour/mood she is in!  She can play with babies all day, but she really loves to watch Thomas.  She is SMART.  I know I have to say that because she is mine, but even her teacher agrees!  :-)  I hope that she continues to love reading and is nice to her sister more often than not!

She weighs 32ish lbs. and I have no idea how tall she is...we'll find out specifics in February when we go for her four year wellness visit.  Her teeth are still wonky, but less noticeable.  Thank goodness!  Scarlie Jojo goes to nursery school, and while I hate to let her go, I love the new routine and hearing her stories.

Scarlett is getting older and even funnier!  After a discussion about babies being born (I liiiieeeee!), she asked how they come out of the belly button and don't leave a hole.  When "magic" didn't stop the questions, I said they use needles that don't hurt.  She made a concerned face and said, "I don't want to be a mummy, I'll just be a ballerina!"  Ha!  Stuff like that, all the time.

And she sings songs.  Always.  To everything.  Her latest to Winston, "I don't love your kisses, but I do love your love!"  Yesss!  Maybe the next Beyonce?!  Maybe!

I wish I could remember more of the funny things she says.  She makes me belly laugh all the time!

I get so sad when I think about Scarlett getting older and leaving me, so I tell her, "COLBY!"  Then I feel guilty because I'm already laying the guilt for that conversation in the future.  But then I think about her leaving and it reinforces my wanting to make her stay.  Bad, bad, bad!  Or genius?!

For her 4th birthday celebration, I wanted to have lots of friends come to the playground and have a free-for-all with running around fun, pizza, cake, and presents...but then I remembered that it's January in cold, iced-over Maine.  Indoor gymnastics party was almost the same!

Awesome educational game:

From the Clunies with a personalized necklace, "hanitizer," and a Sofia the First poster!  

After a morning filled with yummy doughnut breakfast (tradition!) and opening Auntie Mimi and Lulu's gift early, we were off to Decal Gymnastic for some birthday fun!

The kids all played and did gymnastics for the first hour, then it was time for pizza!  After lunch, more playing, cupcakes & gifts, a few more minutes of gymnastics, then everyone headed home!  Easy for me and fuuunnnn for Scarlett!  Even Poppy got to do some gymnastics...

Love her little strut!

Lulu on the trampoline always makes me smile!  Scarlett was on that trampoline LOTS!  Perks of being the birthday girl!  And Poppy on the bars...you go, girlfriend!

Group shots: without Poppy and with her!

After the party, we were all exhausted, but we rallied and had more festive fun.  Now it was time for the birthday girl to open her gifts from Tyler and me (ME!).  All last week, I thought about and put back and bought and didn't buy a last gift for Scarlett.  It was almost going to be a Water Baby, then it was almost Baby Alive Real Surprises doll.  In the end, I thought the BA doll would take away from her imaginative play (And $55 for a doll that was not an American Girl seemed crazy after she just got Saige!) and the Water Baby was missing her bottle.  Womp, womp.  So when I spotted this $19 real life generic brand baby, I knew she had to have it.  It was a baby who cried and sounded just like a real newborn baby!  Once the decision was made, the hardest part was hiding it from Poppy and her sticky fingers!  I'd say it was a hit:

She named her Poppy Ballerina.  Shocking, I know.

 Here she is tackling the rest of her gifts!  A purple stuffed horse purse, a matching outfit with Saige, a wheelchair kit for Saige, playdoh, a mini barbie, and a birthday barbie; not too much and she was ecstatic!  Mission accomplished.  We spent the next day opening up and playing with her new things, so that she would use and appreciate everything!  Next up...thank you notes!  

Oooor another party!  Two days after the 19th, Scarlett was still celebrating!  Her teacher celebrates her student's birthdays by inviting the family in to bring a special snack and sing "happy birthday!"  That was this morning; we brought mini muffins and fruit and we got to see Scarlett playing with her classmates!  

January 21, 2014

Well, the brunette 'do lasted a few months...

But I just feel more like myself as a blonde!  YAY!

Hello, eyebrows!

I am so happy to be blonde!  (I haven't blogged in so long that I'm about to go back and get my roots touched up!)

The eyebrow picture is as dark as I was with my eyebrows filled in, but no make up...must find a better representation of myself next time...but you get the idea!

The Polar Express

I love that I am just now getting all caught up with our holiday fun on my blog.  Blogger fail.  But it must be documented...I have too much fun looking back!

So on December 1, on the tenth anniversary of Frank's passing, my mom brought all of her kids and all of her grandchildren to go on The Polar Express!!!  It seemed appropriate for us all to be together and talking about what Frank would be saying/thinking about all these ladies!

Before the big event, I let Scarlett watch the movie a few times because she wasn't familiar with the story and the book is just a bit too long.  By the time it was time to go, she was all pumped up to go to the North Pole!
Mission accomplished!

It was a really great experience for all the little ones, but I think Camdyn, 9, was a little too old.  They literally drove the train down the railway, stopped and said, "There's the North Pole," then drove back.  It was a total of one hour and pretty torturous for the adults, but the excitement on the kids' faces made it all worth it, cheesy as it sounds!

There was Christmas music playing after they finished reading The Polar Express and they served hot cocoa!  Santa even came along for a ride on the way back!  Perfect!

Of course, I have millions of pictures!

The granddaughters!

All of us!

Blurry, but all of us!

SANTA! ('s biscuits!)

Love their faces!

One side of the train: Scarlett, me, Max, Poppy!  (Sorry Clunies!)

The other side: Molly, Alyssa, Mum, Camdyn

An outside view of the train!

After this, we went to Whole Foods, so definitely worth the trip!

BEST. CHRISTMAS. EVER.

We had a fantastic Christmas!!!  The gifts were toned down from past years and that just made it more fun!  Less stress, but more thoughtfulness!  Yes, please!

This was the first year that Scarlett got it.  It was magical for her and that added so much fun for me!  We made reindeer food, drove around looking at lights, talked about how Santa goes into the houses through the chimneys, left out the cookies and milk for Santa, and all that good stuff!

Here is our Christmas Day 2013 in pictures...

Happy birthday, Jesus CAKE!

Tracking Santa with Lulu...

Wrapping gifts:

Santa came!!!

And he brought "Staige" with him!  Scarlett was psyched!

Then we headed to GRAMMUM'S!

Christmas in school!

I cried ugly tears when I saw this story on the news. So sad, but still so sweet. Ali found out she had a rare form of lung cancer when Olivia was just one; that hits so close to home. I cannot imagine leaving my little ones behind...

On a happier note, Scarlett had lots of firsts at her school this week!

First Christmas Program:

First Classroom Christmas Party:

And Poppy had her first Christmas party, too!

First Christmas ornament made by Scarlett!

Christmas cards are ordered. . . FINALLY!

Ordered 5 minutes ago from Shutterfly! (Um, they have crazy amazing deals!!!) Rocks my world!

And we have Winston's cute face on the back!  It'll be the first time that anyone has really learned of his addition to our family, so that will be interesting!

I'm later than usual ordering these...not sure how Christmas is almost here already!

These pictures were my three favorites from the 41 acceptable pictures taken on my iphone!  All together, I took over 200, so yeah . . . that should tell you how successful I was.  Thank goodness for pop bribes!!!  They worked!  (Although they were in half the photos rendering them useless!  Shoot.)

Next year, it might be time to consider using a professional photographer!

It's our dating-versary!

In the kitchen BEFORE we painted!  We were such babies...

TEN YEARS AGO, Tyler and I were official!  Last August was our 6th wedding anniversary, but we've been together for 10 years today.  Although, we argue that I thought we were already dating back on Halloween in 2003, but he didn't quite see it that way.  Psh.  (It's very crazy to think that we've been together for 1/3 of our lives!!!!)

I definitely did well when I picked Tyler; he is an A-MAZ-ING father and he is the hardest worker I know!  I'm excited for the next 60 (or more!) years with him... and it'll be interesting to see what we look like then!  Finding older pictures for this post was hilarious!  And these are only 6 years ago...from my myspace.  Ha!  Our college years were so long ago that they're just hard copies.  OLD lady right here!

Happy 5th!

The Party

Twenty days later.

Anyway!

There are really not many pictures because I was busy socializing and taking care of a cranky birthday girl.  Tyler was in charge of photographing the gift-opening.  Bad thinking.  Tyler snapped a few of the first gifts and then he was distracted by Alyssa (there is an Alyssa video, too)...all without the much-needed flash!  Here is what I found hours later as I was excitedly looking for birthday pictures:

FAIL.

So, yeah, not lots of photos, but we did have a really great time!  (I feel a tad guilty because I have over 400 pictures from Scarlett's first birthday party, but what can you do!?)

Now for the decorations...they were not pinterest-worthy, but I'm just excited because I had the party at our house.  That never happens.  (It's a fixer-upper that we're not particularly excited to fix, so there ya' go.) Buuut it was just too much to plan a party, move everything to my mom's house, and then try to decorate there.  Too. Much.

It was amazing to be able to get everything done, so when Poppy woke up that morning, it was a party everywhere!  And then I could really focus on birthday fun instead of party decorating stress!

So here they are:

Who doesn't love streamers, pictures everywhere, and (VEGAN!) cupcakes?!  For the cupcakes, I used a pinterest idea and crushed rock candy on top of the frosting and it looked really pretty!  Decorating with frosting is absolutely not my thing, so the rock candy was perfect: easy and fancy!

Her birthday outfit is from Mud Pie; it wasn't monogrammed, but it was too fun not to get!

Poppy wasn't as impressed with my culinary skills as I was, but we got her with a birthday cupcake, in the same shot, so let's call it a win!

(See?!  I was great at documenting the party girls before the actual party...!)  The morning of the party was spent distracting the ladies with doughnuts and balloons to keep the house clean!  It worked!

Not quite sure what to think...

I went to get Poppy after she woke up from her nap wearing my glasses.  This is the face she made when she saw them:

So. Confused.  It was cute!

HA!

Sorry, Poppy Ballerina! ;-)

(Sidenote:  The irony that this was on North West's mother's birthday is not lost on me!)

Happy birthday to my Poppy Ballerina!!!

She's ONE!  What a fast year it has been, but so full of happiness!  We are so lucky to have little Miss Poppy in our lives!  She is always happy and looking for fun!  She is the lovey-ist baby in the world -- always ready to give us love and slobbery, baby kisses.  Delicious!

Bananas were not a hit with Poppy early on, but now, along with eggs, sweets (shhh!), and strawberries, they are her top pick for food! (I do hope that she is a vegetable-lover like her sister one day!)

She is not quite walking, but she can stand up by herself for a few seconds and she is the fastest power-crawler I've seen!  Babies, balls, Little People, cars, and her little front door are her favorite favorite toys, but really she loves everything!  She even takes swim lessons!

Poppy may be the sweetest, little thing, but she can throw some sass when Scarlett tries to steal her toys!  Her facial expressions are the best!  See?!

No thank you, fancy birthday outfit!

I cannot wait to see what the next year brings...!  Maybe she'll start gymnastics?!

Purple Potatoes!

Thank you, Mary, for the idea!

Scarlett's FAVORITE color is purple, so when she spotted Lulu cleaning purple potatoes, she was insistent on also having some for herself!

They are actually delicious!  And not too crazy to eat...

We cleaned, boiled, sprinkled garlic, basil, and olive oil on them, then baked them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees and then finally, they were ready!

We each had a small taste, but are saving the rest for dinner with the other Smiths!

PS--Already rocking the Christmas jammies?!  Of course!  Especially now that Halloween is over, everything Christmas is fair game!!  ;-)

Happy Halloween!!!

This is the first year that I have TWO little ladies to dress up and I really love the idea of doing costumes that go together, but are still different, so when Scarlett became obsessed with Madeline, I started talking about Halloween and hinting about what she'd like to be.  Then, Madeline rescued a dog and the discussion for costumes was closed.  Hello, puppy dog, Poppy!  Good thing Scarlett was still really excited about the Madeline idea because it has been a few months since this whole fascination began...she's still trying to get me to be Miss Clavel.  "Mummy, when is your costume coming?!" was how she broached the subject this morning...smart lady, but it's not gonna happen!  (I have too much birthday planning to do [still] to worry about dressing up!  Maybe next year!)

So there we were, Madeline with her rescued pup, Genevieve!  Too bad Poppy was less than thrilled with the idea of wearing a costume.

SO crossing my fingers that trick-or-treating goes a little more smoothly!!!  Luckily, Scarlett was the perfect Madeline and even tried to make Poppy less of a grumpster!

We tried to include Poppy in our photo shoot, but Scarlett totally stole the show!  What a fantastic Madeline!!!

And just because I want to see, here is Scarlett in each of her past costumes:

CUTE!  I wish I had been smart and picked a costume for Poppy without something on her head!  Scarlett last 3 minutes with that cupcake hat...next year!!!

Have a Happy Halloween :-)