ALL THE PICTURES: The Lion King, Valentine's Day AND Snow Days!

Earlier this month, my mom, Autumn and I went to see the Lion King at the Orpheum! Autumn isn't a huge fan of the movie because she thinks it's kind of scary but the show is so popular and she liked Phantom so I thought we should give it a try! The show started at 8 and, despite a nap, Miss Autumn was wilting a bit. But from the very first, she perked right up. By the intermission, she was all THIS IS AMAZING.

I asked Autumn what her favorite part was and she said, "ALL OF IT." My mom didn't get to have dinner with us like we did last time but Autumn and I had some Panera and dressed up anyway. Since the show, Autumn keeps asking when we are going again. I don't think she quite understands that it's only here for a little while and costs a little too much to see twice. She wants Mike to come so I told her we'd all go again next time it comes.

In other news, Autumn is getting her dog book fix in! Some of our friends gave Autumn a stack of books from when they were into animal books, too! Autumn has these on her bookshelf all arranged by topic and series and order she plans to read them.

Last week, I'm sure everyone knows we had SNOW DAYS. Except there wasn't really any snow. It was ice. Most of the main thoroughfares were fine after the first couple of the days but side streets and sidewalks were iced over so we only had one day of school last week. One of the ice days, Autumn and I went out and slid on the ice, made the Tiniest Snowman, and looked for animal tracks.

Molly did this during the cold.

We stayed busy by keeping up with online homework, reading, straightening, shivering, and Autumn learned to sew! We started on paper plates with a big needle and embroidery floss. She wanted to make a nine patch quilt like Laura in Little House. Autumn did a pretty good job when she remembered to not wrap stitches. She has a whole 9 patch quilt block (I don't have a photo yet!) and I think I'm going to get a charm pack of precut patches to let to her make a few more.

Oh, we also played some Warcraft! Autumn was able to drive her character on her own! I stayed nearby to make sure she was headed the right way but Autumn completed an entire quest by herself! I have it set so that she can't see anything written by anyone except our guild (which consists of Mike, Donnie, Liz, and me!) and no one can duel her or invite her to anything which is great.

And, FINALLY, I hope everyone had a fun Valentine's Day. I know a lot of people don't like it, but I enjoy it because I like holidays and excuses to celebrate. Mike did great. He got Autumn the coolest chocolate ever! He also got me chocolate and flowers AND ordered the new Laura Ingalls Wilder book, Pioneer Girl, however, it is out of stock. T_T

Autumn made a really cute Valentine mailbox featuring Peso from Octonauts. We printed a coloring page and she colored and cut it out. Then we put sparkle modge podge on it. Too fun!

On the other side, she drew her own Peso! SO CUTE I LOVE IT. After she made her box, Autumn made her own Peso costume with a black track suit, a white circle, a paper medical bag, and a paper hat. No, we don't really get bored here. :)

I'm teaching Monday nights in a late time slot and having a bit of a hard time updating the blog after class. I'm going to give Tuesday mornings a try! Until next time!

Holiday Review!

Oh, my goodness, what a holiday! Mine was a little short because of the trip and being sick but we got a lot of celebrating in during the two weeks I was in commission! Lainey came out to help me with the Winter Party at Autumn's class. I forgot to edit these AND I forgot to turn off the auto watermark so not only are the "photobooth" photos not very photoboothy, they are marked with the wrong blog name! Ah, well!

I had to take a turn, too! I got these props from Target for such a great price it was worth not having to make them, print them, and then put them on sticks. Yay for the popularity of photobooths!

I even used the props for these little monkeys. I'd say I got my money's worth.

After Autumn's class party, we had our dojo party the next day. This was our largest gathering of current and past members ever and we had a BLAST. Look at how many kids we had! Christy helped me out with this part; we did a white elephant party with new or used $5 or less gifts. Christy led the kids in the breakfast room and I guided the adults in the living room at the same time so it was fun and loud and silly. I'd love to do this again next year! This was definitely a year to celebrate--I got my black belt and Stephan graduated from college. Yes. I threw my own party. Don't tell Miss Manners! I justify it by calling it a "thank you for putting up with us while things were crazy" party.

Afterward, I found Autumn in her bucket of stuffed animals. Too funny. I think she was kind of done.

We had a late visit to see Santa. Autumn asked for two things. The first was a bell. I had no idea what she was talking about until she mentioned the Polar Express. One trip to hobby lobby and that was taken care of. The other took some serious googling. She asked for this Elf Talker. I tried all kinds of Google searches based on her description. I never had any luck and then FINALLY I plugged in North Pole Phone and LIKE MAGIC the thing was right there, exactly as she described it. I have no idea why no other search terms brought it up. It only "works" in December so Jerry the Elf brought the Northpole Communicator, although he usually just brings acts of kindness. Incidentally, Jerry found it at Walgreens on sale and he had a coupon.

Christmas morning was pretty great. Molly even joined us for the unwrapping. She had a present under the tree, too. Catnip toys! Seriously this company makes the best cat toys.

We didn't want too crazy of a Christmas this year so Santa only brought Autumn stocking stuffers and this outfit to match her late birthday/early Christmas gift of an American Girl doll. When Mike's mom first mentioned American Girl stuff, I had Autumn read as many of the books as were on her reading level so she could pick an historical doll that she liked. I was a little surprised that she chose Kit until she explained that it's because Kit is a writer. Santa brought Autumn this outfit that matches Kit's! Autumn even has red shoes because I got her some to go with the Christmas dress I made her! That wasn't planned but it's a happy coincidence.

My mom spent the night with us Christmas Eve and had Christmas morning with us like she has done for a few years now. It was extra fun because we watched Elf and ate pizza and then we had french toast for breakfast.

Autumn insisted on wearing her Kit outfit all day which was cute but it was a little cold for it. I made her put on leggings but Autumn took them off as soon as we got to Lainey and Pd's house. She and Ellie made an accessorized pair.

Something fun and silly, later that night after naps, Mike, Brad and I sampled one of Brad's gifts: blini, caviar, and creme fraiche! This is what Brad thought. I ate two. The first was fishier than I expected but the second was pretty good. Mike chose not to partake a second time which is hilarious considering he like sushi (nigiri!) so much.

Fun times! Not too crazy once the parties and tests and decorating was over. I'll post pictures of the house on my other blog soon. I'm very proud of myself for getting it done, haha. I know it's silly but I guess it's my thing. Anyway, I hope your Christmas went smoothly and that there was joy in your time with family and friends!

Beach Two!

I didn't take a ton of photos at the beach so this is heavily supplemented by Mike who I can't talk into writing a post. Which is too bad! What is NOT too bad?? Check out Autumn's hand position on that noodle. It's the same hand position as the one I've been teaching her with a bokken and a jo. SHE'S BEEN PAYING ATTENTION.

This is how Mike utilized the noodles. That's a happy camper.

I spent the first few days trying to talk Mike into parasailing. I thought it'd be something fun and different and Autumn might like it. However, Mike thought it might be better to ease her into the crazy stuff with jet-skiing so off we went! Autumn was a little nervous but as we waited, she got excited. The water was pretty calm that day so they let us all go on one jet ski which is good because Autumn stayed sandwiched between us. We had a whole hour and it was a blast! Autumn spent the rest of the trip begging to go again and we had to break it to her that it's probably a once a year deal.

Here's what she thought about that. Hahaha, no. This is Autumn attempting to nap on the beach. She wasn't a fan but it was our last day so I thought she should take advantage of the time.

This is the first year that crabs didn't absolutely freak Autumn out. One night we took lanterns out and watched the little crabs scuttle about. I meant to bring our telescope but we had to settle for stargazing.

Back to non-beach pictures, this is Autumn playing horse shoes with her new friend. Mike got this fun shot. It looks like when she throws a frisbee.

Here we are attempting a selfie on the way to the fireworks. Not too bad!

I really liked this. Mike took a picture of us taking pictures. This is everyone who was at the beach, except for Mike. Also, check out how long Autumn's legs have gotten!

Aaaaaand the infamous ferris wheel. If you are on Facebook, you heard that I didn't like it. At all. I was very nervous and nauseated. I like roller coasters. I like jet skis. I like go karts. I don't like ferris wheels. I'll probably end up trying another one, though, because I'm that optimistic that next time it'll be different.

Here are Mike and Autumn being neither worried nor nauseated. Sigh.

Vacation Pics!

I'm just going to lead off with this because it's hilarious!

We were at the beach last week. By ourselves Friday night through Wednesday afternoon but Wednesday night, Tyler, Hudson, PD, Lainey, and part of the Denny family joined us! We had a great time. At least a couple of blog posts worth! Back to the photo, Autumn wasn't angry or crazy (craziER than usual, at least)...I caught her mid-yawn. When I was scrolling through the photos, I laughed so hard that everyone wanted to see the photo, including Hudson who then had to reenact the yawn.

I figure this post I'll go with mostly non-beachy photos, although I do have a couple of super short but funny videos for the end. I need to get pictures from Mike because he got some great ones. I might even see if he'll do a post! Speaking of Mike, here he is helping Autumn with her summer math. I got this math skills book for students between first and second grade. Mike and I are terrible at math so we're trying to help Autumn not become us!

Lainey and PD got a sofa this trip! It was a resounding success with Autumn. She found niches for her friends...

And got in a few acrobatics. She taught Tyler how to do an aikido front roll to an upside down position last week so...sorry, Leah and Ryan.

We don't have cable so Autumn only gets to watch Octonauts (which is great--Mike and I decided it's steampunk for kids) and Doc McStuffins at the beach or at someone's house. Access to Doc McStuffins has set Autumn on a major doctoring of animals run. On the way to dinner, Kiri got a full checkup, including her blood pressure. Ah, I just remembered that Mike has a fantastic picture of Tyler and Autumn doctoring the animals together!

She and Tyler also did a ton of Booboos Be Gone pictures. This is one of Autumn's. We need to have an apostrophe conversation, it seems.

We finally went to the snow cone stand which was very much like a beach-side Jerry's. Someone liked hers quite a bit. She also made a bunch of little friends! They all hung out and played horse shoes together. Autumn was quite the socialite last week. She made a friend at the ice cream shop, too.

Oh, haha, this one should have been at the top. I tried to get a picture of these monkeys smiling. Not a single on with all of them looking at me or with all of them making a picture face. But the silly photo? Perfect.

Hey, look at us! It's actually a great photo of all three of us!! This was at the fireworks which I'm going to post about at Passing Pinwheels. Mainly because I went on a ferris wheel AND IT WAS A HUGE MISTAKE. Roller coaster? Yes. Ferris Wheels? NOPE.

Teehee. This is how Lainey and Mrs. Donna rode to the fireworks.

Ok, two seriously short videos and we're done. The first couple of days, the waves were too fun! Not the biggest but still nice to play in. And it was so warm that I got in with no drama. I do not like cold water.


Later, after Tyler got in town, he and Autumn had the best time doing all kinds of crazy stuff together. The one that made me laugh so hard was what I'm calling sand surfing. They'd get on the little boards and let the waves take them to and fro while they giggled like maniacs. At the beginning of the video, you'll hear Mike talking about the chillest crab in the world. It washed up by Hudson and just froze. It let us pet it and everything. Mike finally helped it back into the water. Another one came up later and tried to take us out so I'm guessing it was the same crab out for revenge. He was thwarted when PD put some sand on him and Mr. Crab decided just to sit in the sand a while. ANYWAY, Tyler and Autumn get going pretty well at the end of this one.


All that fun ended in great naps! We'll wrap it up with some hard sleepin'!