Happy Birthday, Sadie!!!!

Can it be true? Is Sadie 2 already!?! The past two years have gone by in a blur and now Sadie is a little girl. A little girl with a big smile, a loud scream, and an independent streak. If you haven't had the chance to hang out with Sadie lately, you really should. She's such a blast. I guarantee she will make you laugh. Here's to my sweet little Sadie!

We started the day out early, a little too early for my taste, but when the birthday girl wakes up, we all get up; there's too much excitement in the air. She opened presents first thing because that's what little girls want to do after they wake up, come down the stairs and see presents!

The first present she opened was from Dennis and me. We got her a tea set. I was worried that she wasn't going to like the tea set because I really really liked the tea set. (Much like her crown. I really really like her birthday crown. Sadie does not enjoy her crown as much as I do, but she did wear it for a little while, at least.) I made her little sugar cubes complete with sparkly glitter and little felt tea bags that really smell like tea because I figured if I was going to spend hours drinking tea, I wanted to at least have some tea and sugar!The good thing is that she really liked the tea set. She made tea for Monkey and me all day long. She even took a nap with her teapot and some sugar cubes.
Eli got Sadie this horse stable and horses. Mostly, he picked it out because it's what he wanted, but Sadie loves horses too, so we agreed that it would be a good gift. Eli played with it all day. It turns out that Sadie likes tea more than horses. Maybe she can serve her horses some tea?!?
Then we had birthday pancakes. Birthday pancakes are special not only because you get candles and we sing "Happy Birthday" but because the pancakes contain chocolate chips.Then Sadie had a long day of waiting. We took Eli to school, went to music class, got some groceries, went to the toy store, made a few returns, picked up Eli from school, went to lunch at a friend's house, took a nap, decorated the house, got into a pretty dress and then waited and waited and waited some more for 5:30 to roll around so Sadie could have her birthday party.

Poor second child, gets a small, un-themed birthday party with a few friends, not to mention, ahem, a store-bought cake. But, I enjoyed Sadie's party more than I've enjoyed any party I've ever thrown because I got to enjoy Sadie, her friends and their parents and because it was low key, it was also low stress. Yessssssss!!!!!!

I don't think Sadie minded too much:Sadie and her friends: Sofia, Eli, the birthday girl, Dario, and Satya. We ate pizza with lots of olives, had some cake, then ate a whole bunch of those orange puffy snack things that I never buy for them, but that they love so much. Sadie's so much neater at eating now. Remember last year??
And then we opened presents, again...
It's another horse, a horse that comes in it's own bag and and it's own comb, which Sadie was very very excited about. And she got a cute dress with a butterfly necklace.

It was a great day for a two-year old. Happy Birthday, Sadie!

Halloween Party

We hosted our annual Halloween Party at the Buckeye Village Community Center for Eli's and Sadie's playgroup friends and their families. There was too much food, lots of cute kids, and a lot of three year old craziness. Dennis went as Waldo of "Where's Waldo" fame, I was a farmer, Sadie is a Princess, and Eli is her Knight in Shining Armor.Here's a better look at Waldo, er, Dennis. He makes a very believable Waldo.

Of course, Monkey came.Yes, there was even a pinata. Look at the form Eli has. He's pretty good.
The rest of the party got a little crazy. Eli and Jackson doing a little wrestling. I'd like to point out that Jackson is double Eli's size and Eli held his own. I think Eli's got a little wrestling blood in him.

More wrestling.

As the night wore on, the sugar high began to show. Jackson, Eli and Jake showing off their bellies.

A little belly bump.

Even Sadie had to get a little bit of the belly showing action.Now, close your eyes really tight and then picture this same party 20 years down the road. I think we're going to be in BIG trouble.

Another Grandparent Good-Bye

Virginia Urbatsch, my mom's mom, my grandma, and Eli and Sadie's great-grandma passed away on Monday, October 20. It is bittersweet as we know that she was ready, but it doesn't make saying good-bye any easier. It's just nice to know that she and grandpa are together once again. They're probably arguing, but they're loving every minute of it. Grandma met both of the kids when we were home in September, but she didn't want to have her picture taken, so here she is with Eli when he was 4 months old. I have fond memories of Grandma. She loved staying up late watching old tv shows and she's the one who introduced me to Mary Tyler Moore. She was a great story teller and made everyone laugh. She's going to be missed by her 9 kids, their spouses, 16 grandkids and 9 great-grandkids.

The Circleville Pumpkin Show

This is our 4th year living in Columbus and every year we've said that we should really go to the Pumpkin Show. Since this is our last year in Ohio, we decided that if we're going to go, it's now or never. We loaded up the kids after Dennis got home from work on Thursday and headed south to Circleville to the 102nd annual Pumpkin Show. And there were a lot of pumpkins. Big ones, little ones, pumpkins in the shape of faces, pumpkins with weird things growing on them, pumpkins in all sorts of colors... the list goes on and on and I'd love to show you pictures of all of them, but like most important events, the camera battery decided to die after three photos. At least you get to see the biggest pumpkin and the pumpkin tree.
Here, Eli and Sadie are eating corn, not pumpkin. It's not even pumpkin flavored corn. It's just corn. Eli didn't even eat his corn; he just licked off the butter and salt. We did have pumpkin donuts and pumpkin cheesecake though. We were tempted by the pumpkin brownies and the pumpkin ice cream. The pumpkin burger didn't sound too appetizing though. There were more food vendors than the Ohio State Fair. I was amazed by it all. Blocks and blocks and blocks of food vendors selling everything pumpkin.
There were rides and games and art booths and singers and dancers and pumpkin artwork. But, the highlight was the parade. The Pumpkin Show has seven different parades in the five days that the pumpkin show is held. We went to the "Parade of Bands" where all of the local HS marching bands come to play and march. I think it was the best parade I've ever been too. (Sorry Dad. It even beat the Shriner's parade.) The kids had a blast! Sadie waved at every Princess, cheered with every cheerleader and danced with every band. Two kids fell asleep on the way home and one kid even slept in 'til 7:30. Yea for pumpkins!

Apple Picking

It's that time of year again. We went on our annual apple picking outing. This time it was just me and the kids. (If you can remember that we went when Eli was a baby and last year with some friends.) We had fun stomping through the wet, dewy grass looking for the perfect apple. The sun was shining and the weather was perfect. I love picking apples at Lynd's because you can reach all of the apples without a ladder and the kids can help too. We picked suncrisp and maltose apples and they are all gigantic and delicious! The kids had strict orders to only pick apples that were on the trees and that they should make sure that there weren't any black spots or holes.Eli was very very picky about choosing the perfect apple. He even threw some of mine out because they had small brown spots!Sadie wasn't so much into picking apples, just eating them. She ate one apple all day long. Eli kept taking one bite out of the apples and then he would tell me that he's going to "save this one for later" and then find another one to eat. We had to have a talk about being wasteful... We ended the morning by going on a wagon ride pulled by a John Deere.

Eli's School

Eli started pre-school in September. Eli is in the Panda class at Holy Trinity Lutheran Pre-School about 10 minutes away in Upper Arlington. He goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00-11:30. There are 12 students in his class: 5 boys and 7 girls. I haven't posted anything about it because Eli hasn't been a very happy camper when I take him to school. He has cried every day on the way to school. He cried walking up the stairs. He cried until I said "Good-bye". Then, as soon as I would walk out the door he was fine. (I know this because, like every good mother, I spied in the windows). Everytime I pick him up from school he tells me how much he loved school and how much he loves his teachers and he would be all smiles. Until today. Today was different. Today was a tear-free day. No sobbing. No "I don't want you to leave". Nothing. Just a little boy who wanted to go school and was ok with his mom and sister dropping him off. I picked him up from school and he was still happy. I felt so relieved. He was very brave and I am very proud of him. We are going to celebrate tonight by going to Chuck E. Cheese. Yahoo!!!!!!!
He finally let me take a picture of him with his backpack on. Eli and his "best teachers in the whole wide world" Miss Molly and Miss Lucy.

Eli in 2070

In case you're curious what Eli might be doing in the year 2070... Chuck Klosterman has made a prediction of the twenty-first century in Esquire. Eli gets a little mention here. I hope he is successful. I just hope he's not eaten alive by sharks or wolves or pandas.

The Benefits of Living In a Swing State

The election is less than a month away and the importance to win Ohio is weighing heavily on the candidates. This benefits us voters in a good way. I don't think it's any secret that Dennis and I are Democrats and are supporting "change" by voting for Obama. Yesterday, we got to go to a free concert sponsored by the Obama campaign called the "Vote For Change" rally to get last minute un-registered voters registered on the OSU campus. People go to free concerts all the time for their local barbershop quartet or HS Jazz band. But, this was much, much better than that. This concert featured a well-known artist that sells out stadiums at about $100 a ticket.The artist was none other than "The Boss", Bruce Springsteen!It was totally awesome. It could have only been better if Obama would have been there himself (though American Hero, John Glenn, also made an appearance). Bruce came out playing the way only a wanna-be-hippie mama would want him to play, just Bruce with his acoustic guitar singing in his Woodie Guthrie way about being proud to be an American and the American dream and the suffering of the working man. Along with a few chants of "Yes, we can!" (which strangely brought me back to my cheerleading days when the Thompson HS football team was state bound and the rallying cry was "believe to achieve.") It was awesome. It was totally free. It was 1/2 mile from our house. What more could a woman want from a concert?
Eli was being particularly crazy with his dancing.Sadie thought the whole thing was particularly loud. Either that or she was strongly disagreeing with what Bruce was singing about. Though she wore her Obama button with pride.
Now, if everyone would just go out and vote for Obama everyone's life would be much, much better!

Birthday Bash III

A couple of days before I rushed off to ND the kids' playgroup had the third annual birthday bash. We have one big gigantic birthday party because all of the first borns turned three between March and September and it's much easier to have one big party all together than going to 20 individual parties and the poor mother having to plan for 45 extra people. If you remember the first one, we had to do a lot of bribery to get all of the kids to sit still for the picture. As you can tell from the picture that things still haven't changed. And you can tell that our group is growing. Lots of second borns and there's even a third!