Trick or Treat!

It was a long night and the kiddos were crazy but it was a nice distraction from life..

Painting Pumpkins

We finally got around to painting pumpkins, and with Halloween in just 3 days, not a moment too soon!  At least this year we picked pumpkins early... last year it was a mad dash to not 1 but 3 pumpkin patches and a trip to Walmart only to discover the only pumpkins left the weekend before Halloween were rotten.

Even with Halloween on a school/work night trick or treating will take place on Wednesday.  I am excited to have my bestest friend flying in that day with her family and cannot wait to take our little Alice, Pirate, and Ladybug trick or treating together!!

1st Place!!

We won, we won!!  I mean... she won, she won!!  Honestly it was her, Kaylin is a natural on stage and while I may have created the costume she pulled it off perfectly!  She walked right on stage, waved to the crowds, and plopped down on her bottom to show off her Alice pose as she is stuck in the house.  Kaylin was awarded first place with a cash prize (time to open a savings account!) and a gift card to Chuck E Cheese (guess these germaphobe parents will be making a trip there soon... well after flu season anyway!)

Pageant track here we come!  Haha!

A natural on stage, much to her dad's dismay!

Anxiously awaiting the results

 And first place goes to.... Alice in Wonderland, Kaylin!

Alice in Wonderland

When I first asked Kaylin what she wanted to be for Halloween she promptly said a skeleton.  I had something a bit sweeter in mind and seeing as though Kaylin is 3 I won.  Sneak Peak at costume below!

Tomorrow we will visit trick or treat street at the local high school for some candy, bounce houses, and a costume contest,  I can't help but hope that she wins!!

Pumpkin Patch

While we fully intended on a relaxing Sunday at home the weather was just tempting us to spend some time outdoors.  A breezy 82' in October is actually nice fall weather in Florida and what better way to spend a cool fall day then at the local pumpkin patch..

Two Birthday Celebrations!

I still can't believe our baby girl is 3!  No longer a baby but a big girl, and she reminds us of that daily.  Three is an exciting age, she is really starting to understand so much more and her vocabulary beats that of most teenagers I hear these days!  Kaylin is also really starting to remember things so this year's celebration meant that much more.  Grandpa Ron came down for the weekend of Kaylin's birthday and because K was still getting over a cold and it was still really hot out for October we took it easy.  Saturday we enjoyed lunch at a food truck rally followed by a long nap for all of us and a dip in the pool.  Steve grilled Kaylin's favorite for dinner, cheeseburgers, and I made her a pink rose cake.  Sunday Grandpa Ron surprised Kaylin by taking her shopping to pick out a big girl bike!  We tested out an adorable 12" pink bike and decided if she was going to get a big girl bike then she was going to get a big one!  Kaylin hopped right on a sea green 16" bicycle and after quickly learning how to pedal she was off circling the store.  On the way home from the bike store we stopped by the Buddhist Temple for lunch at the Sunday market.   Relaxing weekend with our 3 year old, little did we know how much energy was going to be at our house the next weekend!

Birthday celebration number two was yesterday, and wow was the energy level in the house up from last weekend!  In spite of my hate for anything character related I put together a Dora the Explorer themed party for Kaylin and 6 of her closest friends.  I really love my daughter.  The day started with a rummage sale in our driveway (who doesn't plan two huge events in one day?!)  Grandma Hedlund came over for lunch and surprised Kaylin with a 3 foot tall doll house and all the furnishings!  The doll house is awesome, I'm not sure who will play with it more, me or Kaylin..  Somehow we managed to get the birthday girl down for a nap so we could set up for the party.  We rented a huge (and I mean huge!)  bounce house and by 3 o'clock Saturday afternoon the shrieks and shrills of 7 three year olds filled our yard.  Cake #2 a Dora cake complete with purple dress was a huge hit (thanks to Skype & Stacy who helped me decorate it from a thousand miles away!)  

After such an exciting day she slept hard!  I took this picture with the flash on and she didn't even budge!

A Miracle turns 3!

October 6, 2009

4:49 am

2lbs 12oz

14 1/2"

Sheer Panic

Pure Joy

October 6, 2012

25lbs

37"

Sheer Sass

Pure Joy

Exhaustion has set in at the Armstrong house.  We dined out 3 times in 2 days if that says anything. 

Part of the requirements for my teaching certificate is to spend a certain number of hours observing and teaching in the classroom.  I took a few days off last week to observe a 6th grade math class at a Title I middle school.  In Florida a Title I school is a school where over 40% of students receive free or reduced lunch.  The school I visited has a large migrant population and is located in a low income area.  6th grade math is where I believe my heart to be and therefore I thought it was best to visit this classroom first.  I LOVED it!  The experience was fun, exciting, and a bit overwhelming at times.  I spent time with a great teacher and a great group of students.  I look forward to visiting again and beginning my student teaching.  On a side note, I am going to visit an elementary classroom just to check and see that my heart is really in middle school, who knows the littles may win me over!  It's funny how as a student your day drags by and you cannot wait for it to end.  My two days in the classroom flew by and I cannot wait to go back!

Friday Kaylin and I were going to go to Wisconsin to visit Grandma Stonewall but were unable to make it due to full flights.  Seriously, who wants to fly to Minneapolis in September?! I was really looking forward to the trip and was definitely bummed it didn't pan through.  So... to cheer us up (Kaylin was bummed too..) she and I got pedicures after school on Friday.  I picked her up a little early that day and took her to a local salon that specializes in kiddie pedicures.  She was so excited to pick out her nail color and she sat like such a big girl in her little pedicure chair.  I love that I have my little girl that I can do all this girly stuff with!  I still can't believe she is going to be 3 years old in just over a week!

Saturday morning, I managed to talk Steve into driving us around so we could look for rummage sales, we found a few and nothing spectacular stood out, although I did get a pair of almost new Stride Rites for 1$.  The morning flew by and after lunch at Acropolis (I love that Kaylin has such cultured taste buds!)  we all went home and fell asleep for a few hours.  Later in the day Steve started puttsing around in the garage on some projects he had and Kaylin and I joined our friends at the beach for dinner and some fun.  Sunday, I went solo to brunch with Mom for much needed catching up and we did a little shopping for the birthday girl.  The rest of the weekend Steve and I worked on our top secret project for Kaylin's birthday present which I cannot wait to reveal!

Overall the weekend was good, I think just the busyness of our lives right now is starting to settle in and we can't seem to catch up.  We still have a party to plan, family photos, school work, work work, and more.  Yawn!  Steve said earlier to me he wishes life would just slow down so we could live.  And it will.  School is only a few more months and it will pay off, I will soon have a rewarding career that will allow for more family time.  C'est t la vie!

Family Time

I really wish I had more time to blog, I wanted to update more than once a week... but honestly with our busy schedules I suppose once a week is a big accomplishment for us!  And who am I kidding myself, no one is really reading these updates anyway, I noticed that the other day when my post with super cute pictures of K had 1 view (and it was probably Steve!)  Oh well, I am trying to think of it more as a virtual diary for Kaylin seeing as how I still haven't finished her baby book (on my to-do list for her 3rd.. okay 4th birthday.)

Speaking of busy lives, Steve and I realized on Friday that this was going to be our last weekend together as a family with nothing little to do for a while so we made the best of it. Saturday a dual play/study date got canceled and seeing as we had already cleaned the house in preparation for company we were all dressed up with nothing to do at 9am.  I had seen an ad for a craft fair being held at the fairgrounds and surprisingly both Steve and Kaylin were up for it!  Most of you know I am a sucker for a fair or festival, and craft fairs especially in the fall.  This is my absolute favorite time of the year, our first cold fronts begin to arrive (yay for lows in the 70's... at night..)  my two favorite person's birthdays, the holidays, pumpkin spiced lattes, pumpkin cheesecake, sweaters, Uggs, I could go on and on!  So anyway, this Saturday morning it wasn't quite the cool fall weather one might expect for a craft fair but at least it was held indoors and in air conditioning.  It was a bit smaller than I was expecting but I was impressed by the amount of homemade crafts and not those booths selling imposter crafts, you know the bulk purses made in China, or the Scentsy representative.  There was a lot of cute stuff, some of it a bit too "country" for my taste, but I did leave with some fun ideas of crafts to do in my free time (haha!)  After the fair we went to Danny's All American Diner for lunch, it is a fun roadside stand that was recently featured on Diners, Drive In's, and Dives and more famously known for being down the road from Aunt Julie's place.  While Steve and Kaylin played thumb wars waiting on their "Triple D" to arrive, I tried Danny's version of a Cuban,  both were tasty and it got a thumb's up from the Armstrongs!







 Saturday evening Kaylin and I attended the first birthday party of the season and celebrated her friend Amelie's 3rd birthday.  The kids splashed in fountains, played in bubbles, and danced to the beat of a local band.  The party wiped K out and she fell asleep quickly after we arrived home.  Taking advantage of a quiet night at home Steve and I had one of our infamous dinner and a movie nights in our living room, it's a lot of fun and a great way to reconnect when our lives get so busy.  We rented Drive (with Ryan Gosling, yum!)  and got takeout Sushi (yum! yum!)  The movie was interesting but way to violent for my taste but the company was just perfect!

The week ahead is full of work, school, more school, and a trip up North (way up North!) to see great grandma Stonewall...  a busy week overall but looking forward to the time with family.

Enjoy the video!  (sorry about the volume, someone, not naming names.. Kaylin, got chocolate in the speaker of my phone and therefore sound quality is terrible)

 

It was a quiet weekend at home.  Saturday I took the first of 3 exams to get my professional teaching certificate. I have to admit I was a little nervous and spent Friday night cramming.  Saturday at 11am I walked out of the test center with an unofficial passing score!  Official results are sent out in a few weeks.  Phew!  One down, two to go!  We celebrated by going as a family to a Rays game Saturday night.  Kaylin was pretty good considering the first pitch was pretty close to her bedtime and Steve was a good sport dealing with our distractions while he tried to pay attention to the game. We made it to the 7th inning stretch and listened to the end of the game on the drive home.  Sunday the cold Kaylin has had for the last week finally caught up with me and the sun never made an appearance.  We spent the day at home and let Kaylin splash in the rain until the "under" and lightening got too close for comfort.

One of my biggest fears came true last Thursday when Kaylin woke up with a runny nose, we were going on a much anticipated trip to Disney World complete with a stay in a cabin at Ft Wilderness in just two days!  The runny nose progressed into a snotty nose and a fever.  I worked from home on Friday to keep an eye on her and typical of Kaylin even with a mid grade fever she was a wild child.  We decided that we'd chance her feeling even better on Saturday and we went ahead with the trip as planned.

I didn't realize how much I liked Disney until I had a daughter, I'm not sure Steve agrees 100% but at least he goes along with his girls.  Being at Disney just makes me happy, I mean how can you not smile when you're at the house of the mouse?  This trip was special not only because Kaylin's grandma and granddad Armstrong joined us but because we were spending the weekend there and at a Disney resort!  We booked a cabin at Ft Wilderness, it was a cozy little cabin with barely enough space for the 5 of us but it was perfect.  Most of us even slept in both days!  The grounds are huge an there is a ton of stuff to do.  Kaylin and Steve went horseback riding, lots of swimming (Kaylin is getting to be such a fish!)  Hulahooping, water slides, camp-fire singsongs, I could go on and on!  We were grateful that granddad booked a golf cart, although there is a bus that circles the resort.  Sunday, Kaylin woke up feeling better and the fever was gone so we decided to head to the Magic Kingdom for a few hours.  It amazes me how much Kaylin loves all of the Disney characters, she's even getting into the princesses (yay!  I may have my little girl after all!)  We met and hugged quite a few and she was just thrilled as can be.  Steve and I were thrilled that with grandma and granddad with we didn't have to take Kaylin on the dizzying teacups!

A wonderful labor day weekend overall.  Kaylin is still fighting a bit of a cough and congestion as is Steve.  He caught her bug just as the weekend ended, kid germs are evil!

Enjoy the pics!

She was really concerned that Rapunzel wasn't there and asked Cinderella if Rapunzel was behind the curtain!

                                                       

After saying hi to Mickey and Minnie, she wanted to see Pluto.  Just a year ago, she was so frightened by characters!

It made me dizzy just watching them!

She had to have gone down this waterslide over 100 times.  Literally.
Steve and I sat for over 45 minutes watching her go up and down.

                                                               My heart, my world.

Until next time....