Thanksgiving, photo fail, and friends.

The day started out well enough. Owen was very VERY excited about going to Uncle Roger’s for Thanksgiving…and kept asking me how many minutes how many minutes how many minutes. I told him it wouldn’t be until after Katie’s nap, so then he started asking how many minutes until her nap. Over and over and over. At 9am. 🙂 He told me he was going to go get in the car. I told him no, it wasn’t time yet. I finally told him it would be a few hours, and I would let him know when it was time…I wouldn’t let him miss it.

Fast forward until after Katie’s nap. I had the mashed potatoes going on the stove and their nice outfits all ready…and of course she woke up too early. Fine, no problem. I got them both dressed for pictures. Katie wasn’t terribly happy (she’s got a cold—as does Owen—and her nap wasn’t long enough) so it was challenging to say the least. And she was really REALLY cute, too, so I was disappointed. But I was snapping away and hoping I’d at least get one decent shot.

Then it was off to finish the potatoes. And take breaks every minute or so to wipe Katie’s nose. And try to get Owen to RELAX about getting his shoes and coat on and wanting to get in the car. And then I decided to take more pictures…AND DISCOVERED THERE WAS NO MEMORY CARD IN THE CAMERA SO I DIDN’T HAVE ANY PICTURES. I wasn’t in a great mood before that, so that just pushed me over the edge. (It’s the little things, I swear.)

So I was rushing to get everything packed to leave the house (changes of clothes for both kids because it was Owen’s Clean Out Weekend and because Katie accidentally got some of Owen’s “poop juice”, diapers, pull-ups, snacks, etc.), get the potatoes finished and in the crock pot, stack all the dirty dishes, let the dog out, and then—since I’m apparently a masochist—TRY TO TAKE MORE PICTURES WITH UNCOOPERATIVE KIDS… Needless to say I didn’t get one good picture.

The best picture of the super cute hand-me-down dress:

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The best of the awful sibling pics:

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The good thing about the day was going to our friend’s house—my babysitter’s house—so she took over Katie duty while her younger sister played with Owen. This became Katie’s favorite new activity:

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The kids were having a great time playing (Owen even asked to play on the big outdoor trampoline!), I was drinking wine and visiting, and all seemed well. Until Owen came over to me asking where the bathroom was, so I went with him to show him—and watched as he puked in the toilet. Twice. Oh lovely. I told him he might be going home—if he was sick, we really couldn’t stay. He immediately started whining that he didn’t want go…he wanted to keep playing. So I told him we had to take his temperature and if he had a temp, we had to go. He didn’t have a temp, so we stayed.

The dinner was nice and it was good to be with friends—it helped not to miss Tom quite as much. But of course Owen was frustrating. He had told me he would try all the new foods…but come time, he didn’t touch anything. He claims he ate a bite of mashed potatoes but he didn’t. He didn’t even want his yogurt. Sigh. Then he had to go potty—and I went to check on him (I don’t trust him when we’re not at our house)—and it’s a good thing I did because he had peed all over the toilet, floor, and waste basket. SERIOUSLY?! Breathe. Breathe. I know where the cleaning supplies are, so off I went. It wasn’t a big deal (and they didn’t care) but still, it was like WHAT ELSE IS GOING TO HAPPEN?! Then we called it an early night because Katie was getting tired and I really just wanted to get into jammies and relax.

Once we got home, I tried pictures again…and didn’t have much more luck.

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Both kids were in bed by 7 and then I got to relax…

MSU Kids

I didn’t even plan ahead to dress them for game day. Kind of. I went to get Katie dressed and her MSU outfit was on the top of the stack in the dresser. And it was at that point that I realized it was a game day and put Owen in his jersey as well.

This pic didn’t turn out too bad.

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And these next two just make me laugh out loud. Owen gets the craziest faces when I tell him to smile.

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Ahhh, that’s better.

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Well, not that.

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Sister can do it.

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And then THE shot. Perfect.

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And then outside after the farmer’s market.

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New dress, new tights, new boots!

Stride Rite Tamara BootsThe good part about buying kids shoes ahead of time? You can get good sale prices. (It was still a crazy price for kids shoes, but they were $10 off and SOOOOO cute.)

The bad part about buying kids shoes ahead of time? You are only guessing at the sizes and by the time the season is right to wear them, they could already be outgrown.

At least these still fit, but they are a bit tighter than I’d hoped for (they are a 6.5 and I think she’s almost at the limit of her size 6s).

So, since she was wearing boots, that required tights—her FIRST tights, in fact! She didn’t think twice about them and didn’t try to remove them at all! And then it was picking a dress which she might not fit in when it gets to be warm again—a size 18m. But first, we tried shoes because I thought I might be able to exchange the boots for a bigger size (at Amazon) but they are out of stock.

When Owen saw her, he said “Katie! You are so adorable!” 🙂

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Hurrying to get her in summer outfits!

She has some 18m summer outfits that I’m trying to get her in before she outgrows them and the season changes! I can’t remember which Grandma this dress was from…but I paired it with a pair of white leggings. Cute!

She’s also becoming a bit of a PITA to get a picture of… I remember when Owen went through this stage…thankfully it only lasted about six months if I recall correctly.

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One of her favorite pastimes…emptying the toy boxes.

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Cute new jams

Someone had a bath tonight and wore her new jams. Thanks again, Gramma Jean!

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Then Owen wanted to take some pictures so I handed him my big camera and of course it’s heavy and he can’t remember to keep looking through the frame (or even keep looking at the screen) so he got a lot of nothing…but he did get these two!

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Hanging out with Katie

Hanging out with Maggie:

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Hanging out with Owen:

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Hanging out with Charlie:

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The best pic I could get of her new outfit from Gramma Jean:

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As soon as she sees me toss clean laundry in the chair, she’s over there like a shot. Usually she pulls everything off the chair but today she just played with stuff.

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And hanging out with Owen again:

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Goodbyes

Tom’s unit wasn’t scheduled to depart until 6:30-7, but we went about 4:30 because the waiting was just THE WORST. I knew we wouldn’t stay the entire time (to actually see them off) because I knew I couldn’t keep from breaking down that long. And it was about eleventy billion degrees and humid and the kids needed to eat dinner. Tom was perfectly okay with an early goodbye.

This is what the staging area looked like (forgive the bad pictures—I only had my phone)—piles and piles of bags and gear, hundreds of people, and lots of trucks.

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Of course, now that Katie can walk, she really did NOT want to be held…so we just let her roam and she had a blast. She had a few tumbles because the ground was fairly uneven—but she didn’t let that stop her!

More than a few people commented on how cute she was, how cute her dress was, and how good she was at walking.

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That’s Tom taking her picture.

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Then as I was trying to get a picture of Tom and Katie, one of Tom’s buddies stepped in to take a family picture. Amazingly, he took two and one was halfway good!

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Hugging daddy before getting in the car. I know he understands that Tom is leaving, but I really thought he’d be a bit more emotional—but he seemed kind of lackadaisical about it.

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Then Tom and I hugged and kissed goodbye, he walked off, and I got in the car…and Owen started crying. 🙁 I got out to give him some tissue and a kiss, and of course seeing him break down made it worse for me…

THANKFULLY it didn’t last too long—we passed by a playground on the way off base and he said he wanted to go! Well, it was too late for that one (I wanted to be closer to home if either of them got tantrum-y) so I took a different route home so we could stop at a playground…