Mmmmm, more Valentine's candy!

Thanks to the U.S. Postal service for damaging and taking f.o.r.e.v.e.r to deliver Valentine's cards and treats from my parents, the holiday candy continues. Maisie loved her Sweetheart treats, thanks Gamma & Gampa!

In other news, I braved the mall again so that Maisie now has two sets of her beloved Little Einsteins p.j's. I can now at least attempt to keep her in a clean set.

Another first

On Sunday I blogged about Maisie having her first taste of cotton candy. But that was cotton candy and other than fairs, the circus and other big events, how often do you really come across the stuff? Then again, it was only two weeks ago that Maisie had her first chicken nugget, but we don't "do" fast-food so not having that before is totally understandable...Right? Today's first is probably a bit more surprising as Maisie is 3 years, 4 months and 1 day old and it was today that she had her very first lollipop! Maisie is an extremely energetic little girl and sugar just revs her up that much more so even though she gets sweets, I really try to limit her intake. In addition, I've just honestly never thought to give her a lollipop. Chicken nuggets, cotton candy and lollipops all firsts within two weeks, what's going to be next??

Recently though, Maisie's really been fighting nap time so I've started bribing her with the dreaded yet her favorite, candy or treat. Today I told her that if she took her nap, afterward when we were getting ready for gymnastics she could pick a treat from the stash of Valentine's candy from her school mates. Maisie's already finished off her favorites of M&M's & Skittles and what remains are some various chewy taffy things, lollipops and an awful lot of Pixie Stix which she's tried and didn't like at all. With such a limited selection she decided to go for the unknown and picked a lolly.

When I first took the wrapper off and handed the lolly to her she just stared at it not really knowing what to do. I told her to lick it, put it in her mouth and taste it but she wasn't having any of it until I took a lick and said a big yum! She finally gave it a go and at first wasn't too sure but then once she got a good taste, decided it was a good thing. She only ate about half and then decided she was finished. Honestly, I think she's more of a chocolate girl like her Mama!

We then had an interesting afternoon at gymnastics. All the coaches and children were involved in their activities and I was sitting upstairs watching from the viewing area. About 20 minutes into the practice I noticed that like a wave, everyone down on the floor was calmly moving towards the entrance. At that time of day the older kids were just starting to arrive and there were probably already a dozen plus coaches on the floor each with a group of young children, so to have them all move in one direction was very off and strange. Then one of the other parents sitting in the viewing area said that tornado sirens were going off so we all made our way down stairs to safer areas of the building. The ease and calmness of how the coaches moved all the children to safer areas was just amazing. There were just so many really young children and most without parents in the building so it was great to see how well the situation was handled. Thankfully it ended up that there wasn't a tornado and once it was deemed safe, practices resumed.

We've had some severe weather pass through the area today; thunder, lightning, high winds, straight line winds, rain, hail (in some areas chunks were up to 4-inches across) and even tornadoes. Thankfully we experienced very little of it with no problems or damage but I'm happy that it's mostly past us now.

For the love of p.j's

Yesterday I looked past my loathing of all things malls and ventured into the Disney store because I'd heard that they had some cute bento boxes on sale. While there I checked out the other sale items and I happened upon some Little Einsteins p.j's. Maisie loves the Little Einsteins so when I saw them on sale I just knew I had to get them for her. To say that she L.O.V.E.S her new p.j's is an huge understatement.

She of course wore them last night and then this morning she wanted to wear them to school. After convincing her that it wasn't pajama day again and that she had to wear daytime clothes, she reluctantly got dressed but as soon as I picked her up she was all about the pajamas again. First thing she told me was that, when we got home she was going to put on her Little Einsteins pajamas and take her nap...And so she did. It's now well past nap time and thankfully we didn't have anywhere to go this afternoon as Maisie has insisted that she not take off her new p.j's and that she needs to wear them to bed again tonight. I may have to brave the mall again to get a second pair as the girl may flip when I have to take them from her to actually wash them.

First and Greatest

Today Maisie had her first taste of cotton candy at The Greatest Show on Earth, Ringling Bros And Barnum & Bailey Circus. She wasn't oh too sure about the cotton candy at first but then she realized how sugary sweet it was and the girl was hooked.

Maisie really enjoyed the circus especially the elephants and tigers, the trapeze and Chinese acrobat acts as well as the motorbikes in the steel cage. Seeing the clowns and the smaller acts didn't thrill her much but overall I'd have to say that she sat wide-eyed and engrossed throughout the entire show. She was also super cute when something caught her eye as she would call out, "look Mama, look Baba" as she pointed and made sure we were seeing everything that she thought was wonderful.

It took Maisie all of about five minutes in the car on the drive home before she sugar crashed and fell fast asleep. Today's going to be the last day of sugar as five days in a row of sugar crashing is not good for anyone let alone a three year old. Also on the drive home, Eammon who seems to recognize and remember voices and faces all the time and from everywhere, did it again when he told me that he thought he recognized the Ringmaster from a show which also starred Desi Arnaz, Jr. When we got home I looked it up and sure enough, as always with faces and voices, Eammon was right. The Ringmaster Chuck Wagner starred in a one-season sci-fi television series, Automan. Eammon said that he watched 3 or 4 episodes twenty-five years ago, so of course he recognized the voice! Yeah I'd recognize him from that too...NOT!! Me, I could watch a show for years, see every episode, in person sit next to the star, talk to the star, be told whilst sitting there that they were the star and I still, most likely would not fully recognize them.

I think the last time I saw the circus, it was at Madison Square Garden in NYC and I was maybe in first grade at the time. It may have been the venue, the show itself or that I was just a child but the show today seemed so, so, so much smaller. It was still fun though and seeing Maisie enjoy it so much made it a wonderful day.

My sweet Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day 2009!

By bedtime Wednesday evening, Maisie thankfully had recovered from her Valentine's party sugar high and slept well. On Thursday I made a Valentine's bento for Maisie which was all hearts of pink & red with lots of sugary sprinkles and she loved it. Her bento turned out to be more nutritionally sound than I had first imagined but Maisie didn't care or notice, she just thought it was wonderful.

Friday after ballet Maisie and I made the little Valentine's house in the picture. I had found the kit a while back and loved that it was foam & stickers and thought it would be easier and less messy than doing a gingerbread house. Last Easter Maisie and I made a gingerbread bunny hutch which was fun but oh so messy, sticky & sugary. In addition, for days after making the hutch, Maisie couldn't resist feeling the coconut grass and poking at anything frosting and it just seemed to be a continued mess until I happily tossed it in the bin. This little foam house was great and I have one already for Easter but from making this one I did learn a few tricks for our future projects.

Maisie didn't have any problem piecing the structural house, roof and base pieces together but when we started decorating, if she pressed too hard, picked it up or turned it funny, it would cause the structure to come apart. I ended up taking it apart and hot gluing the house, roof and base together and that made all the difference, Maisie and I were then able to add all the decorations. The girl does have a little glue and glitter fetish so it wasn't as mess free as I had first hoped but now that it's dry, she's not poking at it, nothing is flaking off and no continued mess. In addition to hot gluing the structure together, when we make the Easter house, we'll do our glue and glitter pieces first so that they can dry and then when we decorate the house Maisie can add the glittered pieces without glittery glue squishing in her fingers.

Hope everyone had a wonderful day.

The face of a sugarholic

Today at school was Maisie's Valentine's Day party. The children each passed out their cards with attached candy and just before dismissal time they partied with the cookies that Maisie and I had made yesterday. Maisie's bag of Valentine's cards & treats held 20+ pieces of candy and the poor girl was just desperate to get her hands on some. I did allow her to pick one treat to have in the car on the drive home but I should have known better. Between the cookie and the candy, by the time we got home Maisie was flying high on the sugar and nap time just wasn't going to happen.

Late afternoon we headed off to gymnastics and Maisie fell asleep in the car five minutes before we arrived at the gym. Surprisingly when we parked she woke up in a good mood and did really well during her practice. At the end of practice, one of Maisie's teammates Mara, passed out really large white chocolate lollipops. It was very sweet but of course Maisie wanted the chocolate right then and there and how could I say no, so on the drive home she ate a good part of the lolli. My thought being, no nap, two separate sugar highs, a busy day of school and gymnastics practice, the girl should crash early and well tonight.

Once home Maisie forgot about all the candy as we got involved in activities and making dinner (plus I had already hidden her V-day bag of treats so that she wouldn't see it when we got home.) We had dinner and played then Eammon came home and she played with him for a while, then off to bed she went. She is loving all the Valentine treats and she has enough candy already, three days before Valentine's Day, to last her an entire month!

The sugar won't end today though, as tomorrow is her last day of school before Valentine's Day and I have an extra special bento planned for her. The bento will be high on fun, color, favorite treats and sugar with almost no nutritional value, woohoo, what more could my little sugarholic ask for!!

First (and hopefully last) of 2009

* Saturday a headache started and I thought it was just a bad sinus headache brought on by our temperatures going from 17F to 70F over the course of two days, but I was so, so wrong. By Sunday I was seriously hurting and increasingly over the day I was seeing auras and light flashes, having nausea, sensitivity to light, sounds and smells, I was barely up and about for more than a total of 30 minutes all day. I can't believe that I got a stinking migraine. It's now three days later and though I'm not completely incapacitated like I was on Sunday, I still feel like cr@p.

* I used to have devastating migraines that would incapacitate me for weeks out of every month but after years of prophylactic treatments, trigger management, recognizing and treating the onset of a migraine and of course pain management, I was able to break the cycle and thankfully since then, migraines have been far and few between. Now that it's been more than a decade of being relatively migraine free, I have no tools a.k.a drugs to help me deal with the pain and associated symptoms. Hopefully tomorrow I'll wake feeling better and this will be my last migraine of 2009 and forever.

* Even though I'm hurting life must go on. Last week I volunteered to make Valentine's Day treats for Maisie's class this Wednesday and in addition I decided to make multi-part Valentine's Day cards with Maisie for her class.

* We had fun making and decorating cookies together this afternoon and Maisie had fun taste testing them too.

* Next year for Valentine's day I'm buying those lousy little cards where all you do is sign your name. After assembling cards and candy treats with Maisie for 2 hours this afternoon, I thought the red on the Valentine's cards was going to be from blood spewing from my brain, eyeballs and ears as my head was throbbing beyond belief. Maisie was great and had fun putting everything together but she wanted to do so much of it all by herself (though she needed help) and it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r!!

* I'm so happy that the warm weather is back as the freezing weather of last week was enough cold to last me a lifetime. I knew that when I moved from New England I should have moved farther south, I'm so not a cold weather person, even one week of cold is too much for me.

* See the shirt that Maisie's wearing in the piccie? M3 gave it to me way back in August 2006 at our first Utah bloggy bash. Remember this piccie of us bloggy gals holding matching shirts with our daughter's names? In some ways it seems like so long ago yet in other ways it feels so recent. It's amazing to think how much things have changed since that piccie. Going from right to left in the piccie: Tiffany now has two beautiful children, Eliza and Solomon. Donna has been home for less than a month with her beautiful daughter Lauren, Julie and I were in China together back in December 2006 for gotcha of Tess & Maisie and Lisa, oh my gosh her wait has been so.very.very.long, should be receiving her referral in the near future and soon will have Tate in her arms and let's not forget the photographer M3 and the Salsa twins. Maisie wearing this shirt always brings fond memories but if she grows any taller the shirt will have to be retired, so sad. It's surprising that the shirt still fits her at all or as well as it does especially considering that the first blog post having pictures of her wearing it was back in June 2007! Check out that post's video for an adorable Maisie blast from the past. Hmm...Maisie wearing this shirt and on a trampoline, I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've seen that exact scene repeated since the video was taken.

* One final thought before I take myself and my headache to bed. How is it that all the laundry was done on Saturday yet today in Eammon's laundry drawer there were seven, yes seven towels???

Goodnight...

Birthday & nuggets

Wednesday morning we celebrated Chani's Birthday at one of the local large inflatable jumping places. Happy Birthday Chani!!

Maisie has never been a fan of inflatables and in the past, the noise alone has totally freaked her out to the point where she wouldn't even enter the facility. For Chani's party Maisie did pretty well with no freak outs but she was very reserved and cautious, only jumping on one inflatable when she
had it all to herself.

After the jumping time it was lunch of chicken nuggets, chicken salad sandwiches and birthday cupcakes. Maisie ate her very first chicken nugget and thought it was okay. It surprises many that she's never had a chicken nugget but we never go to fast food restaurants and it's just not something that I've ever thought to make at home. Funny thing is, next week at school they're having Chick-fil-A day and they're bringing in nuggets so this month she was destined to get her first taste.

Happy Birthday Chani, wishing you a wonderful year!

Cravings

Ever since I was a little girl, I've always had the same favorite cookie. Rainbow cookie, three-layer cookie, tri-color cookie, Neapolitan or Venetian cookie it didn't matter what they were called because when there were brought home from the Italian bakery it was just pure delicious delight. Unfortunately the bakeries that make the cookie now are far and few between and other than one bakery up in Connecticut, which has the perfect tri-color cookie, when I can find them they are just poor quality, dry or they have a fake almond flavor, just not like the cookies of my childhood. For a number of years I've had the recipe for these delightful cookies, in fact I've had a couple of variations of the recipe but every time I pulled it out, it always seemed so daunting I would tuck it away along with my cravings. I guess my cravings got strong enough because yesterday I took on the recipe. In the end, making the cookies wasn't difficult at all and really much easier than I thought it would be, but the time involved to make them, oh my!! Between the preparation, the baking, the assembly, letting them set up, getting the chocolate on and cutting, it was about 12 hours. So was it worth it? Oh my gosh YES!! These cookies are exactly as I remember them, dense and moist with a rich almond flavor, the perfect amount of chocolate and the sweetness of the jam...pure heaven!!

I've posted the recipe at Cook Lisa Cook if you're interested in making these delightful cookies.

April & Maisie

Last night we met up with friends Ilene and Michael and their daughter April at a favorite local Chinese restaurant. Even though we had tried to get together numerous times over the past year, between various sicknesses, business trips, personal trips and life in general, it just never seemed to happen. It was so fun seeing them again and we all had a fun night. April & Maisie were both shy at first but after just a short time they took to each other and had so much fun. As it worked out, for most of our time at dinner we had a private room so the girls were able to run around some and boy, did they did have fun chasing, catching and hugging each other. They also had fun playing peek-a-boo through the large fish tanks with the big child Eammon on one side and the two girls on the other. It was amazing how much energy those two girls had because even though they didn't tire out themselves, they managed to wear out all four adults. Hopefully we'll get together again soon and I'll have to remember my camera because my cell phone didn't do well with the piccies.