Saturday, December 27, 2008

The Favorite Gift




Blake got a harmonica for Christmas, a last minute thing I bought at Walmart since his generic/fake one broke a couple of weeks ago. It was his favorite thing. He took it to Gma and Gpa's with us and entertained us all!

Friday, December 19, 2008

x-mas party

I decided to go to Blake's school Christmas party and I'm so glad I did. First the kids had a book exchange present and Blake got a Thomas book - yeah!
after the present exchange the each decorated their own 'christmas tree' a sugar cone decorated upside down with green frosting and candy for ornaments.


Then they got another book from Little Lambs, Miss Colleen tried to read the books to the kids but I think they were all hyped up on sugar so they ended up just having the kids run all around the room. The kids would line up against the wall and all count to 10, then run around like crazy and then all go back to the wall. It was so cute to see Blake interact with all of his friends at school and to see how happy he is there :-)




Tuesday, December 16, 2008

I don't like snow!


On Monday I bought a canon rebel slr camera - which I have always wanted. Yesterday I sat at work and watched it snow all day thinking about taking photos of Blake outside in the snow and how cool they would turn out with my new camera, except that when I tried it he told me, "Mom - I don't like snow, lets go inside" :-(

Friday, December 12, 2008

cheap detergent!

Walgreens has a special ad out with coupons for Arm & Hammer Detergent $1.99, go here

http://www.armandhammer.com/ and go to the 'get coupons' tab for $1 off, and get detergent for 99 cents!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

school photo


I just thought Blake's school photo turned out so cute!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Santa visit



I was so excited to see if Blake liked Santa this year. Last year he did not like him and getting a photo was quite an ordeal.

We talked about meeting Santa for a week and what we were to tell him we wanted, it started out Blake wanted a small present, then he wanted a yellow present, and when I was like what do you want in your small yellow present, he said, M&M's and that is what he has now been saying he wants for Christmas!

So on Saturday morning we went to my work for the kids visit with Santa and he was so excited to see Santa, but then when he saw him, decided he didn't want to sit on his lap for a photo. So we hung out for a bit and a gave him a camera and we took some photos of Santa. Then I realized Santa was giving out chocolate in the bags, so when I told Blake that he said we could at least go get some chocolate. We went up together to get the chocolate and talked to Santa for a bit, told him what he wanted - 'a tree with m&m's under it!'. Then I asked if we could do a photo and he said , okay! and I think it turned out pretty good! It helped with it being at my work and having some time to get to know Santa.

I'm so excited for Christmas morning!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

my week

so I decided to take the whole week of Thanksgiving off, with no real plans - but just to hang out with Blake. Sadly - since I work full time we don't get to just bum around a lot like a lot of moms and thier kids.

Monday we went to a playdate and then put up the Christmas tree. The week before Tania and I went shopping at lunch to buy shatterproof ornaments, good thing since Blake watched a little too much Handy Manny and spent a lot of time 'fixing' the ornaments! He loved the tree and would watch the lights and say "wow". I also put a couple of presents of Auntie's under there to see if he would open them - which he didn't! But he asks me about a hundred times a day if the presents are his, or if they are daddy's, etc.



Tuesday, we chilled at home
Wednesday we went to the Childrens Museum in Bloomington with Aunt Terra, Julie and Alexa. Blake had sooo much fun there and also hanging with Alexa - he just loves Alexa and she is so good with him!

Thursday - went to Gma and Gpas for Thanksgiving. Ted's sisters came too along with Blake's cousins Jamie and Brandon. I hardly saw Blake all day cause he was running around with them!
Friday froze our behinds off at the parade with Julie and Alexa again along with Alexis, Kylie, Dawn and Eva! (and dads, minus Ted) cause he was in the parade. When Blake saw Ted driving the big red truck he nearly exploded with excitement! and he kept telling Julie, 'that was my dad'. He was so proud of his dad for driving the Big Truck!




I have had a ton of fun, but sadly - I think I'm ready to go back to work (which I am totally shocked by) and I think Blake is ready to hang with his daycare friends again.

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Monday, November 24, 2008

Story books and color crayons


Lately Blake has been calling crayons - color crayons - which I just find really funny! Who calls them that? I just call them crayons, but he always will say, "Where are my color crayons?"' so the other day we were going somewhere, he grabbed his Thomas book and says, I want to bring my story book. I just wonder, where does he come up with this, and what's next?

Monday, November 17, 2008

Cowboy



Ted bought this cowbow hat a long time ago when we were in vacation in Arizona. Blake found it and asked if he could wear it and then kept saying, 'I'm a cowboy - giddy up', I'm a cowboy - I'm gonna ride my horse' then he said 'I'm a cowboy - just like Pablo' - from the backyardigans! too funny.
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Sunday, November 9, 2008

Trick or Treat


Blake and mommy at her work parade; Taytem, Paige and Blake at mommy's work


Nathan and Blake; Blake and Kate at the Retirement Home


at the Halloween Extravangza

This was the first Halloween that Blake kind of understood what was going on. He really liked his fireman outfit and everytime he put it on said, 'he was going to the firestation' He got that from the 'Elmo visits the firestation' dvd that we have seen about 1000 times! The first event we did was at a church, a moms group event. When we first started I had to hold him cause he was shy, but when he realized they were putting candy in his pumpkin - he was all about it! Then we did trick-or-treating at the Retirement home with the moms group, my work parade, and both sets of grandparents houses along with a few houses in each grandparents neighborhood! A week later, we are still eating the candy!
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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Extreme


When the Extreme Home Makeover show came to Pekin - it was all that was talked about for the whole week. I was able to get down to see it one day at lunch and then decided to take Blake there to see it. He really liked it. I told him we were going to watch a home getting built like Bob the Builder does, and then when we were there he told me he said, 'I see him Mom - I see Bob the Builder'. I don't know if normally he would have enjoyed watching a house get built - but since there was so much going on at once, it was very exciting!
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Friday, October 24, 2008

My best week ever


cvs'ing . . . I got all of this (plus a couple of bags of candy corn which seem to be MIA) for under 50 cents! It helped that I had a coupon for $25 gift card w/ new prescription, so I got a $24 prescription, did it in about 4 different transactions using ecb's and got it all for almost nothing! yeah for me :-)

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Appleblossom Field Trip

Today's I went on a field trip with Blake's daycare class. We went to Appleblossom Farm (or Applesauce Farm- as Blake calls it).
All the parents and the kids rode in the big school bus.

Yes - it was freezing, very windy, but we took the tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch and looked for the perfect pumpkin.

Blake looked at many, many pumpkins but he couldn't find one he liked.

Ahh - the perfect pumpkin!
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Monday, October 13, 2008

Gotta love life thru a 2 year old!

I took Blake to AppleBlossom Farm the other day. When we got home I told him to tell Daddy where he were, he looked at my blankly and I told him 'Appleblossom Farm' He said 'we went to Applesauce Farm Daddy!'

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The other day Blake was playing on his 'play phone' He would pick it up and say, "Hello - How's it going? okay - bye" and he did this a few times. I asked who he was talking to and he said "grandpa" I asked him what Grandpa was doing and he said "playing with Grandma"!

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I was so proud yesterday when Blake went into Sunday School all by himself - no tears!!! so after church I asked him what he learned about in Sunday School, he said "Jesus", I said - what about Jesus; Blake said "he says hi"!

Friday, October 3, 2008

San Diego

We took our first major family vacation to San Diego, California. There was a life insurance convention going on that my work paid for me to attend, so I brought the whole fam (Ted, Blake, along with Gma and Gpa. Grandma spoiled Blake from the very beginning making sure he had his very own Diego suitcase on wheels for the airport - which he had to wheel 'by himself'. We had the longest walk from the gates at the Minneapolis airport.


The first day I woke up with a cold :-(, but due to the time change, Blake woke up at 3:30 a.m, which would be 5:30 a.m. Illinois time and Grandpa actually stayed up with him! The first day there we went to the zoo, then Blake and Heather took naps while the rest of the clan hung at the pool. That night me and Ted went to the Hard Rock, as we do on every vacation.




The next day Gma wanted to eat at Richard Walkers pancake house, so after that we swung by the USS Midway, which Ted wanted to see. But me and Blake weren't feeling that great so we went back to nap again while my parents and Ted toured the USS Midway.



That afternoon we took a tour on a seal, it starts out as a car and then goes into the water as a boat! That was cool cause we saw sea lions just hanging out on rafts and learned a little about the ciy, for example they only have 1 runway at SD airport and they have planes take off over 90 seconds but only between the hours of 6:30 a.m. - 10:30 p.m. (I think those are the right hours)




That night we did dinner with Charlotte and Miranda, from the moms group in Peoria - her husband was also in town for the convention.


the next day we went to Cornado Island; this ended up being quite an ordeal. We began by taking the ferry from seaport village to cornado island, which we thought came over every 10 minutes, it was every hour and we go there after it just left !@#@! so we got on and expected to just be at the beach, no - there were little shops and restaurants and a bus stop that was supposed to take us to Hoetl Del Cornado, so we waited there forever while blake had a meltdown cause we didn't have milk, he was tired, etc . . . Grandpa got him some juice, we were all good, no bus so we ended up calling a taxi, so it took some time, but it was worth it. Cornado was beatiful. It was a huge beach, white sand and it there was almost no one there so it was awesome. We thought Blake would end up falling asleep but he had SO much fun at the beach. He loved it when the waves would splash on him and he also had a great time getting messy in the sand and then on the ferry ride back - he crashed!



The next day we all left the Hyatt, Ted went back to Illinois and me and Blake hung with gma and gpa. They got a condo at Mission Beach and Blake's favorite thing there was running up and down the outside hall - I'm sure all the neighbors loved us! He also enjoyed hanging outside with Gpa and watched the boats go by on the bay. We just chilled around that night.


Our last day there we visted Sea World. This was one of my favorite things. I just love seeing all of the water animals. Unfortunately Blake woke up super early and used most of his energy in the morning and fell asleep pretty early here, but we were still able to see and pet the stingrays, along with the aquarim fish including the star fish and watch the sea lion/otter show and the shamu show.


I had such a great time spending the whole week with Blake and thought it was going to be so hard to leave him on Monday when I went back to work. But as soon as we pulled into Little Lambs parking lot he said, 'yeah school' then when I opened his door he said' I'm done in your car mommy I'm going to school' and never ran so fast to see his friends. so I guess it wasn't as hard for him as it was for me!

Thursday, September 18, 2008


I set up a playdate for Blake at bicycle safety town. I remember going there as a kid and thought it was the coolest place and 20 some years later - it's just as cool. Like a little city for kids to ride their bikes on. Blake LOVES riding bikes so he had a blast. I brought his diego bike instead of the tricycle, but then he wasn't that interested in the diego bike and instead rode Nathans tricycle most of the time, which Nathan had more fun 'running really fast'. The photo is with Blake riding the bike while Nathan walking with him.