Elf on a Shelf

We jumped on the Elf on the Shelf bandwagon for the first time this year.  To be honest, I had no idea what to do with the thing after I purchased it, but I had a ton of people tell me that it was right up my alley, and I caved.  Thankfully the children's book it came with was enormously helpful in clueing me in to what exactly needed to be done. 

The basic premise is that the elf arrives from the North Pole (where else?) on the same date every year - we chose December 1, though the day after Thanksgiving is rumored to be another popular choice.  The elf will disappear each night to report on the child's (or childrens') behavior, reappearing in a new spot the next morning.  I may have taken liberty here with the author's intent, but in our case, we told the girls that if their behavior was less than desirable, the elf would stay in the same place.  On Christmas Eve, the elf returns to the North Pole with Santa until the following year.

We (of course) had a girl elf.  She appeared first in our playroom - see below.  The girls absolutely LOVED her.  They named her Sparkle Teddy Bear, which was a group effort (Megan contributed "Sparkle" and Hannah came up with "Teddy Bear").  They were SO excited to get up each morning and see exactly what she was up to.

Here is a peek at the various places we found her:

She had a tendency to be kind of naughty, this elf.

We took the girls to Chicago in December for a pre-holiday weekend getaway.  Megan's big wish from Santa was for an American Girl doll.  Since we were going to be so close to the store, Sparkle Teddy Bear thought it would be a good to idea to arrange for an early delivery of these gifts from Santa.  Here she is with the gifts - straight from the North Pole - and all packed and ready to go to her friend Zeze's house while we were away for the weekend.

Hanging out with Zeze - Claire's elf

She stowed away in the girls' bags when they spent the night in Fremont -
they caught her the next morning enjoying the hot tub

We got to host Zeze for an overnighter when Claire's family went to Chicago. 
Zeze is a rather handsome boy elf, so Sparkle Teddy Bear wanted to look her best.

Zeze's here!

Alas, the time came when we had to say our goodbyes. They were so bummed to see her go, but thankfully they had a small mountain of Christmas presents to ease the blow. We are looking forward to having her back next year!!

She left the girls a special goodbye note - being sure to include Hannah's current
 favorite expression, "see you 'round like a doughnut!"


Happy Holidays from the Purdys!

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Megan & Hannah Pics - September/October 2012

Please follow this link to a recent batch of Purdy Family pics.  Warning:  there are a billion of them.  

http://purdyfamilyest2005.shutterfly.com/pictures/90

We had a busy, busy, busy couple of months.  Lots and lots of fun stuff, but it kept us going and resulted in a T.O.N. of pictures.  At five years old, Megan's social life is more active than mine was during my college years.  We had birthday parties, swim lessons, playdates, trips to the orchard, school field trips, etc, etc, etc.

Megan continues to do great in kindergarten.  She seems to be getting some of her energy back and is in a better mood in the evening and waking up easier in the mornings.  She is very social and says she is friends with everyone in her class - she is actually kind of concerned about this, as she is still looking for her "best" friend, but that person seems to be constantly evolving.  She had such a great group of friends from preschool, and we've been lucky to have opportunities to keep her in touch with those girls even though they all ended up at different kindergartens.  We had them over for a playdate at our house in September, she took swim lessons with her friend Lydia, and we have mommy-daughter double dates every so often with her friend Brianna.  She went on her first field trip in October (to the pumpkin patch), and had the cutest little Halloween party and parade at school, too.  I was lucky enough to attend both of these events. 

Hannah has settled right into to her new daycare.  There are a lot less children there and she pretty much runs the place, so she is happy as can be with her situation.  Though we've passed the 2-1/2 years old mark, the kid still refuses to be potty trained.  We try to make a weekend of it when we have spare time, but we have been majorly lacking that the last few months.  November will be much calmer, so maybe - just maybe - we will make some progress.  Fingers crossed.  She remains the funniest person on Earth.

We had a very eventful Halloween, with at least one party every day between 10/27 and 10/31.  Megan elected to be a Disney princess (SHOCKER!  I know) - specifically, the Little Mermaid (a/k/a Ariel).  Since I still have control over Hannah's costume selection (one of the few aspects of her life that I do control) she went as Sebastian, Ariel's little crab friend.  This was particularly perfect given her mood swings and tendency to exert brute force.  They had a great time trick-or-treating...over and over and over again.

Lacey is back to 100% after her surgery in early September.  She returned to MSU in early October where she was given a clean bill of health and the ok to resume normal activity levels.  She is doing awesome and back to her food thieving, obnoxious barking ways.  For whatever reason, we are so glad to have her with us.  

Megan & Hannah Pics - July/August 2012

Please follow the link below for recent pictures of the gals. As you may remember, my formerly good friends at Kodak shut down their website sharing feature in July, effectively ruining my life - and that is only slightly being dramatic. Shutterfly acquired the site, and their picture sharing is nowhere near as user-friendly as Kodak's, so I am still reeling a bit from this forced transition. Long story short, if you follow this link you will find a recent album titled July-August 2012 and if you click the right button it will magically transform into a slideshow of 72 pictures from our recent summer adventures.
 

http://purdyfamilyest2005.shutterfly.com/pictures
 

I believe we last left off at Disney World, so let me get you up to speed from that point forward:
 

In July, Hannah and I took a weekend road trip to visit our respective BFFs in Chicagoland. My BFF, one Rebecca Couri, has a little girl, Gabby, who is just a month older than Hannah. As such, they have been declared to be best friends since birth. The arrangement seems to be working out well - they had a great time playing together over the weekend, and they are perhaps the cutest couple of best friends this world has ever known...well, second only to their Momma's of course. ;) We also had the opportunity to [finally] meet Sam, Becky's baby boy who went and turned 8 months old before I had the chance to get down there. He is about as stinking cute as cute gets. We had a lovely visit and Hannah enjoyed being Mom's only child for the entire weekend immensely.
 

August brought Megan's last few weeks of daycare. (I have shortened my schedule at work to allow me to pick her up and drop her off at the bus stop every day, so she has no daycare requirement now). It was pretty hard to say goodbye to her preschool friends (these girls have been friends since before they were 2 years old!), but they were all off to different kindergartens in the fall, so even if she stayed at the same daycare before/after school, things just weren't going to be the same. She had a tough couple of weeks but came fully out of her funk to enjoy Family Camp at the end of the month. This has been one of her favorite annual events for three years running now. She had a great time, and spent the entire week (Sunday - Sunday) with Grandma and Grandpa Purdy in Pentwater. She did, begrudgingly, grace us with her presence one day during the week to go to her kindergarten orientation to meet her teacher, but she was straight back to camp afterwards. Hannah joined them as well from Wednesday - Sunday. She was also quite the camper, and we look forward to next year when she can get even more involved with the kid's activities and games - she's still a bit young for some of it, though she never fails to entertain herself with just a pile of dirt, so it's not like she was unable to enjoy herself. :) Kyle headed up for the weekend, while Mom stayed home with an ailing beagle (details below).
 

Megan is now officially a kindergartner! She thinks it's like the best thing that has ever happened to her. It has been so awesome to watch her adjust to this new stage of her life. She is excited every day about school, and she thinks she is B.I.G. S.T.U.F.F. because she goes to kindergarten. I can't think of an adequate word to describe it - it's like one level below arrogance, where she is quite confident without being offensive or obnoxious...well borderline obnoxious for sure, but still charming about it. It's hilarious. In just a week, she is reading with more confidence, has a new "best friend", and is very close to having the rest of her social circle nailed down. We love our new morning routine - she gets a bit more time to wake up in the morning, eating her breakfast while tuned into PBS. In the afternoon she gets an extra hour and a half at home to play with neighbor friends or play board games with Mom (she is currently obsessed with Mancala, Sorry and Life - all of which are quite fun for me too). The whole thing is working out great. I was kind of dreading this whole kindergarten thing all along, despite everyone's warnings that I need not worry about Megan. As is my lot in life after giving birth to her, I worried about Megan. And, as it turns out, I did not need to worry about Megan. Megan is nailing kindergarten. :)
 

Hannah is also doing quite well. She seemed to adapt to big sister's absence on the ride to and from daycare pretty quickly. She enjoys the one on one time with Mom & Dad, I think. Verbally I can't quite keep up with her developments - she can just kind of say everything now. We have videos of her from the winter where it was one or two words at a time, and now she talks in full paragraphs. It still takes me by surprise when I hear some of the stories come out of her mouth - it just seemed to come together so suddenly. She remains quite a monkey, climbing up into our treehouse, hanging from the rings or bars at the playground, and engaging in otherwise generally unsafe behaviors without caution. We tried (and failed) a potty training push in the middle of August, but she just doesn't seem quite ready. We probably could have pushed a little harder and gotten her there, but that seemed like it would just make things harder on us than her, so we elected to give it a break and try again next month. She is switching daycares next week (she will still be at an Appletree, and actually with the same teacher she has now, but they are building a location closer to our house so we are taking advantage of that), and will have a bit of a transition ahead of her, so we'll likely wait until she's all settled in before giving it another go. She is a mini-comic genius and a future class clown for sure - making us laugh all the time.
 

Lacey has actually had quite the eventful summer as well. I had been running with her earlier in the summer when she seemed to hurt her back (this has happened before). We stopped running together and she seemed to recover from her injury. A couple of weeks ago, however, something happened that set her back again, only this time way worse. We spent three days (and a lot of money) trying a steroid/laser therapy treatment with our local vet, but unfortunately it didn't seem to help at all and she spent all of Labor Day weekend in an incredible amount of pain. He referred us to MSU, and luckily they were able to get her in the next day to be seen. I took her last Wednesday for her exam, and they ended up admitting her right away to get her started on an IV narcotic and steroid to help control her pain before doing an MRI and possibly surgery the next day. Sure enough, the MRI confirmed that she had herniated a disc in her neck and had significant degeneration in another. Her surgery was later that day, but did not go as well as the doctor had hoped. While he suspected he was able to extract the herniated disc material, Lacey bled a lot during the surgery and he wasn't able to keep the surgical field clear enough to see as well as he would have liked. She recovered well, but they kept her an extra three days to evaluate her behavior and make sure he wouldn't need to go back in and try surgery again. Several days, and even more money later, we brought her home - just yesterday, actually. She is doing AWESOME! She looks like a new dog, and is already doing things that I haven't really seen her do in months. We're not sure how long exactly this disc had been bothering her, but she looks amazing. Unfortunately for her, she still has a long recovery ahead of her, and needs to be on strict crate rest for the next three weeks, followed by another four weeks of gradual increases in her activity. This is not going over very well, as it is difficult to explain the need for a spine to heal after surgery to a beagle. It will be a long few weeks, but we are very thankful for the chance at many more years with our healthy bea-girl. :)

Back to School Shopping - ahh! Is this really happening?!?

Megan and I just finished up a weekend long shopping excursion.  The main purpose was to stock up her fall clothing selection with appropriate kindergarten duds, but we threw in school supplies and a trip to Ikea as well.  (Though not kindergarten related, Mom was sort of itching to make my annual Ikea pilgrimage, and this was the perfect excuse)

We kicked things off on Friday night with a girls' night out (compliments of Steak n' Shake) and school supply shopping at Target.

This was her first Steak n' Shake experience but she was definitely a fan, as shown here, fake smile and all



Though not off to school (my heart palpitates at the thought), the little one scored a shake as well

Armed with her custom kindergarten school supply picture list and ready to shop!

On Saturday morning, Megan and I headed to Canton to hit Ikea and then spend the night at a hotel for some swimming and one-on-one time together.

Ready for her first lesson on Swedish culture!

Though she immediately declared herself as "bored", the fact that there were toys throughout the store did not go unnoticed.

Her overall impressions of Ikea are summed up pretty well in this photo.  She was on her best behavior, but she didn't hold back her thoughts on the place.  A few of those include:  "This place is SO weird!", "can we ask them to turn that dumb music off?", and "do people pay money for this stuff?"  Mommy is sad to report she doesn't seem to have a single drop of Swedish blood in her veins.  :(  This may be the first time she has ever disappointed me in her five years of life...

Candy Land (our first game of many) at the hotel

We got in a swim at the hotel before the storm clouds rolled in and then went to dinner at her "favorite restaurant on earth" - Chili's.  Okay, that may be the second time she's disappointed me...The food is fine and all, but favorite restaurant on EARTH?  Come on!

On Sunday we headed to the outlet mall in Howell.  My intent:  a mommy-daughter compromise on fashion, where she picks out durable clothing that will make her feel like a princess but still hold up against any and all means of playground destruction.  What happened:  Dresses.  Lots and lots of dresses.  After spending the bulk of the weekend with this little girl I love, I knew going in to the shopping trip that I couldn't make good on my threat to make her wear jeans to kindergarten  (gasp! the abuse!) - it's just not who she is, and aside from blatantly wrong opinions of the Swedes and chain restaurants, I happen to find who she is to be perfect.  My girl loves dresses and shoes and accessories.  She is most comfortable in dresses and tights, and if high heels were available in her size, she would be all over those as well.  Our opinions on comfortable clothing (and Swedes and chain restaurants) could not be farther apart, but as her Mommy I have to respect her very strong preferences and individuality, even if it means the occasional hole in a pair of leggings.  We also upgraded her footwear from Target (cute and cheap but lasts us less than a month on the playground) to Stride Rite - the girl didn't just win this one, she knocked it out of the park!

She did such a great job of picking out her favorites in each store we went to.  I was so glad to have her with me - I normally default to the pink + dress = safe formula of success for her clothes-shopping, but she really has distinct preferences that I wouldn't have nailed all on my own - such as a preference for silver shiny embellishments compared to pink or purple shiny embellishments.  I'm telling you - the girl is particular!  We're definitely going to make this an annual thing.  :)

A few pics from the experience:

She filled in her [future] school info on the board at Old Navy (just to the right of her head)

She visits the Old Navy dog at each store location

Smiling at the thought of bankrupting her parents while enjoying a ride on the ice cream truck

And now she's ready for Kindergarten.  Mom & Dad?  Not so much!!

Adventures at Disney World - Day 5

Our prayers for a dry day were not answered - sigh...  Tropical Storm Debby was parked over Florida, moving at zero miles per hour (no, that is not an exaggeration).  We had planned to spend our last day at Animal Kingdom, but with the weather the way it was, we made a last minute decision to go to Hollywood Studios instead.  That was an excellent decision, as it turns out, as almost all of the attractions are indoors, and we were faced with another very WET Orlando day.

It was raining pretty hard as we drove in to the park, and right after we forked over the cash to pay for parking, both Kyle and I gave each other an "are we seriously going to do this?" look.  The parking lot was a not-so-small pond, but we poncho'd up the kids, the double stroller, ourselves, and headed on in for what we were convinced was going to be a horrible experience.

The first attraction we hit (well, swam to) was the Voyage of the Little Mermaid show.  The cast member informed us that it could be as long as 45 minutes before we were let in for the next show, but as the line was covered and dry, we were more than happy to wait.  The kids enjoyed a snack and some time out of their ponchos while we waited, and we enjoyed a GREAT show.  The special effects were really cool too - lighting on the ceiling to make it feel like you were swimming underwater, bubbles sprayed into the audience, etc, etc.

Ariel with Ursula the Sea Witch

As it was still raining like crazy when we exited, we immediately made our way next door to catch the Disney Junior - Live on Stage show, featuring Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and I think I may be forgetting one more... (Hannah is so hooked on Mickey Mouse that we simply don't have time for the other Disney programming).

Excited for Mickey Mouse's debut!

The little one, in particular, went nuts when they were all on stage

We were slightly encouraged after this show was over to find that the children's risk of drowning had somewhat diminished.  Though ponchos were still a necessity, the rain had slowed down somewhat as we made our way over to catch the Muppets 3D movie.  We enjoyed that (also very cool special effects - bubbles, water spray, etc, etc), and had just enough time when it was done to make our way back to the front of the park to hit Beauty and the Beast - a Broadway-like show performed in a large amphitheater.  Shockingly, not only had the rain stopped when we finished up with the Muppets, but the sun was actually out!

The whole show was great - especially the costumes for these guys

I feel for the guy who gets stuck in this Beast costume on a hot day...

Belle in her "fancy dancing dress" as Megan calls it

Megan loved, loved, loved the show!  The sun was still out when we left the amphitheater, and I was actually considering applying sunscreen for a short second, though the skies remained a bit ominous.  Hollywood Studios is a pretty small park (microscopic compared to Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios), which was a welcome surprise after the last four days of intense long-distance hiking.  After Beauty and the Beast, we trekked back to the Pixar section of the park to redeem our fast-passes for the Toy Story Mania ride.  (We were thrilled to have them - though our fast-pass time was a full 3 hours from the time we got them, by the time we got back to the ride the standby line was 2 hours long and the fast-pass return times were 8-9 hours out!)

The ride was sooo cool!  It was a 4D ride, meaning we all looked awesome in plastic yellow glasses, spinning you through a "course" of various arcade games where you shot at different Toy Story themed targets.  It was definitely my favorite ride of the trip.

Looking forward to Toy Story Mania

Glasses on - almost go time!

"Let's do this thing!"

Attempting to shoot at the targets (disclaimer: I rode with Hannah and was unable to take pictures of Megan in action)

Having just a bit of fun

Despite her enthusiasm for the game, Player 1's aim was a little off

Mommy & the ladies post-Toy Story ride

The rain clouds had moved in again, and we decided it was time to get the heck out of dodge.  We made our way to the front of the park once again and prepared to say goodbye to Disney World...but not before we stopped for ice cream!

Sayonara, Mickey Mouse!

We picked up Grandma Purdy, grabbed some lunch and headed off to the airport.  Though we had an amazing adventure with lots of fun, Mom and Dad were pretty relieved to be heading home.  Disney World is E.X.H.A.U.S.T.I.N.G.

Lunch was at a McDonald's featuring the World's Largest Playplace.  By this point, our birthday girl was kind of too tired to care...

...and we were too tired to really care what this little game at the airport was all about, just relieved that the sisters were having fun together.

Two worn out little ladies on the plane ride home.  Amazing that they were  this calm, as we were in the throes of Tropical Storm Debby for the first hour of the ride.  Mom, not pictured here, was going a bit psycho in a seat across the aisle.

I am so thankful for the opportunity to make such special memories with these girls!  It was an amazing experience - one we will surely repeat...in several years...after we've recovered from this one.

A BIG, HUGE THANK YOU to Grandma Purdy for her efforts.  Thank you so much for traveling with us and helping us manage the chaos that comes with our little traveling circus!  Thank you for hanging out with Hannah so we could spend some one on one (well, two on one) time with the birthday girl.  Thank you for spoiling aforementioned birthday girl with special presents to unwrap while in Florida.  Thank you for hanging  out with us in the park to celebrate her special day.  Thank you for wrangling both of them on a rainy day in Florida while Mom & Dad enjoyed Harry Potter.  Thank you for talking to me on the airplane so I could be somewhat distracted from our imminent demise (still don't know how we escaped with our lives).  And thank you for allowing them to sleep in the next morning and ushering them off to school at a more leisurely pace.  You are a wonderful Grandma and we are all so lucky to have you!!

Also very not-so-small THANK YOUs to Grandpa Purdy (and Grandma Purdy again) for the use of your timeshare during our stay - it was very awesome to have so much space to destroy enjoy and a fully functioning kitchen, AND for watching our rotten beagle during our stay.  Thanks to Grandma Dee for also helping with Lacey and watching the cats while we were gone, as well as the unsolicited shuttling of our vehicle to/from the airport to avoid obnoxious long-term parking fees.  In our situation, the saying "it takes a village to raise a child" rings true, but could also be modified to included "and/or some really awesome grandparents".  Our baby girl could not have had a better birthday (the little sister was pretty far from miserable too), and we couldn't have done it without you.  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!