Friday, November 1, 2013

Pumpkin Patch

It was a fun visit to the pumpkin patch this year.  Last year, Lily was so little, I really couldn’t do much other than hold her.  This year, she was all over the patch and having fun with the pumpkins.  I have to say that I have learned my lesson.  I had (mistakenly) believed that when I had a girl, she would be so calm and stay with me.  *sigh* So I have a Luke 2.0 who is just as fast and is always moving.  The difference between them?  Lily gets into everything. Luke never poked around into places he didn’t belong.  Lily has to be constantly watched.  But she’s fast and she adores Luke.  So they play tag together, ie: he runs at her, knocks into her and yells, “TAG!” She responds by laughing and they continue.

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Luke was very serious about choosing his pumpkin.

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“Time me, Mom!”

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“This one, Mom!”

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“TAG!”

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Waving to the train.

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Love these two.  Love that these two love each other.

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I love that she’s always reaching for him, always touching him.  And he is totally okay with it.  He’s good about holding her hand and keeping her safe.

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Love those little piggy tails!

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We bought a pumpkin for each of us (buy one get one half off!) and never carved them.  Life sure gets busy. One of these years we’ll get to it.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Bee sure to have fun this Halloween!

Apparently, I have been neglecting the blog for quite some time.  True that. Life has been crazy busy and I'm exhausted.  But I'd thought that I would toss in my Halloween photo for this year, simply because it is fun.

Both the principal and I have last names that begin with "B." When we do our morning rounds to all the classrooms, the students always say, "Good morning, Mrs. B________, good morning, Mrs. Bickel."  But they often get confused, some say her name first, some say my name first, some can't remember who is who.  So we will laugh and say, "Just call us Mrs. B and B." So that's the direction that we went for Halloween this year.  I made the shirts and found all the fun accessories.  I made the principal a crown, so that she could be the "Queen Bee." The kids all got it and they decided that I was the worker bee. :)  My principal is so sweet, she said I was the "Beautiful Bee." One of the students said I was the Princess Bee. I'm good with either.


Monday, August 26, 2013

Kindergarten!

We made it.

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My kid is a giant now.  Okay, not really, but I’m used to him being a baby and he is far from it.  Love him. Proud of him.  He was awesome today.  Spilled everything he could on his uniform. Almost choked on his lucky penny.  You know, the one that Nana put in his shoe for good luck.  (A Bickel tradition) How did it get out of his shoe? How did it get into his mouth? Who knows. But he made his first day memorable, in a a very Luke way.

(Isn’t he cute?!?)

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

And then there was summer . . .

 

To be perfectly honest, this summer has been super busy and not in the most fun way.  I’m posting about our Disneyland trip from June, but I have been working like a maniac since then. Boo.

So I’m just tossing all my favorite photos in here, with little to no rhyme or reason.  Sorry. But I have to keep my fan (hi, mom!) happy. It’s this, or nothin’.

Lily patting Nana’s leg. She makes me laugh. She was so mellow all day.  Lily is Luke’s polar opposite.  When it was her normal nap time, we reclined the stroller, gave her her little giraffe and she went to sleep. Really.

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At the entrance to Cars Land.  I made him hold my hand and run when we got to the park entrance when it opened.  He made me proud.  He will learn the ways of the Hardcore Disneyland folk.

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I did not plan well.  I forgot to bring Luke’s hat.  Whoops. We tried on a few and briefly considered buying one and then figured it wasn’t necessary. More sunscreen, team!

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Out Disneyland tickets were a sweet, thoughtful, greatly appreciated gift from my darling mother-in-law to celebrate: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, my birthday and our anniversary.  To thank her, we went to the Princess Lunch at Ariel’s Grotto.

Me and my little Cinderella:

 

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My handsome princes:

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With my buddy, Ariel:

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Oh Lily.  She was the prettiest princess of all, and all the princesses just fawned all over her.  She mostly focused on the food.

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Hooray Cheerio!

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On the way to have lunch with the princesses, Luke started in with whining about how princesses were for girls, blah blah blah.  So I pointed out that “My Little Ponies” were for girls and he had just been watching them the day before.  He told me that they were “different.” When I asked how, he informed me that My Little Ponies have unicorn horns. He rested his case, and we moved along.

Who was the most excited about the princesses? Yeah. Luke.

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Cinderella looked a little worse for wear (yikes!) but look how stoked Luke is!

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I liked seeing all three Cinderellas . . .

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We all know Lily is the prettiest Cinderella.

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Aurora was my favorite.  She actually stopped and spoke with both kids for quite a while.  Luke (again) was so excited he was jumping out of his shoes and Lily just stared at her.  She was so patient with both kids!

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What does Lily like? (other than food) Shiny things.  So she reached out and grabbed at poor Aurora.  Stuck her hand right down Aurora’s dress. Way to go, Lils. But again, Aurora took it all in stride, and kept smiling.

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Lily was so glad to be free of the restraint/cruel and unusual punishment. (aka: high chair)

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Todd and Nana hung out with Lily while Luke and I went on Goofy’s Sky School. He did NOT like that ride. “I did NOT like that ride, Mom.”

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After the ride, we hung out while the parade passed.  Luke and Lily both love music and dancing, so we let them dance for a bit and stretch out their legs.

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We ventured back into Cars Land later that day and found they were having a street performance with DJ from Cars.  All the kids were dancing.  Mine walked around the whole thing, trying to figure out how it worked.  He was so impressed!

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note: this may not be a huge deal to anyone but us, but there was no way even 6 months ago, we would have felt safe having Luke walk next to us with no type of containment (stroller, etc.) so this is a “wow” for us.  He walked the whole day, with stops for lunch, snacks, and all, but didn’t once complain of being tired.  Good job, Luke!

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My Lils was tired though.

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Pictures with Mater.

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Historic, rare photo of Lily with a hat on.  It was ripped off approx. 3.5 seconds later.

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Really what Luke could have done all day was run through the water area in Bugs Land. Notice how he is already looking at where he wants to run to next.

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He could have stayed here all day.  Next time we’ll go to a local water park. I was so glad we brought a swimsuit and a change of clothes.  There were many envious people.  But I had seen other parents do that, and I thought it was pretty smart.

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By the end of the day, the kids were done and my mother in law was kind enough to take the kids and drive home to San Diego.  She let us use her Anaheim time share so we were able to spend the entire next day at both parks.  It was a great pre-anniversary gift.

As always, we had a few drinks at the bar in California Adventure.  I think it is called the Cove Bar.  It used to just be Ariel’s Grotto, but whatever.  Right after we were engaged, we came to CaAdventure to celebrate and came to the bar.  So it is a special place and we try to visit once a year.

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And . . . . I don’t hate this picture.  So that’s different.