Candy
The girls are super lucky because Dadda Rule is ‘one piece of candy a day’. Strict-Momma rule would have been ‘one piece of candy on Halloween and the rest right in the trash’! Aaaah, B and I compliment each other so well. Our girls don’t even realize how lucky they are to get a good balance between us. After very good naps this afternoon, B offered up their choice of one piece of candy and they sat down so sweetly together on their Dora couch to eat it. Again, Annabelle went for the Whoppers…where did that love come from? Gwyneth decided to indulge in a little Hershey’s. She only got half the miniature bar, but was happy nonetheless.

Coat
During naptime (the girls both slept 3 hours – I guess they really needed their sleep from this time change!), I ran to Hannah Anderssen to get Gwyneth’s new winter coat. She looks so stinkin’ cute. Wouldn’t you know it – Annabelle likes Gwyneth’s coat better and Gwyneth likes Annabelle’s coat better! Since they’re the same size, the girls decided to switch coats. Even when we try to give Gwyneth something new she ends up with the hand-me-down!

Don’t you love the pilot hat? B said I should have got her a brown one so she’d look like an old school football player!She looks all “Paz” to me here

Clingmans
It had been way too long since we last saw the Clingman Crew and we gladly accepted when they invited us over for pizza Sunday night. They have a giant ‘Love Sac’ in the basement and the girls had so much jumping around on it!

Lauren and Annabelle had a great time playing dress up and it gave me some great ideas to share with Santa…
We left at 7:30 after slowly realizing it was really an hour past their little bedtimes. They were slap-happy on the way home, cracking each other up over the silliest little things. Annabelle was singing all of our names…”Apple Meyer, GG Grace Meyer, Mommy Kelly Meyer, Daddy ‘B’ Meyer”, over and over. When she didn’t think I was paying enough attention ‘She said “Hello, Kelly, What are you doing?”. Oh no!!

This time-change has really messed with all of us. I hope our schedule gets back to normal soon!

After all the snow days we’ve had recently and the girls and I being home as a distraction, B had to get caught up on some work. Unfortunately we had to miss the Fessler’s Halloween brunch this morning. The girls and I hung out and B got down to business so we’d have our afternoon open for fun.

Happy Halloween from the Meyer girls!

The Lemek’s saved us from our home confinement by inviting us over for a spoooooky lunch! Jess (who I should remind you, is 9 month pregnant with baby #2!) whipped together a delicious and cleverly frightening lunch for all of us. We had spaghetti with blood (marinara), eyeballs (sausage and olives) and tongues (pickle slices – ok, how well does she know my girls???). I’m impressed she found the energy and we were all very thankful!
Annabelle and Andrew might have been a bit distracted, but GG gobbled up each and every bite!

Jess and I both commented on how well Annabelle and Andrew play together. They really are buds! They have their disagreements, but they spent everyday together at daycare and have learned how to work out their conflicts. It’s so great to see these buds growing up together! We had the best time catching up with Don and Jess. We’re so excited to meet Baby #2. They will be welcoming their newest little one at the same hospital we had Gwyneth and I hope they love their experience there as much as we did.

On the way home in the car Annabelle asked to have her window rolled down and for her daddy to “race”. This meant go very fast but B told her drag racing was illegal. She told him “No, Daddy – race. Go legal!”. Oh boy! She loved the wind on her face. Gwyneth – not so much. She just said “up, up, up”.

Annabelle took a sick day and hung out at home with her dadda. She laid around and watched movies, but did get out for lunch. They went to Red Robin and her dadda even let her have a big glass of lemonade. Yum! I came home from work early to hang out with her so B could go to the doctor. If you’re keeping track, that’s 4 doctor visits in 4 days. I’m the last Meyer standing – wish me luck! B just has a bad cold and cough and the doctor gave him some cough syrup with codine. I think we’ll all be sleeping better now.
My incredible shrinking woman! She looks like she’s shrinking away but really I just moved her up to 2T clothes. I think they’re still a bit big. Annabelle was very stir-crazy when I got home. She said “C’mon, Momma let’s go bye bye”. I had to get the poor girl out of the house. We ran a few errands – picked up pumpkin cookies, pizza for dinner, and then picked up Gwyneth and headed to the pumpkin patch at their daycare/church.

We told the girls they could each pick out a pumpkin. Annabelle decided she had her strength back and wanted a big one!

Gwyneth loved the pumpkin patch.

She liked throwing the little pumpkins…
Now, those pumpkins are just their size…

We had take and bake pizza for dinner and as it was cooking the girls wanted to go outside and see our neighbors “punkinhead”. They love that decoration. It had warmed up a bit and it was really nice to let the girls just let loose and run in the yard.
After the girls went to bed, B and I watched “I Love You, Man”. What a terrible movie. I was looking for a good laugh and that movie really didn’t deliver. I wouldn’t even recommend it on video. Save your money!

Miss Annabelle woke up with a horrible cough and fever so off we went to the doctor’s office – our 3rd visit in 3 days. She has the croup. Poor girl! I was able to work from home today so she laid on her Dora couch and watched movies most of the morning. She was lazy-bones which is very uncharacteristic of her. She ate and drank well through out the day and got lots of rest. Unfortunately she is contagious until her fever breaks so we’re going to have to shuffle some plans for this weekend and reschedule our trip to California. 😦 I really hope she’s feeling better soon – that cough (bark!) just sounds terrible.

B and I have not had a date night in quite some time. We both took the day off work so we could have a date day without the added expense of a babysitter. We dropped the girls off at daycare and our first stop was the bowling alley – at 9 am. No one goes bowling at 9 am! We had the entire place to ourselves. Although B was out bowling me the entire time we made a bet on the very last frame – whoever got the lowest score on the frame had bath duty for the girls that night. Wouldn’t you know it – I won!!! I may have lost both games and I don’t even mind giving the girls a bath, but B hates bath time and I always like to win a bet! (The girls are very naughty and get him soaking wet when he gives them a bath – another bonus for me in this win!).

We went to Kohls and to Costco and got some major shopping done. This may not sound like a blast, but we haven’t run errands without two little girls in a very long time. We then grabbed lunch at Village Tavern at Flatirons. Delicious! It was a very grown up meal and we enjoyed every minute of it. Next stop, the movie theatre to see Couples Retreat. Our original plan was to see Law Abiding Citizen, but we wanted to see a comedy and that was the next one available. After a busy day out and about we went to pick up the girls and spend a quiet evening at home. I’m very glad we took this time for ourselves and for each other.

Our lil’ pumpkins
Gwyneth helping me with the laundryA Halloween package arrived from Poppy and Melissa. Gwyneth had so much fun pulling everything out of the box. Thanks for all the treats and sweet Halloween outfits. The girls received new magic wonder markers and coloring books. They love them! Gwyneth is so cute – she loves take the cap on and off the markers. Since we’ve had some recent crayon mishaps (on baby’s faces, on our fireplace, on our furniture, etc) these are the only colors not band in our house!

My little Gwyneth has been suffering from a runny nose, cough and a little rash on her tummy. With all the illnesses going around, I figured its better to be safe than sorry so off to the doctor we went. She got a strep test (negative) and her blood oxygen levels are perfect. Poor Gwyneth just has a nasty cold and needs lots of liquids and lovin’ to recover.

She wanted to walk around but didn’t want to be bare foot. I love the diaper and sneakers look. We arrived home to find a package had arrived from YaYa. The girls received a new Little People harvest play set and new Halloween outfits. I love the clothes and the girls love the toys so all the Meyer ladies are happy!

(BTW – we are in countdown mode to ditching the bottle. Little Miss is bottle free on November 1st)Lovin’ their new toys

When I first received pictures of my niece, Eliana, I thought she looked so much like Annabelle. I had to put their pictures side by side to be sure. Yep, you can definitely tell they are related! They both have the Paz nose and cheeks.

What do you think? Can you see the resemblance in these cousins?

I laughed so much this weekend! There is just nothing to complain about there. After dinner with B and the girls Friday evening, I headed down to Highlands Ranch for a scrapbooking extravaganza. An entire weekend of crafty time with my gal pals. I said my hellos and unpacked my gear only to find that I had left all my pictures at home! Not a heck of a lot to scrapbook without any pictures. What was a momma to do? Well, I’ll tell ya what this momma did – I got on the horn and asked my friend Gus to meet me for a drink. Being the good friend that he is he didn’t let me down! Jen joined us too and we laughed our tails off at a bar in Highlands Ranch into the wee hours of the morning.
I never did get my pictures, but I laid out Gwyneth’s 1st year scrapbook and made all the borders so the weekend was not a total loss. I also got to spend lots of time with friends and even slept in! A big thanks for Chrissy for organizing the weekend for us. I just need to slap the pictures down and Gwyneth’s album will be as good as done.
Saturday I took a little break to meet Sarah, Mary Ann, and Stephanie for lunch. Steph was visiting for the weekend and it was great to see her. I even snuck in a nap in the afternoon! That evening a highschool friend of mine from Ohio hooked me up with tickets to the Comedy Works. B got a babysitter for the girls and we met downtown for the show. Abe and Alicia joined us too which was a great reunion since we haven’t seen them literally in years. They just moved back to Colorado and bought a house about 10 minutes from us! We’re looking forward to meeting up with them a lot more often in the near future. The opener for the evening was Ari Shaffer and the headliner was Joe Rogan, both were hilarious! So very very wrong, but so very very funny! A big thanks to Brian for hooking us up with the tickets.
Sunday I packed up my gear and headed home to see B and the girls. I was only gone one day, but I sure did miss them. I had a quick turn around time, as I was only home for about a half an hour and then we headed over to the Carlson’s house. We had dinner, best meatball pizza EVER, and the kids played and played. Keith even snapped some photos of the girls in their Halloween costumes. It’s hard to keep them standing still for long, but Keith always manages to get good shots.

Jack and Ben’s Grandma was visiting too. I was amazed at how much Ben can eat – he polished off 2 1/2 jars of baby food. Go baby Ben!

The girls have so much fun with the Carlson boys. We always have a great time with them! Again, so much laughing!

The Carlsons have two very large dogs and my girls still freak out whenever they see them. They love puppies in movies, books, or at a distance. They are just terrified when they are up close and personal. It’s not the Carlson’s dogs – it’s all dogs! These are not little cries or hiding behind mom or dad’s leg – these are blood curdling screams of terror. I have been reading a lot about helping them overcome this fear and believe they have a true phobia regarding dogs – its called cynophobia and it’s a real and fairly common fear. It’s irrational but an extremely strong fear and I can relate because I am not very comfortable around dogs either. Living in Colorado everyone seems to have a dog so I know I have to work with them to get past this. Everything I read says continue to expose your children to dogs regularly and the best solution is to adopt a dog of your own. This is never going to happen! I still freak out around dogs and I really don’t want one but I know my fear is surely what fuels theirs. (side note – if they were afraid of clowns would I make them hang out with clowns all the time???) I hate to see them scared – it breaks my heart. It’s the absolute worst feeling to see your children terrified! The latest suggestion I read is to take them to visit puppies 6 – 8 weeks old before they become yappy and mostly sleep so I’m off to search for a place to meet newborn puppies. I’d appreciate any other suggestions too (except get a puppy!) if you’ve got ’em….