When you grow up

Naomi was watching a Dora video about jobs you can have when you grow up. They showed things like Firefighter, Police Officer, Umpire (or Ref?), Explorers, Clowns, Musicians.

You know, all those things people REALLY grow up to be...  

I suppose some people do. It was a good idea, so I decided to see if any of it was sticking with Naomi.

I asked her "What are you going to be when you grow up?"

She said "I'm going to be a Princess!"

I said "Oh really? What does a princess do?"

She said "She has a long, long dress, and sparkles and is pretty!"

I asked "Does a princess help anybody?"

She said "No, she doesn't"

I asked "What does she do?"

She said " she wears a long sparkly dress and a princess crown and a wand!"

I think we have a problem.

BUT on the flip side, I took the kids to the National Building Museum on Thursday and we played in the Building Zone. It was fantastic. Lots of room to run and be crazy. My good friend Cassie came with her kids and Naomi and Abby played like boys:) Kind of. They dressed up in the firefighter, construction worker, police officer gear and kept it on the whole time. They played with the building blocks, big soft Legos, magnet sticks, cars etc. It was a very un-princessy day. 

In all, I allow and even encourage on occasion the princess play. She loves it. She begged for dress up shoes and wands and crowns and now that she has them they are played with every day. Often I get to be a princess too. Last night Zach was bestowed the honor of being her Prince. James sometimes gets to wear don a crown and wave a wand too. He actually loves the wands, look at this picture:

It's fun to feel special and pretty and "princessy" I admit it. I like to get dressed up and feel like I'm someone important. I guess that part of it never goes away.

For Naomi's birthday I'm planning on making a cake. Last year I made a Nemo-resembling picture on her cake, for her Nemo themed birthday. She loved it.

 

I asked what she wanted this year. 

You guessed it. 

Princess.

I'm not sure exactly how to do it.

I have aspirations of something awesome, like this,

(Yeah, that's actually a cake, Hogwarts Castle)

or this

 

or this

Kidding, but that would be awesome, right?

It will really look more like the Nemo cake.

(Charm City Cakes (as seen on food network, it's located near me:) has the most awesome cakes I've ever seen. Take a look. http://www.charmcitycakes.com/)

It would be fun to have a cake like this though

I might be able to pull something decent off, maybe.

I would love some tips on how to make a great cake. I am most definitely a novice.

I guess I'm encouraging the Princess stuff again:)

As an after thought last night she informed me that she wants a Princess Monster cake. 

I think she might be disappointed....

I think I would rather she grow up a princess than monster.

ABC's

Isn't she adorable?

We survived and it was Awesome!

Finally here are the pictures and proof that we made it to the inauguration!

We took our kids to our friends house at 8:30 a.m. Ironically I had to wake Naomi up at 8, she was actually going to sleep in on the one day in her existence I didn't want her to. 

We then caught a metro train at 9 a.m. down town and got there by about 9:30. 

I wish I would have taken some photos of those first few blocks. It was chaos. There were people wandering in every direction, newspapers littered all over the usually very clean city streets. It was surprising. I just has assumed that it would be orderly and people would know where to go, that there would be signs and helpful officers and volunteers. 

There were plenty of armed officials everywhere but most didn't know where to send people. We got a different answer each time we asked where to get in for General Admission. 

There were people with tickets for closer to the capitol, and they all had specific entrances depending the the ticket color. 

The entrance points on the pre-inauguration maps were for some reason changed now on the morning of and we were told we needed to go to the "3rd street tunnel" to the other side of the mall. That would actually be the 2nd street tunnel, so walk interstate 395 around to the other side of the mall. 

Ok. 

Once on the other side there were helpful volunteers who knew what they were talking about. They told us to take a right and walk on down to 14th street. So basically the whole length of the mall. About 12 blocks more. 

It wasn't too bad, we had lots of company!

 

Apparently the original access point that we thought we could get in at had been closed because that part of the mall was full to capacity, so due to the parade route filling up, and the ticketed areas needing separate entrances, the rest of the general admission needed to enter from the back door of the mall, the South side. 

We literally got stuck in a crowd of people right before we made it onto the mall. There were firetrucks and buses blocking the flow of people for a while and people were getting upset about it. It was amazing how people loose their sense of respect for individuals in a large group like that. Mob mentality I suppose.

Where we were stuck:

 

Once they cleared out of the way we were able to just walk onto the mall at the Washington Monument by about 11 a.m. There was supposed to be security checks for everyone entering the mall but I guess they gave up on that... 

There was a crowd but not too crazy where we were. People seemed to have enough personal space. We were in view of one of many mega-trons on the mall. I had to be on my toes most of the time to get a full screen view though. I felt for people shorter than me, they couldn't see the screen and thus the program at all.

My face was cold but otherwise I was warm enough. We wore thermals under our clothes and all that walking kept the blood pumping too I'm sure. Also, the 30 or so degrees it was downtown felt downright balmy compared to the teen temperatures from the proceeding days. The sun was shining and we had made it in! It was a great day.

 

I tried to send a text, make a call,  check my voicemail before the program started but my cell signal kept dying out and then my phone would just be unable to compete calls or send anything. Some people seemed to be using their phones ok but I had heard that the Secret Service was possibly going to cut all cell service during the inauguration. We heard lots of crazy rumors. I don't know if the Secret Service can even do that?

It was a great experience to be there, the masses were amazing. I have never seen so many people at once in my life, and to be a part of it! Did you see me on TV? :)

Behind us there were people all the way up the steps of the Lincoln memorial. It was surreal how many people were filling up the downtown.

This is our view back to the Lincoln:

 

Cheering for President Obama:

We both really enjoyed President Obama's speech. I thought he did a great job. It was an overall great program, with a few little exceptions. 

I didn't really like the invocation. 

At all. 

Ok, I hated it. 

The benediction was much, much nicer. I felt like he was actually praying to God, not giving a speech under the guise of a prayer. 

Also, Aretha sang nicely, but her hat was intense. Yikes. 

Yo Yo Ma and co. was so beautiful, even over the loudspeaker that we were listening to.

The walk back to the metro was quick, the crowds were light. People were hanging around and partying, taking their time to get out and home. 

It was odd, once again, to be walking down the middle of a major freeway in a city. It was cool too, felt a little like the movies or something. 

Once we got to the Union Station metro there was a very big crowd to get down the escalators to the trains. It moved relatively quickly and we were on our way! We made it home to our apartment by 2:30. I was impressed, I was worried we would be stuck waiting to get on the metro forever.

Our dear friend was more than ready to hand our children back over to us. James followed her around and demanded to be held or whine and cry. She has a baby of her own too, who is not yet mobile though. 

And Naomi dearest, decided that a certain "rock" was "dirty" and needed to be flushed. 

What!? 

She flushed a large (3 or so inches) massage stone down the toilet! 

Naomi has never in her life flushed anything (other than the obvious). 

I was seriously mortified. Hopefully the toilet doesn't die. I'm afraid it might though, a rock, seriously.

So, we were there at the the Inauguration of the 44th president of the United Sates of America and first African American president. I am so glad we did this, we couldn't have passed up on such a fantastic opportunity. 

And no one even set off a bomb! 

All kidding aside, I did worry about that...

Zach with the Capital (very small) in the background:

Bigger, and tall

Naomi: Mommy, where's Daddy?

Me: He's at school.

Naomi: Why he's at school?

Me: Daddy's studying at school. He goes to school so he can be a lawyer.

*silence*

Naomi: Mommy, when I get bigger, and tall I can go to school too and be a lawyer!

Me: That sounds like a great idea!

Naomi: Yeah, I can be a PINK LAWYER!

I'm sick

I'm sick. I've had only a little bit of water all day. Seriously, only water. The last food I ate was chocolate milk and oreos last night. That's probably why I'm sick. Punishment. So what's that? 18 hours with out calories! From the girl who gets dizzy if I don't eat every 2. Now I know what that line on the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" meant: "I'm only one stomach flu away from my ideal weight.." or something like that, from the personal assistant girl.

Anyway. I think I want to eat something but I'm worried it won't stay down. Apples sound good and so do these little oranges, clementines- we have a box. Maybe just water still though. Stuff like soda crackers sounds horrible. Bleh. I think Jamba would nearly cure me.

I do have much more interesting things to blog about, I'll try those now. 

Like how we used our new ClearPlay DVD player last night. It worked rather well, we were pleased. Thanks Jeff and Linda. Now we will become redbox-aholics and watch movies every night. Really though, it's a cool idea/program and though the website needs refining, the player is great.

And how about this for a post idea, James almost succeeded in consuming one of those anti-oxidation packets from a shoebox sitting by the front door destined for the recycling bin. The ones that state implicitly "do not eat". You'd think the kid can't read or something.

I found him with a packet between his fingers in his mouth with a really disgusted look on his face. I confiscated, cleaned out mouth, fingers, face, freaked out a little, or a lot, and vacuumed the spilled contents. Turns out (online resources....) that they don't cause harm. I hope not. He didn't actually eat it... Wow, I'm just sounding like parent of the year here.

Ok, how about this then. Naomi and I made Jello jigglers yesterday and I didn't control-freak (much) while she cut them out with the cookie cutters. Turns out though that she doesn't really love the texture or taste, or both. They were just fun to play with.

Or this, Naomi was being the big helper she is and poured some ranch dressing on her plate for dinner the other day. Then we heard he say, "I got LOTS!" She was so pleased.

So. Still sick. Z is bringing home ginger ale or sprite or both to help me with the blood sugar issues.... and James just woke up from his nap. Time to be a mom!

H&M

My parents gave us money for Christmas this year and I decided to go on a little shopping spree to H&M last week. I took Naomi and James, they were troopers. Naomi is becoming such a little fashionista. She has an eye for all things silky, super-soft, shiny and sparkly. We also took a look around Forever 21 for a few minutes. Naomi was tunnel vision for the tables and tables with endless racks of earrings, necklaces, headbands, bracelets etc. She was in heaven!

Tyson's Corner mall is my shopping destination of choice. It is huge and has tons of fun stores, like Janie and Jack (not that I can afford that...) Pottery Barn Kids, (or that one) Banana Republic, (nope again) CakeLove, (kinda- it's SO yummy) Benetton, (not really either) and tons of others. It's huge, probably the biggest mall I've been to. True Religion Jeans has their own store, and Puma and Free People. The kids play area is really fun. Naomi and James love it. It's worth going just for that.

Anyway, my favorite store there is H&M. They have some seriously cute clothes and they are great prices. Really, it's like it's all on sale, but that's the normal price. They have kid stuff too, but I was on a mission for "Trisha" clothes. I didn't even stop at Gymboree, I'm proud about that. 

H&M is a European brand, based out of Sweden. There are a few stores around here and all over the country in big cities. (Not in Charlotte yet, hopefully soon.) They do have one BIG problem though. You can't shop online, at least not the U.S. Too bad huh.

So, here's my ode to H&M. Love your clothes, wish I could buy more!

I'm back

Well it's been nearly a month, I thought I had almost successfully fallen off the blogging band wagon. But I decided to stay. I like blogging. And reading blogs, I like that too. I have loads of perfectly good reasons why I've been negligent with posts, but I don't need to put them down here. I know why, and that's good enough.

Before we left for the promised land, we had a fun over-nighter in Hershey, PA with the Piersons. It was awfully cold but a lot of fun. We went to our ward Christmas party that was more fun that expected. We visited the White House Christmas Tree and it was beautiful. I have an awesome photo of Naomi on Santa's lap there but I have to scan it on here so I can post it. He was the real Santa.

 

Then we had a mini adventure of volunteering to be bumped because our flight was over-booked. It was a tiring run around but we got vouchers for flights within the next year. My parents were kind enough to come and pick us up at an adjusted time of midnight!

Christmas was great. It was busy and not as relaxing as I always hope it might be. But we got to spend two weeks in Utah with family and loved it. We spent about half of our time in St. George with Zach's family. It was warmer there. In Logan though we had snow! Lots of it. Naomi and Zach, and Isaac too played in the snow until their cheeks were bright pink.  I loved having other people to help me with the kiddos. It made me happy to see my children building relationships with relatives. It felt comforting to be with family who knows me, even though it's been months since we've seen each other. My entire family was at my parents house on Christmas with the exception of my sister and her family who lives in Switzerland. I made the observation that when Zach and I were married 7 years ago, there were just 4 grandchildren on my side. (That's right, we had an anniversary!) Now there are 17(.5) grandkids! And, interestingly enough, there are currently 4 grandchildren on Zach's side. We'll see how many more the next 7 years bring. 

All my Christmas photos are on Zach's computer only, I'll try to add some later. I also downloaded some from my camera onto my parents computer and forgot to make myself a disk before we left.  Sigh.

Now we are back in "DC" but it's really Maryland, even if it's just a block, it's still Maryland. We are only half unpacked. The kids stuff is all taken care of, but our room is a disaster! :) Zach is grocery shopping on behalf of the family right now. We couldn't even make mac 'n cheese today, out of butter! So we gave in and I sent him shopping. I actually gave him the choice of doing the shopping or stay here with Naomi and James. He went shopping.

Probably part of the reason he choose to go rather than stay was because Naomi decided to be sick this afternoon. Ewww. Too bad I made the offer before she threw up. I would have totally gone! She's actually doing fine now. She seems alright. We'll see if she is sick tonight.... I'm expecting James to have an upset tummy soon too. I hate it when my kids are sick. It's so sad and you can't do much for a stomach bug. I've found letting it run it's course seems the wisest.

For other news, I have been trying to enroll Naomi in a ballet class through the county recreation department. She has two or so little friends taking it too. I got my web ID and password to register online and then went to enroll her and it denied me. Naomi won't be three by the start date (next Saturday), and it's a class for 3 and 4 year olds. Seriously. On one hand, it's like "Duh Trisha, she's not 3..." but on the other hand, she will be three in a matter of weeks. I talked to the registration office on the phone. They were nice and assured me that they could get her in, just come in to the office to do it in person. So I took Naomi with me. When we got there the gal at the desk tried to enroll me, called someone, talked in hushed tones, handed me the phone and said "she wants to talk to you." Ok. So I talked to The Wizard of Oz who said "we are so sorry, but we really don't make age exceptions for our dance classes...." So why did "you" tell me to come here in person??? So you could tell me that over the phone? Seriously. She would not bend. She was sooooo nice though. Ick.

When I got home I was mad. Angry really. Then I decided that Naomi could just keep going to the preschool at the BCC High school. (Another story, probably not going to send Naomi to preschool this semester.) Then I had a great idea. I had a wonderful, awful idea:) I logged into my online account and adjusted her birthday to fall before the start date of the ballet class. So a month early. Now I can register her. I added the class to my "basket" online but haven't gone through with it. I obviously think she will be just great with the other kids there. I just worry that maybe they will find out somehow? They don't require verification for birthdays. The problem I guess is that it's dishonest. Is it a big deal do you think???? Now I'm faced with this moral dilemma because they won't make age exceptions for their "dance" classes. I guess they make exceptions for other classes. Bleh.

So that's where I'm at. There are two spots left in the class, but not for long I'm sure. 

*** UPDATE***

I did it. Naomi's birthday is, for all intents and purposes with the Montgomery County Recreation Department, January 15th. She's going to be a little ballerina!

Did you know that ballet slipper for tiny girls cost $16.99?!