Oh no, Oh NO!!!

Whenever Esme has to go potty, she says "Oh no, Oh NO! I have to go potty!".  And if she really has to go there are a few more 'oh no's' and they get louder and louder.

Since she's been potty trained, she hasn't really had too many accidents and when she has, they've usually been when she's sleeping.  If they happen when we're out and about she usually catches herself and we get to the bathroom as fast as we can.  She's never had a full on blow out accident until today.  And boy did she.

We went to a never-to-be-named playground.  We started out swinging and playing with some of the equipment.

Looks fun right?  Well, see that green tube in the background?  Right after this picture was taken, Esme crawled up in that tube and was crawling through it.  Suddenly I heard "oh no, oh NO!, I peed a little in my underwear".  I asked if she could hold it and we'd go home quick.  She said yeah, and I told her to come down.  Evidently, she overestimated her ability to hold it because soon there was a mysterious liquid dripping down from the tube into the mulch.  A lot of it.  Oops.

I apologize to everyone who lives in this neighborhood and has small children.  Oh, and I hope it rains pours soon...

Four wheeling

Uncle Ernie had people over today and Esme got to sit on the four wheeler with her friend Alyssa.  They had a lot of fun playing.  They've played together before, but usually they are mostly playing in the same area but not really together.  I think they call that parallel play.  This time they were interacting a lot and it was really fun to watch them.

 Later she got to help Ernie move the four wheeler in the garage.

 This helmet is a little too big!

Thanks Uncle Ernie!

First Snow 2012

Today it snowed a little bit.  Esme was so excited!  She wanted to get her snow boots, snow pants and new coat, hat and mittens on and go outside.  Even though it was only a dusting of snow, she was going to have the whole outfit on.

 Just enough snow to coat the deck a bit.

The window on the screen door was frosty and it was fun to take a few pictures through it and then play with it on Instagram. :)

Esme and Cricket tried to play fetch.  I say try because if you look in these pictures the ball never leaves the chuck and Cricket knows it.

 We will have to keep practicing with the chuck.  And we will hope for more snow.

Trick or Treat!

Oh my gosh, Halloween was so much fun this year!

Esme wanted to be a Watermelon Fairy.  We got a catalog in the mail that had a bunch of costumes in it and she chose this.  It was a bit lot too expensive, so we improvised with a strawberry watermelon costume from Old Navy and accessories from JoAnn's Fabrics.

This is the first year that I think Esme really "got it".  Last year she sure had fun but this year she had no fear.  She ran from house to house with the neighbor boys and didn't stop until her feet hurt too bad to walk.  I had to carry her home the last little bit because she was limping.

This year the boy's costumes were a little more scary than last year.  They had gloves with blinky, glow-y fingers that I didn't get a picture of but they were very cool.

My funniest memory of this year is how she reacted to the other kids at one of the houses we stopped at.  She went up to the door with Nathan and Zac and said her "trick or treat" and "thank you".  Then she turned around and there were all these other kids in line to come up to the house.  She got this great big smile on her face because she thought that they were there to see her!  She said "Hi, my name's Esme and I'm a watermelon fairy.  What's your name?".  She had no concept that they wanted her to get the heck out of the way so that they could get some candy.  Obliviously sweet - that's my girl.

Happy Halloween Watermelon Fairy!

Carving Pumpkins

I've never been a big pumpkin carver, so I didn't really expect to do them this year.  But Aaron came home and said - Let's carve pumpkins!  So we did.

And the results?

Not too bad!!!

Found

I was just going through a pile of papers today when I found this envelope.  It was from my birthday and I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.  So I decided to take a picture of it and put in on the blog so I will always remember it. :)

Cinder

Meet Cinder the cat.  She's 9 years old and came from an animal shelter in Burnsville.  I got her after my cat Patterson died and poor Tschida was all by herself and lonely as heck.

Cinder is a super duper sweet cat who doesn't get nearly the attention she deserves.  Unfortunately, she's at the bottom of the totem pole in the hierarchy of animals.  She's the least demanding of human attention so she tends to be pushed out by the Tshcida and the dogs.

When everyone goes to bed though, it's not uncommon to find her sleeping on Esme's bed.  A nice quiet place, away from the other animals.  I'm hopeful that as Esme gets older and more predictable (from the cat's perspective), they will become good friends.

We love you Cinder!