Midnight Madness Success!!!

My neighbor Tina, her sister Amy, my friend Megan and I had a successful adventure at the Ellenton Prime Outlets ... we had soooo much fun! We arrived around 10:15pm, beat out the heavy traffic and secured our place in line to receive free gift bags that were handed out around 12am ... the bags weren't really worth the wait but it was worth the effort to get there early and avoid the traffic. While Tina and her sister hit up the Coach store, Megan and I hit all the kids clothing stores ... we had a great system ... one of us would wait in line for the register while the other one shopped and then we'd switch out. Kelty made out with clothes for "now" and clothes for "later" ... so here's damage (borrowing Megan's idea here!):

OshGosh ($74 for only $25)

1 Hooded Fleece Jacket

1 Pair Holiday Pants

1 Holiday Shirt

Stride Rite (Retail for approx. $84 ... bargain at $46)

1 Pair of Shoes for "Now"

1 Pair of Shoes for "Later"

1 Pair of Socks (FREE)

The Children's Place ( $66 for only $48 ... the $66 was already the markdown price so the actual savings were even bigger)

1 Rugby Sweater

1 Matching Hat

3 Thermal Shirts

1 Fleece Hoodie

1 Matching Hat

1 Pair Sweatpants

1 Pair PJ's

Gymboree (Retail $94 for only $53)

1 Winter Jacket

1 Hat

1 Pair Mittens

1 Fleece Pullover

1 Pair Fleece Pants

Carters (Retail $112 for $30!)

4 Long Sleeve Printed Onesies

1 Pair Cargo Pants

2 Pair Lined Wind Pants

So I spent some $$$ but Kelty got a lot of clothes to get help get him through the winter and beyond! Whoohoo!

Sooo ... after getting home around 3:30 am I slept-in until about 8am (thanks to Al) and then we hit the local shops to get Kelty's Bday and Christmas gifts ... and some gifts for family and friends (those are a secret though).

I love to shop and I love to save money so this way a GREAT day!

Megan, Amy, Me, Tina

Happy Thanksgiving and Week in Review

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family! Al, Kelty and I spent Thanksgiving dinner with the Guttman Family; Al made Mom Reichlin's sweet potato's and I made Grandpa Joe's Pumpkin and Apple Pie. We had a really nice time with the Guttman's and Kelty had a lot of fun playing with the twins Jake and Ryan ... they are so stinking cute playing together!

Re-cap of the week .....

Last Saturday I took advantage of my Disney cast member perks and rendezvoused with the Guttman family, Travis family and part of the Frost family. We started our day at Epcot and visited the Living Sea's, ate lunch in Morocco and then caught the bus over to the Animal Kingdom. As we entered the park we stopped by to pay Pluto and Rafiki a visit and then raced over to cath Finding Nemo the Musical ... the kids loved Finding Nemo. I wish I could have bottled that moment with Kelty because it was the cutest thing I've ever seen. For the first 15 minutes or so of the show, he stood straight up on my lap and was mesmerized! He would reach out and go "oooh, oooh" ... seriously wanted to make me cry! If anyone ever wondered why I chose the underpayed job as a disney performer and made a 145 mile commute every day .... that is why ... to put those kinds of faces on little kids and adult too! *sigh* So ... after the show and an unsuccessful attempt to get the kids to nap while we strolled through the part, we made our way over to the Magic Kindgom ... which was packed! We rode It's A Small World, ate dinner and finished our evening with a whirl around the Haunted Mansion. On our way out we were able to see the castle in all its holiday splendor ... grogeous!

The rest of the week was taken up vet appointments, Gymboree and our squadron playgroup.

Oooops, gotta go! My neighbor Tina, Megan Guttman and I are on our way to the Prime Outlets in Ellinton for some midnight madness!!!! Ahhhh! I'll post the pictures of the week tomorrow and maybe a few of our shopping mascerade!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things That Go Bump

I have very few pictures from the last couple of days; all of Kelty's antics take up both my hands and even then I can't seem to catch him all the time! Kelty is obsessed with climbing on things and through things. We have a set of dog stairs that we kept by our ottoman that Kelty apparently thought were there for his use. I was in the kitchen while I thought Kelty was innocently crawling around the living room until I heard a new rustling coming from the furniture! Kelty had climbed up the dog stairs, onto the ottoman and was making his way up the back cushion of the chair! Yikes! So ... smart mommy moved the stairs ... hah! I went back to the kitchen and then it got quiet ... that kind of quiet that means something isn't good! I peaked around the corner to see what Kelty was doing ... he pulled the stairs out, climbed the stairs to "no where" and was balancing on the top step in the middle of the floor ... in my attempt to run over and grab him before he hurt himself, I startled him instead and he went crashing to the floor .... oh, buddy.

Kelty also likes to do laps underneath the dining room table. The chairs make a great tunnel ... he climbs under the chairs, turns around, goes back, turns around, goes back, turns around ... you get the picture. Well ... just in case you don't, here's a snapshot!

Kelty's little tunnel of fun!

Playing Some Serious Catch-Up!!!

Seriously, this is nuts ... I am so far behind on our blog! In a nutshell ... Al and I both had to work over the Halloween weekend, we've had playdates, went back to Gymboree (whoohoo), I've been busy with custom ChichiKids and ChichiClay orders, we traveled to Daytona for Embry-Riddles Alumni weekend, I've introduced my "Mommy Necklace" and "Remember Necklace" in my ChichiClay shop (www.chichiclay.etsy.com), we've racked up $1,000 in vet bills since Pogo scratched his cornea, I've been to the vet 3 times in 1 week for his treatment ... Wednesday's appointment will determine if he needs surgery, Piper visited the vet last week on base, and I was in a wedding this weekend! Now for the good stuff ... the pictures! I'll cover the last 3 weeks with photos and captions ... enjoy!

Halloween came and went! Kelty helped clean out the "guts" from his 1st Pumpkin! He wasn't too thrilled about touching that icky mess but it was fun anyway!

I carved a pumpkin too! I don't ever remember carving pumpkins as a kid (sorry Mom and Dad if we did and I've lost that memory!) The fall was wood cutting season so I think we were always cutting and stacking wood instead of carving pumpkins.

Kelty LOVES to climb! I was folding laundry by the bed and looked down, only to find Kelty crawling on top of the laundry basket! He had so much fun playing while I folded laundry.

We had a playgroup at the Manatee Viewing Area in Apollo Beach. Here's Kelty standing with his friend Catherine ... they look so grown up!!

Nov 6th - 9th was our ERAU's Homecoming and Alumni Fly-In. Al and I drove back to our old college stomping grounds on Saturday the 8th ... we hadn't been back to the campus since our graduation in '98! Here is the classic picture that most Riddle student's take in front of the Wright Flyer on campus. The campus has grown but it's still small and cozy. The school had a 4-day weekend so most of the students left Friday after the Homecoming festivities which left the campus pretty dead on Saturday. We were dissapointed but did run into a few old classmates.

Here we are ... 10 years later!

Tuesday was Veteran's Day and we had the day off to celebrate. The Lowry Park Zoo had free admission for military; we met up with the Travis, Frost, and Guttman families. Here is Al and Kelty checking out the Stingray's.

Evangaline and Kelty

Kelty is quite the little explorer and spends the entire day crawling, climbing and cruising around the house. He was trying to squeeze out the sliding glass doors ... he figured out how to turn sideways and sidestep through the opening! Uh Oh!

I am soooo excited about this! We spent weeks researching bike seats and outfitting my mountain bike. I was so nervous about our first little ride together but we did great and Kelty was quite content ... except for the helmet covering his eyes. I need to make some adjustments to the helmet and then we'll be good to go on our next bike ride together.

I promise not to have this long of a lapse between blogs again!!!! :o)