Froggy

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Originally uploaded by photodaddi

Muffin had a wonderful time last Sunday at our local church's little festival. The only ride she wanted to do was riding cars, guess what car she's "driving" in this picture?

She also wanted to play a froggy splash game - you put a rubber frog on a contraption, hit a lever with a mallet, and the froggy flies into a pond full of moving plastic lilly pads. If your rubber frog lands inside, you win a plush frog.

Muffin quickly realized she couldn't hit the mallet well, so I offered... and I quickly realized how hard it was so.... Muffindad got volunteered. Poor daddy somehow survived the pressure and he WON !! (yeah for daddy !!)

So now we have a new Froggy at our home, and Muffin has been busy taking care of him - feeding him 'flies', and making sure he takes naps and goes to bed on time. Very cute!!

Oh, and in case you're wondering, she's "driving a fire truck ;)

Tooth Fairy

Muffin lost her first tooth!!

She was having fun at a playgroup, when she came over and handed Muffindad a little wet something. Sure enough it was her tooth! Everyone danced and cheered for her!

Then we put the tooth in a soft gauzy bag, and placed it under her pillow.

Sure enough, the next morning she had 2 shiny gold coins in her gauzy bag! Plus a lovely letter from the tooth fairy and a brand new piggy bank to congratulate her on her first tooth.

Muffin was over the moon with her "two money" (as she called her 2 dollar coins, LOL). Plus she's got another loose tooth... good times!!

Apple a Day

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Originally uploaded by photodaddi

On her own, Muffin brought an apple for her teacher. How cute is that!!

First Day!

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Originally uploaded by photodaddi

Muffin's first day of Kindergarten was great! Here's her teacher checking out who's picking Muffin up before releasing her from school. Muffin LOVES her teacher Ms. C, and is really enjoying her school.

At the Ren Faire!

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Originally uploaded by photodaddi

We spent a wonderful day at the local Ren Faire. Muffin's friend C came along, which made the day even more fun. Definitely we'll repeat this next year!

Birthday!

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We celebrated Muffin's FIFTH birthday at a local dance school where the kids had a BLAST!! She's getting so big... *cry*

Snow White

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Originally uploaded by photodaddi

Isn't she a wonderful Snow White lost in the forest?

For July 4th we went to our friend's farm for a fun picnic with friends. Of course Muffin had to bring a whole boatload of dressup clothes, and wander around dressed up. And she had a BLAST playing dressup with the other girls.

Looking cute

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Originally uploaded by photodaddi

Last Saturday we went to a birthday party, and in the goody bag Muffin found this pair of sunglasses. Aren't they cute? Muffindaddi asked her to pose around with them, and this is what he got. Unfortunately the glasses were so full of sparkles we had to get rid of them - Muffin had sparkles in her eyebrows, face, all over her arms... you get the idea. And that's only after wearing the glasses for a little while. Too bad, they were so cute!

Dance Recital

Muffin danced a very cute tap dance number for her 2nd dance recital. Here's a picture of her in her costume:

Her teacher was helping her class along by showing the dance steps while hiding behind the curtains. I thought it was so cute that Muffin was facing her teacher instead of the audience! (she's on the left) Very adorable of course, how could she not be?

Unfortunately for her, she didn’t get to see the other dancers, she had to wait 2.5 hrs (minus her time on stage) on a side room. I brought a coloring book, plain paper, crayons & (washable) markers and that helped her while away the time.

She was very proud of her dancing - and loved the lovely bouquet that Nana & Grandad brought her! Afterwards we all went out for a nice mid-afternoon late lunch at a local yummy Spanish/Portuguese restaurant.

I think her favorite part is that I put REAL lipstick on her (medium shade of pink). I had to keep saying this was ONLY because of the recital, otherwise I just know she'd keep asking for it every day... boy does she love makeup!

Creative Painting

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Originally uploaded by photodaddi

If the children are wery wery quiet... be afraid, be very afraid...

Muffin and her friend decided to do some fingerpainting on their faces while the parents were chatting...

oy, I'm afraid what the teenage yrs will bring...!!!

Mad Hatter

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Originally uploaded by photodaddi

We had a lovely breakfast with the Mad Hatter, Alice, Mary Poppins and Pooh & Co. at Disney's 1900 Park Fare restaurant our 1st day. I love how the Mad Hatter crossed his eyes!

Vacation!

Muffin (and her parents!) had a wonderful time in Florida. I'm too lazy to write up about the whole trip but will post a few highlights:

• Spent a week at Disney's Wilderness Lodge. Love taking the boat to Magic Kingdom!
• Had some wonderful dinners with princesses and characters
• Muffin was recruited by Captain Jack Sparrow for training as pirate ( see video here!)
  


• We had dinner at Cinderella's castle while the fireworks were going on, it was an amazing view!
• We had a private storytime session with Mary Poppins (thanks AAA!)
  

After Disney we went to visit my sister and her family in St Pete area, where Muffin got to hang out with her big cousin (he's 17!)

We then drove to Miami to visit my parents, and also saw my brother and his family. A good time was had by all ;) I think a highlight for Muffin was playing with her cousin A, who's only 6 months older. At one point the girls went hiding in the bathroom where they found my makeup bag and… well, thankfully I don't have much makeup but its clear they had no clue how to use an eyeliner, LOL!
The weather was a bit cool for Florida, but we had one day that was thankfully warm enough to go to the beach. Here's Muffin enjoying the beach at Key Biscayne. The water was probably about 1-2 ft deep for hundreds of feet, just enough for a little Muffin to enjoy a nice swim...





Now we cant' wait to go back!!

Fabulous

So Saturday before going to the park we stopped at the library to return some books and take out a few new ones. As I'm walking to the librarian's desk to check out some children's books, Muffin ran up to me and asked if we could take out 2 music CD's that she handed me over. Oh lord. One of them was for High School Musical 2. So what could I say? We brought it home, and she's already memorized most of the songs. That would be helped by the fact that, at her request, we've been playing that CD almost nonstop since Saturday. And of course, any good singing is accompanied by good dancing!

Poor Daddymuffin has been hearing this CD like 15 times a day… I'm surprised he's still sane ;)

Decoration & Creativity

This is what I greeted me when I got home from work last night. Apparently Muffin decided to make a bed using the sofa cushions! Quite a pretty bed, I may add. I discovered my favorite part as we were taking it apart before bed… she'd put toys under the mattress, just like in the "Princess and the Pea" story (I guess because she didn't have peas?). She was soooo proud of the 'bed' she'd made. Notice that she even covered up some stuffed animals in a blanket?

She invited me to join her on it, which I attemped to decline (since, ahem, I *am* adult sized) but she'd have none of it. No, sorry, no pictures of us in bed ;)

Child Labor

We had a wonderful almost spring-like weather this past weekend! Muffin and I took advantage of it, and visited a local park on Saturday where she had a blast with the swings and play areas. Then on Sunday, I wanted to work on preparing the garden for spring, but what to do about Muffin? Hmmmm, how about asking her to fill up her wagon with sticks, and offering her money for doing this? Hooo boy did she like the idea! It worked out so well, she had fun (for the most part) picking up sticks while chatting with me (play-acting chat, sigh). And I was able to do the hard labor for our garden bed. YOU try to pretend to be characters while shoveling and hand-rototilling the soil. It was hard! Hey, I deserved another dollar for my work too ;) But she was SOOO happy to get her "green square rectangle with a face on it" (her words). And I was happy to discover Child Labor. Bwahahaha!

There is hope

Muffin is not a very adventurous eater, as apparently is typical with most kids her age. Long ago, like 2-3 yrs ago, she used to love kiddie foods like chicken nuggets, meatballs, soup, and mashed potatoes. Somehow along the way she started disliking foods, one by one. Her typical daily menu nowadays is:

Breakfast: dry cereal (pancake, french toast or muffin whenever I make them)
Lunch: peanut butter & jelley sandwich
Dinner: plain pasta (not even butter on it), rice and black beans, or fruit salad. Pizza if she can get it.

This has been driving me batty for months. We've tried introducing other foods but so far she's rebuffed all efforts.

Until yesterday.

On Sunday, Muffin and I went to the mall shopping for some summer clothes for her. I asked her if she'd like to try chicken nuggets for lunch as a treat at the mall… and she said … YES! After picking myself up from the floor and making an emergency PBJ sandwich (in case she hated nuggets), off we went to the mall. Would you believe she LOVED the nuggets? We got the 'Tyson' dinosaur shaped nuggets from The Great Steak & Potato Company. Given her acid reflux, she only got to eat a handful of fries with her nuggets.

Then she asked for nuggets for dinner.

I asked her, now that she likes chicken nuggets, would she be open to trying meatballs? To which she answered "NEVER!" with her usual dramatic flair. So I'll have to try again in a few months… but there is hope that she'll grow to eat more foods!!

Valentine's day

Muffin had a wonderful day on Valentine's! We'd made some crafty presents for Muffindad the night before, and she was so excited about it that we woke up Muffindad just to give him his presents. (Sorry, no extra sleep for Muffindad!) We had heart shaped French Toast (cut into shape by Muffinmom) for breakfast, then went to a fun birthday party that afternoon. After nap, we opened the rest of the presents for everyone and had a fantastic dinner at our favorite Tex Mex restaurant, Tinga Taqueria

So of course on Sunday, Muffin asked me if it was Valentine's day again. LOL! I told her no, and she wanted to know why? YOU try to explain it to a 4 year old who wants more holidays!

Kissing a boo-boo

Last night Muffin was playing with Muffindad, and unintentionally punched him in a 'sensitive spot'… ouch!

Muffindad grabbed Muffin and told her to please never hit him there again because now he had a big boo-boo that hurt a lot.

To which she replied - do you want me to kiss your boo-boo and make it better?

Eeeck!!

Of course we explained that she couldn't kiss the boo-boo but she could hug and kiss Muffindad to make him feel better. And she did.

Children's innocence… gotta love it!

Jokes & Riddles

Muffin has understood the concept of 'jokes' for quite some time. Her first 'jokes' consisted of listing a bunch of items that didn't seem to go together, for example:

"Cow, Bird, Lion, Giraffe"

followed by laughing. I guess she thought the combination funny? Then she'd ask me & Muffindad to say our own jokes, so we'd proceed with our own list of animals, and she'd crack up.

We've now discovered Knock Knock jokes and riddles. She probably picked this up from watching Lambchop (on Youtube ). Daddymuffin did come up with a couple of good ones:

"How do you catch a squirrel?
Climb up a tree and act like a nut!"

"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Orange"
"Orange who"
"Orange you glad to see me?"

and of course there's always the old standby about the chicken crossing the road...

So now during dinner she wants to do jokes… help? Anyone know where we can learn some simple jokes & riddles?

Who knew it could fly?

WARNING - May be TMI!

We always check when Muffin goes potty to make sure she's truly clean (especially after the time she smeared poop all over the tub... )

SO today I was sitting in front as she's wiping. She likes to look at the TP after wiping to check its all clean... well, after her first 'check' I suddenly noticed that something went flying and landed on my pants. Yep. A nice chunk o'poo. Oh they joys of parenting ....

This ranks right up there when she was a 2 month old and pooped on my hands as I was putting diaper rash cream on her tushy.

Anyone have funny poop stories?

Hippy Girl

We took Muffin to a birthday party last Saturday, where they did crafts and other fun things. At the end of the party all the kids that wanted them could get tattoos. So what tattoo did my daughter pick and, most important, WHERE did she have it placed? (see picture for the answer).

Sigh. We're in for a world of trouble once she gets to be a teenager!!