Aleksza Family Blog: November 2010

What?! It works for businesses... Why can't it work for me?? :)

In three months a lot of things happen. Particularly for a two year old. We’ve had a weekend or two at the beach, a visit with family in MD and NJ, family vacation in Orlando, a fall festival, a JDRF Walk, a half marathon (me, not K, but she was a key part of the day) and Halloween. So I'll share what I can remember!

We took a trip in September to NJ to celebrate the engagement of Aunt Roro (my cousin Cheryl) and her fiancee Jay. On the way we stopped off in MD to visit with our cousins Brian and Kelly and their cutie pie boys. Katherine had a GREAT time playing with the boys and continues to refer to their youngest son as "her baby" or "baby brother". She loves her a baby.

We were in NJ for less than 24 hours (literally) and were really happy to be able to get in visits with The Aleksza/Tomanek/Francis families and then head over to the engagement party where we were able to visit and celebrate with my cousin, her friends and most of my aunts. K and I were asked to be part of Cheryl and Jay's special day. I was asked to be matron of honor and K will be the flower girl. Here's hoping K's version of "practicing" isn't like Andrea's. :-) It was a great weekend, albeit a quick trip.

We took a trip to Orlando in mid-October. This was our 2nd year going to Orlando for vacation. We still had our season passes to Sea World and Aquatica so we thought we’d make use of them again. (We’re thinking Disney will be after K is 4 or so.) We arrived on a Saturday and while checking in a woman told me about Sea World’s Halloween festivities. We had arrived for the first weekend of “Spooktacular!” So Sunday we headed to SeaWorld for some trick or treating!

This was the first time Katherine understood that if you say “trick or treat” people give you candy. It took us a few tries to get her to say Trick or Treat but once she realized the treasure for doing so… She was all in! She had fun going from station to station to collect her sugary treats.

We also found out that day that Shamoo had a baby. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t “Shamoo” but some cousin, friend or tank-mate. Either way one of the stars of the Shamoo show had a baby. That meant, no Shamoo shows for at least two weeks. Bummer. I’d been talking about the Shamoo show for weeks to get K ready for the big trip. Thanks Shamoo (friend, cousin, tank-mate). Fortunately K was just as excited to see the baby whale as she was the actual show. *whew* Crisis averted. The baby was super cute and so very small (in comparison to mommy whale). K asked if she could hug the baby. Hm. Don’t think that’s a good idea. How about we just blow him/her kisses?!

Monday we took Katherine to her first water park: Aquatica. She big fat puffy hearts the water. Any water. Bath tub, pool, ocean… you name it. Girl’s there. The kid pool at Aquatica was a HUGE hit. The slides… equally awesome. I don’t think she came out of the pool for the four hours we were there, with the exception of the 30 minutes we drug her out to feed her lunch. (She acquiesced when she heard it was pizza.) Tootsie & Poppy spent most of the time there in the water pulling Katherine around and going up and down slides. The slides required two people to make the event work (one at the top and another at the bottom. Katherine would go down, yell again again, and the person at the top would need to run down the steps to grab her, get her back up, down the slide… she’d get caught by the person at the bottom, yell “again again,” and the process would start again. Another good day!!!

Tuesday was Date day for Stephen and I. Our 7 year anniversary. We took a helicopter ride over the parks, went to the Outlets to get some socks and got sucked into some shopping :) and then returned to the room to get cleaned up for dinner. We went to Blue Zoo at the Dolphin. The first time we ate there it was amazing. This was no different. Amazing meal… and we had a gift certificate. Doesn’t get much better than that!!! (If you’re in Orlando and looking for a nice place for dinner – I highly recommend it!!!) K spent the day with Tootsie, Poppy and Aunt Jacki. She was in heaven with all of the attention!! And she got ice cream that night for dessert. Given the size of her cheeks in the picture – It was a large bowl!!!

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we hung out with the family some more. We had another go-round at Sea World, a trip to Downtown Disney and our annual dinner at Café Tu Tu Tango. (Never a trip to Orlando with out a meal there… Sangria and Tapas! Yum!!!)
A great trip to Orlando again. Katherine had fun with Aunt Ikki, Aunt Soapie, Aunt Jacki, Tootsie and Poppy.

The following weekend (busy October) we went to Myrtle Beach for the weekend. I had my first half marathon on Sunday and a couple of friends were also coming to town to run the race. We decided to have a carb dinner to prep for the big race at our condo. We had lots of fun hanging out Saturday night with Allison and Rick. Katherine was treated like a Princess (literally… crown, gloves & purse!) and really thought the homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches were the highlight of the weekend! Me… Highlight was crossing the finish line 9min 10seconds (yes, the seconds count!) under my goal time. I had AWESOME cheerleaders that day. K and SA met me at mile 3, mile 10 and the finish line. (The gap between 3 and 10 provided a respite for them to go get some Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast… They were kind enough to bring some for me for post race!!) It was a great race and I can’t wait to do it again. Even better, after the race Katherine got so excited by watching the race she told me she wanted to be a runner like Mommy. So sweet. She still tells me just about every day “Mommy, I a runner! Ok? Ok!” That’s my girl!!!!

The Friday before Halloween weekend we had Fall Festival at school. K had a great time, although we have learned that the hayride (at night) is NOT a good idea. She woke up the next morning still talking about the “scary hayride”. Not sure why it was scary… but it seriously was to our KK. Poor kid. She had fun going room to room and participating in all of the fun activities. There was touching spooky body parts (brain = watermelon / heart was peeled tomatoes / eyeballs were grapes, etc.); going through a spooky obstacle course, walking the balance beam and getting her fortune told (she’s loved by LOTS of people, said our very knowledgeable fortune teller).

The JDRF walk was up next. The Walk brings thousands of people together who are all raising money for the same cause: Finding a cure for Type 1 Diabetes. We were three of about 100+ on the Allscripts team and three out of the 15 or so on the Young Leadership Committee (YLC) for JDRF. Thousands of others were there for the event. It was a great day – gorgeous weather and a cause I’m proud we support. Our family raised about $500 for the event. Next year we need to kick it up a bit. Thanks to all of our family & friends who donated to support us!! We’re blessed to have a healthy little girl… So many children Katherine’s age, and younger, diagnosed with a disease that affects every single day – every single hour of their lives.

Halloween was the following day… K picked the costume she wanted to wear. She was a cowgirl. A seriously CUTE cowgirl. We went to about 3 houses and she told me she was done. In sign language and verbally. She usually only breaks out the sign language when she’s quite serious. It was the dogs at one of the houses that sent her running home. She decided she could make up for what she missed by trick or treating at our house. 5 times. I wonder if she thought we didn’t know who she was because she was in a costume?? Silly girl. She had fun giving out candy to the kids that came by. We had about 150 or so kids this year. Not as busy as last year and the previous year but still enough to keep things exciting.

We’re now getting ready for Thanksgiving and the upcoming holidays. K thinks that fall is awesome and loves collecting leaves. One day we collected a handful of pretty ones and she brought them inside so we could throw them in the air and pick them up… again, and again, and again.

Some random facts about our girl:
Favorite Color: Purple
Favorite Food/s: Pizza, ravioli, cheese, ham, milkshakes (aka milk with a weeee bit of chocolate syrup), pancakes and cupcakes. (Thanks Poppy for the last one… She’s still talking about that particular incident.)
Favorite activity (Indoor): color. She LOVES to color. We flipped over the top of her lego table so it is flat and now she sits and colors and draws all sorts of pictures for us. Usually circles. She also loves to trace her hand. Well, I trace it and she yells LOOK!!!!
Favorite Song: ABCs, Wheels on the Bus and (oddly) Take me out to the ball game. I have no idea where/how she heard the latter but she loves it. We have a new CD that we play in the car (Toddler Car Tunes) and she thinks it rocks! (But Take me out to the Ball game isn’t on it.)
Favorite Outdoor Activity: Well, at home it’s running.  At school, apparently it’s picking up pine straw and putting it in a pile. Is OCD contagious???
Favorite Helper Activity: Cooking. She LOVES to stand at the kitchen counter on a stool and “help” me cook. I know what you’re thinking – YES, I do cook. Sometimes. When I do, she’s my right hand girl.
Favorite Saying: “WHATCHA DOIN” Spend 20 minutes with her and you’ll have been asked 400 times. Her teachers have made it into a song. For real. The conversations generally go something like this:
Mommy, whatcha doin’??
I’m driving KK.
Mommy, whatcha doin??
Still driving KK.
Mommy whatcha doin??
Driving the car to school.
Mommy whatcha doin??
Driving.
Mommy, whatcha doin??
Going crazy.
Mommy, whatcha doin?
Same thing I was doing 30 seconds ago.
Mommy, whatcha doin?.... And so it continues.

I’ll try to do better with the whole blogging thing but can’t make any promises. Instead consider the blogs I do post as tiny little unexpected presents. Yeah. That’s a great idea. Lil presents of Love sent via the web. *virtual xoxo*

Enjoy some pictures! :)

Hoot Hoot, She's Cute!