"Outstanding"

Dear Delaney,

I want you to be able to look back at this post when you're a teenager (and I'm living in the senior citizens home) and see that when you were five you were awarded for good behavior!!!

My Heart.......

We were at a friend's house last night and I walked in and found the three kids playing on iphones and ipads! This is what mine was doing.....I wanted to say "back when I was a kid......" 

Bunny Headphones????

This is the fourth set of headphones I have bought since school started! I will never complain....thank you God for inventing headphones! I mean can this little cutie pull off bunny ears or what? I told her she looks ridiculous and her father's daughter replied "I don't care"!

Oh This Girl

She wanted to go to a haunted house. I told her they are for big people. She told me she could just go dressed up as one!

She also said "sorry I have been mean to you, it's just my Halloween tradition!"

Good thing Halloween is only once a year.

Boo!

Delaney's school had Trunk or Treat tonight. It was very "pinteresting". 

We had a lot of fun and the weather was perfect!!! 

Only had time for one of us to do hair and makeup.......#makingsacrifices

Delaney loved passing out the candy and it went quickly.....About 300 pieces quickly! 

I told Delaney we need to start thinking of an idea for trunk or treat next year seeing how we had all of one day to come up with an idea this year. She said "that's a long way away girlfriend, we'll just go to Pinterest". Did I mention how much I love that girl?

"We" love Halloween!! Oh, and thanks to one of the 3rd graders at trunk or treat, I FINALLY have my costume idea for Halloween.....and I think I (well, she) nailed it! Punn intended...stay tuned!!

And now it's time to sort through all of the candy Delaney can't eat (wink wink)!

I think I'll steal another idea and pass out glo necklaces next year, the kids loved them.

"Dear Daddy"......

I can explain.............

"She's An American Girl....."

For Fall Break, we packed up and headed to Chicago!

When I was a little girl, we always ate at Gino's so that was first on our "must do's"....

 Delaney's first Chicago style piece of pizza (you just need one!)

 Delaney took two steps into American Girl....

 And her bag was......

 FULL! 

If it was reachable, it went in her bag.  This is Delaney taking everything out so we could make "must have" and "must go back on the shelf" piles (tough love people, tough love)!

 After all that shopping, we headed to our reservation at RPM.  Sadly, there were no Giuliana, Bill or baby Duke sightings.  Our meal was SO good!!!

 Delaney ate two of the three......

 And as if her dessert wasn't enough...we headed to Dylan's Candy Store. It was so neat!!

More Dessert (birthday cake ice cream) 

 We Love Chicago!!!

 Bedtime (too bad someone let her have all that sugar before bed)

 Donut heaven right in our hotel (the third one from the left has a slice of bacon on top)

Somehow I managed to order a bagel instead of the last red velvet donut you see sitting there!

 Delaney picked....what else?

 Round two...........

 Lunch at American Girl (it was so much fun)

 More Dessert..........

 Delaney chose the double decker pony tail for Marie Grace

 She also got her ears pierced! 

(and as soon as we find that earring in my car I can get it vacuumed)

 Oh, and her shoes you ask?? Well, they are somewhere on one of six floors of the Water Tower!

 Our hotel (The Rafaello) was across the street from grandma's apartment when she lived in Chicago (circa 1970).  She lived one street over from Lakeshore Drive with a view of the lake.  As grandma put it "that's when daddy paid the bills". 

 After Gino's, RPM, Dylan's Candy Store, and Glazed and Infused, Delaney and I hit the gym the morning after we got home!  One of us worked out and the other one played on the ipad! Then she was off again. The girl has the social calendar of a teenager! I took this picture and told her I'd see her in the car pool line Monday afternoon (I just hope she remembers what our car looks like and her momma)!

Delaney is such a good little traveler. We've already booked our next trip!

We're going on a cruise to the Bahamas so someone will stop bugging me about swimming with the dolphins at Atlantis (Ok, maybe it's not tough love after all).........

Here Comes the......

Flower Girl

Delaney's Dream Has Come True.......She was the flower girl in a wedding! And I felt like the mother of the bride! I know, it's not exactly the same but it was very stressful being the mother of the flower girl. I mean, we all know having little kids in your wedding can make or break the ceremony!  In true Delaney form, she nailed it! In the picture above, she stopped halfway down the aisle to pose and then she waived (which I did not capture on camera but it was so stinkin cute!)

Let's start with the bride's awesome shower (which was held at a venue that does not allow kids)....

Or so they thought.......

Now back to the wedding day, which was a gorgeous, hot, sunny day in October!

Now onto the reception.............

(the mother of the bride, the real one, told me they had 200 mints on the tables.  I am pretty sure Delaney ate 190 of them)!

I told Delaney I wanted to go outside and take our picture.  She took off running.

Literally..............

The week before the wedding, when I would tell Delaney "no", she would reply "you can't tell the flower girl "no".  I'm so glad that no longer applies!  She woke up on the morning of the wedding and said "now where will I be getting ready today". I told her in a GMC (we were coming from a birthday party and were on a tight schedule). I think she thought she was getting the bridal suite to get ready in before the wedding!  Before the ceremony, she kept saying "when do I get to walk". At the receptiom, she leaned into me and said "mommy, I think I like the rehearsal better" (solely because of the food).  At the end of the night she said "I want to stay for the whole party".  I told her to look around, we were the party! She can outlast her momma at anything! Instead of calling the bride Ashlee, or "the bride" she kept calling her "the wife"............ 

When the bride was on her way to her honeymoon, she sent me these....

I'm in love!!!