My little sleepwalker

Cora has gotten up in the middle of the night a couple times within the last week. The one night I heard her yelling "momma?" repeatedly. I finally found her downstairs wondering around looking for me! Then last night she wanders in our room about 1:00am saying, "read book please?" I sent her back to bed, and after a few tears, she was sound asleep.

Excited to report that I am about 70% done with my Christmas shopping!!! Yah!!!

Potty time

Cora has been been doing a great job with potty training. She has been going on and off for the last week and a half. Sometimes she will tell us when she has to go, other times she will fight it tooth and nail.

Otherwise it has been pretty quiet around here. We did buy a treadmill since we can't run outside with all the crazy hunters out there anymore.

I'm not taking many pictures for customers right now which is fine because I feel like i am falling behind on everything else lately. I still have not taken Cora's two year pictures. Might have to combine that photo session with Christmas card photo session!

I just got a new iPhone from work so this will help to make my life much easier. I will try to upload a video of Cora singing her ABCs and twinkle twinkle little star. It is hilarious. Okay that didn't work. But here's a picture of Tom and I from a wedding that we went to last night.

Big Girl Bed ... and more sayings & doings of a 4 year old...

Well, tonight is Cora's first night in the big girl bed. She was very excited!! It is hard to believe we are done with the crib forever!

We had our last camping trip of the season last weekend out at Forester. It was their Halloween weekend and the kids had a great time trick or treating and the weather was beautiful. We were in the camper the one morning and Blake wanted to go outside and was trying to persuade us....he says, "C'mon outside...it helps to get the stink off ya."

All in all we had a great camping season. We didn't venture far...we went to Forester for the first 6 weeks, then went to Caseville for a long weekend in July, and then this last trip out to Forester. We were supposed to go to Harbor Beach this past weekend, however the weather was supposed to be bad, so we cancelled that. Thank goodness because the weather was cold, windy and wet.

Other things going on....Tom and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary on 9/27/11. We bought a 2010 Chrsyler Town & Country van and got it home on Wednesday the 28th. It will be so nice to have more room!

I will post some pics soon!

It's Potty Time!

Cora peed on the potty tonight!!! She was having fun sitting there, and frankly I'm not sure that she even knew she was peeing!! Oh well, we praised her up and down so hopefully it will encourage her to keep sitting on the potty!

My 3rd 5k of the year is tomorrow morning! Yikes...we'll see how it goes. I haven't been running as faithfully the last few weeks since I've been doing more with the bands.

"The Best Day of My Life"..Blake Arbaugh 9/9/11

Blake got up Friday morning and was getting ready for school. All the sudden he stops and says, "Mom - Today is going to be the best day of my life!" I wasn't so sure what was so special about this day, so I asked him why? His reply.."Because Sadie's mom gets to take me to school today!" Hmm..nice....So, yes now we will be carpooling for pre-school. Sadie's mom will take them and I will pick them up and take them back to Mary's. He had a great first couple of days..no fear whatsoever, just pure excitement. I truly hope he is always this excited to learn!

This morning, I was laying in bed with Blake for a few minutes and he tells me, "Momma..I was thinking...we should get a little TV and put it right over there on my baseball shelf so I can watch cartoons. Then..I won't be bugging you every morning when you're still sleeping to watch cartoons...I can just watch them here. Maybe the store will give us a free remote?" That kid is destined to be in a sales position when he gets older!!

Tomorrow will be a fun day...celebrating Gramma Vogel's 75th birthday down at Comerica Park to watch the Tigers play Minnesota Twins. We are taking a bus and it is also Blake's first Tigers game. Can't wait!!

My "Goofy" Girl

I love how when we tell Cora, "You're goofy!" Without missing a beat, she says, "No...I Minnie Mouse!" :-)

She is an echo of her brother. The words are not even out of his mouth yet and she is repeating what he says!! She is getting easier to understand, but we still can't understand everything that she says. She seems to have no problem understanding us....doesn't mean she always listens...but she is starting to get time outs when she doesn't.

Things are otherwise going well around here. We are looking forward to the weekend...Tom and I are going to Detroit for the Tigers game and spending the night down there. Not sure what else we are going to do, but we will find something!! It will just be nice to have a night away and be able to sleep in!!!!!!

Only my child....

After dinner tonight, we had some homemade cookies for dessert. Blake reached for a second cookie, but instead of taking a cookie he noticed a piece of bread in the Tupperware container with the cookies and asked if he could have it. I told him I didn't think he would like it. Well...he took it and ate the whole thing!! Nasty!! Only my child!!

We went to the Sanilac County 4-H Fair last week with my mom, Brianna, Kelsie and Matt. I bought an elephant ear and pop for the kids. Blake took a drink of sprite, not knowing what he was drinking. He sips it and say, "Mom..that's sure some spicy water!"

I took Blake "school shopping" yesterday. Ok..well, he is only going into pre-school and didn't really need much...but hey, it was an excuse to go shopping! We had a nice time together, we don't get one on one time too much. He told me last night that he had fun spending time with me and he loved the trolley that we got to ride on (the trolley that takes you store to store at Birch Run). We did have an enjoyable day together. Hard to believe he is getting so stinking big!