A Halloween Eve Poem

At the Cibula's it was the day before Halloween,

And all of the festive decorations were out to be seen.

Just one last thing left to do,

Carve a Jack-O-Lantern for the front porch too.

Maggie wanted a happy one and Mommy did too,

But Jack had another idea that the family soon knew.

"A Mummy!", he yelled with a spooky cheer,

Mommy hoped the trick or treaters would still come near.

So out with the mummy wrap and the carving tool,

But first the pumpkin guts we had to pull.

Jack screamed, "yuck!", while Maggie giggled with glee,

Cleaning the inside of the pumpkin was left for Mommy.

Next it was two creepy eyes and a sad, sad face,

Jack pointed to the pumpkin to show us the place.

The final touches to the mummy were just a few,

Jack wrapped the gauze and Maggie poured the glue.

We were finally finished--it was all done,

Carving our mummy Jack-O-Lantern was so much fun!

So with a ghostly "oooooh" and a spooky "Boo!",

The Cibula's wish a Happy Halloween to you!

Elmo-licious

I couldn't wait 4 more days to share.  So lucky you...you get a sneak peak of one of my Halloween cuties.  Told you we were commercializing the holiday this year.  Don't say I didn't warn you...

Commercialization at it's cutest, if I do say so myself!  Mags had her pre-school Halloween party today.  So she got to adorn her Elmo tutu dress to the festivities.  I must admit, I thought we would be taking this precious thing to school on a hanger though.

The costume has been hanging in Maggie's closet for a good month now.  I tried to hide it from her to salvage the novelty of it, but she found it {Jack showed her} a few weeks ago.  It was instant love on Maggie's behalf.  But, only on the hanger.  Since that day she has asked me daily, "la out".  So I would pull it out, she would pet all over it, smile, and giggle cute little Maggie grins.  But, when I asked her if she would like to try it on, I would get a very animated, "no".  This has happened, oh, only about 22 times.

Oh dear, I thought.  I may have an anti-costume wearing toddler on my hands.  Oddly enough we went through the whole routine on Tuesday of this week..."la out"..."would like you to wear it?"...and I was shocked when she said, "yes" while rubbing her chest and belly.  {That's Maggie's translation for put it on.}

So we did.  And she wore it all evening, even at dinner.  She pranced around like Elmo's biggest fan and I sighed a giant breath of relief.

So today, she made her first debut out of the house.  It was a hit. Although, this first time "girl" Mommy is learning you don't wear tulle in the carseat.  What a tangled up mess when we arrived at school this a.m.  Nothing a little fluffing and straightening couldn't fix.  I almost felt like a pageant Mom in the parking lot for a minute.  And Ms. Meridith said Maggie kept it on all day with a giant smile on her face {and even came home with cupcake icing on Elmo's eyes}.

But, don't think this is the last you've seen of my Elmo-licios Maggie.  More to come Halloween weekend and night!  This ought to hold you over until then...

All In A Weekend's Work

What a weekend we had!  Super busy and full of fun times.  We haven't had one like this is in a quite a while.  So here it goes, a little update on a Cibula weekend.

Let's start with Friday.  Actually let's start with Thursday.  Thursday night that is.  If you've never done this, I strongly suggest you do {that is for all my fellow blog writers out there}..I spent Thursday night perusing old posts on my blog. I initially started in search of a post of Jack around 23 months.  I was not trying to compare my kids if that is what you are thinking.  I was just simply trying to remember what he was like at this age and revel in both Jack and Maggie's strengths and differences. {are you buying that?}  Well, what started as a simple stroll down memory lane turned into a marathon.  I was up late...with a few tears, laughs, and lots of smiles.

So you are probably wondering what this has to do with our weekend.  Well it was a nice wake up call for me.  So so so many pictures of Jack and documentation of every detail of that kid's life.  Now, in my defense I think I've done a pretty fair job of keeping Maggie's picture quota close {but, close being the key word}.  So knowing we had a class playdate at the park on Friday for Jack, I decided to take my camera and focus on Mags.  Just my sweet little Maggie playing.  This is hint of what I got.  Love that girl {have I ever mentioned that?}

It doesn't take much to get a grin out of my girl.  A swing, a few fall leaves, and the slide made for a happy camper.  I so wish I had a decent picture of the slide to share. You see the slide is a green tunnel, Maggie is wearing a hot pink coat, and well, that makes for a purple reflection on my doll.  Even with as cute as she is, it wasn't very becoming.

However, I did get to enjoy her very specific slide routine that she insisted we both follow--she walked up the playset ramp, pushed my backside towards the slide, while chanting "go, go, go Mommy", and then waited at the top of the tunnel slide until I was in position to greet her at the bottom.  And then the process started all over again.  It was the highlight of her day.

And although, I did spend Jack's class park playdate focusing on Maggie, I couldn't resist.  Seriously, look at that, could you have?  See that bag on the bench behind Jack?  It was filled with things to "chase the girls with".  {i.e. pirate get up, dinosaurs, and Buzz with a laser.}  Obviously Jack's idea, but definitely worth noting.  

And now moving on to Saturday.  We had Jack's last t-ball game and pizza party celebration.  I can't believe how fast that season went.  So long Sand Gnats.  Jack's  game was at 9:30 a.m. with the celebration following immediately after.  Pizza at 10:30, hmmm?  It was all worth the trophy though!

And no, he did not take one bite of that pizza.  Who could at brunch? Okay, maybe I could have way back in the college days.

We didn't stop there on Saturday.  Next stop was Ansley's 3rd Birthday party...baker style!  And let me tell you it was oh, so cute.  The kids did a little cooking, mixing, pouring, and mess making.  I had no clue how much Maggie would love this.  Since then I have had to give her all kinds of cooking utensils and the least messy ingredients I can conjure up to use in the kitchen.  Her favorite time of day, of course, is when I am preparing dinner.  It's a juggling act keeping her concoctions contained while trying not to burn dinner.  But she is so worth it!  Ahhh..these are the moments to remember.  Does she have to grow up?

I've got to start with the precious party decor.  I got a few pictures before the mess was made...it didn't take long though before the party goers got cookin'!  Kudos to Kristen on a great party and Happy "3" Ansley!  We are so honored to celebrate with you!

How cute was that?  But, here comes something even cuter...

My little pizza maker wasn't so sure about "cooking" when we first arrived.  Then he figured out the fabulous mess he could make and dug right in.  He had a great time and was very proud of his finished products.  I think I may have two cooking fans now.

And yes, there is that t-ball uniform under his apron.  That is one good thing about the end of the season...we get to wear regular clothes to Saturday functions again.  Yay!

Now, my Maggie had a similar reaction to cooking when we first arrived.  But hers wasn't due to lack of interest, hers was shyness.  My little "slow to warm up" Mags was a bit overwhelmed by all the bakers at the pizza table.  So knowing exactly what this girl needed, I took her to the empty cake table.  Pulled a chair to the side and let Maggie get acquainted to cooking in her own private world.  It wasn't long before she was at the table with her fellow chefs and loving it!  I've learned it takes her a few {seconds, minutes, hours, fill in the blank depending on the event} and then we are usually good to go.  This "shy baby" stuff is all new to me.

That is pure concentration right there.  Maggie was taking this very seriously.

 I think Maggie may have used the entire jar of blue sprinkles...sorry kiddos!

And what better way to top off a hard day of baking and cooking than with a sweet treat. And this is a very special sweet treat...Maggie's first very own cupcake as a birthday party guest.  No more hiding dessert from this girl. She's got it figured out.  I keep trying to explain to her that she is already sweet enough, but she isn't buying it.

Now off to get ready for Halloween weekend!

A Day On The Farm

A day on a Dairy Farm, that is.  What's Fall without a trip to the farm?  We are loving our free Fridays around here.  It's like a field trip every week.  Okay, so we didn't venture back to the Art Barn, still blowing off steam from that one.  I'm sure it will happen eventually.  But, I am happy to say, this farm visit was much more successful....the farmer actually showed up....along with lots of cows.

I have to admit that I was having Pumpkin Patch flashbacks when we first arrived.  Maggie was skeptical about the new environment, the herds of kids on field trips, and the cows...even the baby ones.  She put on a little show for the first 30 minutes of our trip.  One of those "please hold me", "I can't survive without your arms" kind of things.  I teeter totter with how to handle these moments.  A Mommy can only hold a nearly 2 year old for so long.  And if I do, it seems to make matters worse when my back and arms finally give out.  So we toughed out the first fourth of our visit.  People came to Maggie's rescue, as they always do, {it's a curse being so cute and dramatic at the same time}.  I had to explain, "she's not lost", "she really is just fine", "I promise".  Once we got over that bump things seemed to be on the upswing.

Jack, again, had a blast.  Mainly because 'Millah' was there and the cows were pretty cool too.  Maggie's dramatic out pours don't let Jack miss a beat.  I'm trying to take his philosophy on this stage of sister's life.

The hardest part of this adventure, believe it or not was not Maggie's 'love of Mommy', but more of keeping track of the boys and therefore keeping up with our tour.  Okay, so we kept up with the boys, we just ended up in another tour group and didn't realize it until close to the end of our visit.  Can you say "harried Mommies"?  It makes me wonder how I took a class of twenty 5 and 6 year olds on field trips back in my teaching days and was pretty organized about it too.

Improvising, as good Mommy's have to sometimes do, we fed the kids lunch on the hayride. {not exactly easy to do}  At this point all we could do was laugh at ourselves.  And this is where the highlight of our trip happened.  Guess the cows aren't too use to food on the hayride.  They must have been super excited to smell something other than grass because they tried to dig right into Jack's lunch box.  A little zipper biting, tongue licking, and snout shoving.  All was effortless.  Maggie caught sight of this and, well let's just say,  was very disappointed in cow manners.  In her sweet little stressed out tone, she told them "no, no, no, Jacque's unsh", while shaking her finger all the time.  {and yes, she says Jack's name in French form}  This really put my little Mags in a tail spin.  And all this, after we finally had her enjoying herself.  At this point, I had given up {with a smile on my face though}.

So, thanks Erica for planning another adventurous day in the life of Mommy's.  Thanks Kristen for all your "clingy child" advice.  And thank you to the kids, Miller, Eliza Kate, Ansley, & Landon, for being such great friends for my little ones.  I personally think it was a 'farmtastic' day!

This is as close as Maggie would get to the calves.  As long as they stayed on their end of the pen and she stayed on the opposite, all was well.  Forget about feeding them...she basically threw the grass and ran.

How could anyone be scared of this sweet face?  And you should have seen the tongue that came with it.

Jack and Miller, being the boys they are, had no fear.  They hand fed any calf that would allow it.

Maggie does deserve some credit.  The clucking pets were a hit with her.  She walked up to these chickens and stuck her fingers right into the chicken wire.  Luckily, no harm done.  That would have been the end all for her. {and note her tear stained eyes, poor baby girl was just unwinding from a "mommy, hold me" moment.}

Now do you see why we lost our tour group?  And this picture is even zoomed in.  Take your time boys...

Possibly Maggie's favorite event of the day...the garden.  She was so pleased with herself when she picked her pea pods {and there is no chance of them biting or moving for that matter}.

Eliza Kate and Maggie waiting patiently for the hayride...and their lunch.

Look at my boy's shoes.  Guess where those went when we got home?  First to the garage and then straight to the washing machine.

Apparently, we had lots of time to take posed pictures on the hayride, seeing as how this is the third one {and that's just my family}.  That was because when we lost our group we also lost our hayride. So we had a nice wait on the hay bale filled truck while another group was finishing up their tour {the tour that I'm sure they followed properly}.

This is our cow that made it all worth it!  Isn't she a doll?  Okay, so after we removed the lunch boxes from her snout, she found our pumpkin.  And here's the other kicker...we weren't even supposed to have a pumpkin yet!  The farmer announced to all the hayriders,  "grab a pumpkin as you exit the truck".  Oops..another one of our "not following the tour" moments.  {I was wondering why no one else had a pumpkin on that truck}  Those cows must have thought we were "moo"velous guests.  We brought all kinds of excitement to their day.

And just because he is so cute {and actually standing still for a moment}.

My Itsy Bitsy Spiders

Finally a festive Fall picture together...

Mmmm...I can handle these kind of spiders...October yumminess!

My, not so Itsy Bitsy, Spider anymore.  {sniff, sniff}

My, Itsy Bitsy, spider for as long as she will allow it.

The Pumpkin Patch Can Have Challenges

We did it... our annual Fall Pumpkin Patch visit! {there is an exclamation point behind this for a reason} 'How did it go?', you may be wondering.  Well, it went.  For fear of sounding too disappointed, let's just say it had some challenging moments.

Basically, every Saturday in October this year is booked either with t-ball games, the school festival {already done and gone, but a weekend in October, none the less}, and birthday parties.  This was it!--the only Saturday of the month to make this happen.  And sure enough...Clay had a tennis match.  Thinking this will be "no problem", I mean seriously I have the two of them by myself all the time, I loaded the kids and the car up and off we went.

What I did not take into account was the fact that Maggie is v..e..r..y slow to warm up to new places {unless she is in my arms or at least eye level with me} and it is nearly impossible to get two kids {one very clingy one} situated for a picture in the patch and then run backwards over pumpkins, {without tripping}, and get that golden pumpkin patch shot.  So again, another photo op failed.

The other logistic I did not take into consideration...carrying that very clingy, {but also precious child}, and a pre-schooler's GIANT pumpkin pick.  I must have looked a fool with Maggie on one hip and a pumpkin on the other because people came out of the wood works offering to carry one of them to my car.  So generous, but we all know that Maggie was having none of that.  My sweet Jack, trying to be such a 'gentleman' helped carry the pumpkin as far as his little muscles would let him...that really brought people to our rescue {and a smile to my face}.

And then I could probably list the other issues we had along our visit...poor Jack got elbowed in the face by another child {total accident}.  He was such a trooper though.  Maggie tripped excessively over pumpkins {more reason to want Mommy to carry her}.  And both kids were blinded by God's beautiful sunshine on a gorgeous Fall day.

So, yes we did it! {with an exclamation point}  Maybe it wasn't as smooth as years in the past.  But, we can officially check Pumpkin Patch off our 'Fall Things To Do' list.  Jack is happy {as he was the entire visit minus the little injury}.  He has one pumpkin to carve into something spooky and one bumpy pumpkin that he thinks is already spooky.  And Maggie thinks she had a good time.  She has repeatedly asked to "look" at the pumpkin pictures on my camera.  I tried to explain, there wasn't much to see, but she insists.

Okay, so maybe one year during Fall I will look back at this giggle.  But for now, I only take one very valuable lesson with me...Pumpkin Patch visits must include the entire family from here on out.

Initially all was well with Maggie and her 2nd Pumpkin Patch visit ever.

All too quickly she realized that she couldn't pick up a pumpkin by herself.  This was the start of a downward spiral.  {we are still good here though}

Meanwhile, Jack was having a blast, like any kid should at the Pumpkin Patch on a beautiful day.

This was the GIANT pumpkin that he really wanted.  I realized, as Maggie had earlier, that Mommy can't pick up every pumpkin by herself either.

This was my failed attempt at a picture of my favorite pumpkins.  Well, I guess not totally failed, you can see both of their faces and there are actual pumpkins in the picture.  Just a little too much sunshine and one clingy Magpie with an extended arm, basically saying, "hold me and NEVER put me down".

And then...all in her little world was okay.  Maggie found Maggie-sized pumpkins.  And she could even carry them all by herself!

Counting pumpkins.  It goes something like this...fee, figh, wun, foe.  Maybe her numbers aren't in the right order, but she does have one to one correspondence.  No to mention, I adore watching my little pumpkin trying to count..yummy!

I'm pretty sure she spotted Jack's wagon here.  Yay!  Somewhere to put all those little pumpkins she adored.

I can not brag on my Jack enough.  He was so incredibly helpful.  He grabbed the wagon, he helped us fill it, he carried the money {I didn't have pockets}, he payed for the pumpkins, he tried to help carry them to the car, and he smiled at his sister when she got a little less than desirable to be around.  And he even told her, "Pumpkin patches sure do you make you grumpy".  Ha!  Love his perspective!

Who knew?  All we needed was a wagon and some itty bitty pumpkins to keep Mags content.  And if it had been up to her, we would have bought an entire wagon full.

This is the "spooky" pumpkin that we don't have to carve, according to Jack.  And check out those muscles...that's my good eater.