a Fun week

Despite my earlier whinings, we have had a fun week. On Sunday, we ate dinner with a family in the ward. They are really nice. There are kids around our kids' ages, which is great. They like board games. It was a good time.
Tuesday we had a Halloween party with the play group. It was a lot of fun. Claire was a cat. We used a costume that Alann's aunt gave us. I did modify it a bit. It's actually a size 4, but since I waited until the DAY BEFORE the party to try to find it, we had to go with it. It was a long sleeve sweatshirt with leopard print around the edges. I just cut the sleeves off so it wouldn't be so hot and so obviously large. Then it looked like a really cute dress. She wore a onesie under it, but otherwise just wore that and some fur gloves and anklewarmers that I made for it. She had ears too. For trunk or treat I will probably draw on whiskers, but I wasn't feeling up to it just for playgroup. It was way cute. Alex was a lion. I found the costume at goodwill for $4 and it fit perfectly. There was one point during the party that Alex the lion was trying to eat Carter the panda bear. It was pretty funny. The hostess had this awesome ball tent for the kids. They own it. It's just a screen mesh tent that has a bunch of plastic balls in it, kind of like a ball pit. I want one. Not for the kids. For me. JK. The kids would love it I'm sure. Claire played with it the whole time.
I know there was more stuff that we did, but I am having a hard time keeping my days straight. I don't know why. Claire is doing more and more precious and cute things. Today she helped me make cookies for the first time. It was a box mix. I planned on taking them to the emergency preparedness fair tomorrow at the ward building, but for numerous reasons, we bought some other cookies at walmart for it. For one, the box said 2-3 dozen. I got 16. Then they rose in the oven, which I didn't expect, so they squished together. And Claire was very helpful in trying to get the cookies off the table and onto the tray, so half of them were mangled anyway. It was a fun thing though. We made them into roll-out cookies and she helped mix the dough and roll it and cut the cookies out and put them on the tray. And then she started sucking on her fingers while she was helping. And then she started stealing pieces of the dough. It was really a lot of fun. As trying as she is sometimes, I need to remember the fun times.
She has also started to show preference during bedtime. We asked Claire who she wanted to brush her teeth, and she picked Daddy. Her new thing is reading books (surprise surprise! I thought she would NEVER sit through a book). Every night before bed we read two books. And she goes and picks them from the shelf, comes right over, snuggles on my lap, and sits still and seems engaged in the book. Then she gets in her bed and mostly goes to sleep. She learned to blow kisses, so she has to blow kisses before bed. I usually leave her laughing at me as I stagger away after being hit by kisses. It's much better than the screaming and crying I sometimes get.
At a chinese restaurant today for dinner, Claire kept randomly saying hi and waving to someone over by the cash register. We would look, but not see anyone. She must have said it 10 times at least. Then we realized there was a little mechanical cat on the shelf that waved, and she was saying hi and waving at the cat. It was so funny because she said it very sincerely every time. Always with enthusiasm. I love the way she says hi. She actually sounds happy and pleased to see you, whether you actually left the house or just the room. I should remember that and try to sound the same way.
She's been going back and forth with eating again. It seems like she won't eat all week, and then suddenly scarfs everything in sight. Today was an eating day. She ate SO MUCH chinese food. Good thing kids eat free. It's funny to me how much she likes fish. She will eat pretty much any fish. I guess because I ate a lot of fish when I was pregnant? I craved it, so I made a point to eat it. But anytime there is fish on the table, she eats it. So she had fish at the chinese restaurant and rice and a few green beans. She also loves rice. That's another thing she eats pretty much all the time. I am trying a new method of feeding her where I put whatever I want her to eat the most down first. So if I feel like she hasn't had enough fruit or veggies, I give that to her first. I usually serve her some veggies before dinner is ready, and she will eat them all gone, and then dinner is ready and she eats dinner.
My business ideas are going well. I'm working on launching for Nov 1. I want to hit the Christmas rush. So look for more news on that. It's exciting. Hopefully it doesn't fail miserably. I'll take breaking even for a while. Anyway, it's late and I do need my beauty rest.
Oh I almost forgot. The funniest thing happened this morning. We were cleaning the house and Alann had music on. The song "I can fight this feeling anymore" came on. We were sitting on the couch for a moment, talking about something, and Claire comes running in the room. Right when the chorus of "And I just can't fight this feeling anymore!!" starts, Claire starts slowly unzipping her pjs. It was like a risque scene from a movie. It was hilarious. She didn't know what was going on, but was glad we were both laughing, so she did it again. Then she started dancing to the music. It was a good 5 minute dance routine. You could tell she was dancing for us, her audience. She did some modern moves with spinning and acrobatics, then she did some riverdance moves on the ottoman top (which was on the floor). And she sang and was just being so funny. It was great. I recorded some of it on my phone. It was too precious. I love my little drama queen.