Labor Day and Eddie's Birthday

To begin, we were at a birthday party on Thursday last week, and when I turned my head for a sec, Carissa grabbed my hand and shoved my pizza in her mouth...so she's now eating solids, which she's very excited about.

On Labor day, I wanted to go out and do something, but we all wanted to avoid any huge crowds, so we decided on going to a park I have always wanted to go to downtown, and then take a picnic lunch to Manitou Springs and feed the ducks there. As we were approaching the park, it turned out there was some big what-to-do there, so we passed and went straight to Manitou Springs for our picnic.

There were only two ducks, and one a little bossier than the other, but Lexi enjoyed feeding the ducks (a great excuse to get rid of the old bread in the fridge!)

Then we ate, fed the ducks again, and began heading back. When we got back to where the park was, it wasn't crowded anymore! So we changed Lexi into her swimming clothes and headed for the fountain. It was a perfect day for playing in the water and Lexi was ecstatic!

We finished by going out for frozen custard (2-for-1 coupon) and chilled for the rest of the day at home.

For Eddie's birthday (Tuesday), I made homemade doughnuts and they turned out pretty good. Not professional quality, but still good.

licking the whisk from the glaze

eating her rice cereal while the rest of us had doughnuts...mean, huh?

No, THIS is mean... Silly Daddy!

After breakfast, we stopped by the Church bookstore to see if we could get Ed some new scriptures, but they were way more than online, so we opted for that route. We were going to go paddleboating, but when we got there, they were closed for the season. The last day was Monday- Labor Day... guess we should've gone the day before. So then we went with bowling, but we saw this offer that was $2 for 2 games on Tuesday nights, so we went to go get our lunch/dinner at Red Robin's (free birthday burger!) and then would hit up Cold Stone afterwards (free birthday creation!)

We went to a local bowling alley around 5 and apparently this $2 offer starts at 9, which the manager was snide in telling me when I asked...EXCUSE ME! (didn't say the time on the website I read...) He soon didn't like us when they had to ask us to keep Lexi from pushing the "Call for Help" button. This was our first time trying to bowl with a toddler in tow...and may just be the last. :-) In fact, I believe this was my worst game ever....see... It eventually got up to 36... nice...

And here's the lovely cake my mom made...it's his favorite, chocolate lover's!

Sad to think it may be the last one from her for a while for his birthday :-(

Sesame Street Today

So yesterday, I was watching Sesame Street with Lexi while I was getting the girls ready for a walk, and of course, they had a good helping of this little muppet: Abby Cadabby

I don't know what it is that gets under my skin so much with this character. Maybe it's the overly childish manner in her speech. Maybe it's her naive personality that just makes her appear stupid. Maybe it's the way she comes off as better than others. Whatever the reason, I just can't like her. I've tried to see how a character like this could be beneficial in teaching young kids, and I just can't find it. For those of you who haven't seen this girl, here's a video to give you a taste. (Warning: Watch at your own risk. Hair pulling may ensue, spontaneous nausea may come, and random "What the ?" will inevitably be present)

This song played yesterday, and after the first 10 seconds, it was off. I've heard this song more times than I care to recall. It always sounds like she's really saying, "I have all these cool things, and you don't, but that's okay, I can still be your friend. I'll come down to your level of uncoolness and try not to rub it in that I have magic and whatnot." (oddly, this reminds me of someone I knew in high school...sad, huh?) Then she continues to say all these things she can learn from us, further illustrating that she is too many tacos short of a combo platter. I'm probably being overly critical of this character, but out on my walk, I was thinking of how I would re-word this song if I could:

" I have wings, but you don't have them.

You have a brain, and I have none.

But children with brains and children with wings,

can come together and have some fun."

Okay Okay, you get the point. Maybe it's just my age, since I did find Elmo cute when I was younger. Now he's just a immature little red monster that teaches bad grammar to my parroting 2 year old, not to mention other things. Fortunately, Mom and Dad talk to her normally so his bad grammar hasn't affected her as of yet.

I'll have to admit, Sesame Street is definitely different than I remembered it growing up. We don't see as much of the classic characters anymore. I miss Grover's shenanigans, the real Ernie and Bert (not the claymation versions we see more of), and Kermit is now gone. Ed doesn't even remember when he was on, but I do. His roving reporter skits were classic! Instead we are watching Baby Bear who talks like, well, a baby. Telly has become a sissy, more than before. Even Oscar is starting to be nice sometimes. Bleh! And why does everyone think Ernie and Bert are gay? Isn't it normal that two bachelors share an apartment? It used to be. I lived with 5 other girls at one point, what does that say about me?

I could go on about what Public Television is really becoming, but I digress... just wanted to get a little Abby Cadabby venting out of the way.... Thank you.

To leave on a positive note about Sesame Street, here's a spoof they did that I thought was funny...if you've seen High School Musical.