Who Do I Call?

Today I dialed the same number four different times, only to get that annoying tone and then the message, "I'm sorry, you must dial a 1 before this number...". Can you guess who I may have been calling? No, it was not my long distance sister or in-laws, it was my good friend four houses down the street. Yes, here in wonderful Chicagoland Naperville we now have to dial like we are dialing long distance to call our next door neighbor!

Supposedly, we are running out of telephone numbers (thanks to cell phones, I guess) so there is now a new area code that is overlaying our existing area code. Great! Whoever made this wonderful decision, could we have just created new area codes again? We did just that several years ago - and I was still able to dial a 7 digit telephone number when calling my next door neighbor. Maybe I should just make better use of speed dial...

Who do I call to complain about this one?!!

Princess Libby is 4

Princess Libby's two day birthday celebration has come and gone. She really enjoyed being a princess for those two days!

We started her birthday, Oct. 3, off with a trip to Krispy Kreme for breakfast. After breakfast we returned home for a visit with Nana and Papa where Libby got to open her first birthday present of the day - dress-up clothes. She tried them all on and modeled them for us. She even "swam" on the kitchen flour for us in her mermaid dress!

When Daddy came home from work we immediately opened presents because she had been asking all day when she could open the rest of her presents. I had been saying all day that she could open them when Daddy got home. We had cupcakes and sang 'Happy Birthday'. Then we were off to AWANA where the Cubbies sang 'Happy Birthday' to her again.

On Thursday we had her birthday party. Four girls came to her party dressed in princess dresses. It was very cute! We played a few games, decorated a foam tiara, ate dinner, ate cake and ice cream, and busted a pinata ( and, of course, opened presents). Libby enjoyed it all to the fullest. As Disney says, it was a "dream come true"...

Austin enjoyed being with all the princesses!

The Man with the Yellow Hat

This week is Literacy Week at school. On Tuesday the kids were supposed to dress-up as their favorite book character. Austin decided at school the day before that he wanted to be Curious George. How in the world am I going to come up with something that looks like Curious George in one evening? (You gotta love these things - homework for the parents!) These kinds of things stress me out - but I better get used to it, I guess, because it's part of the school culture... Anyway, one of my friends suggested being the Man with the Yellow Hat. That was a little easier costume. We borrowed a hat from a friend and wrapped it with one of Austin's yellow pillow cases. Austin wore a yellow t-shirt with one of Chad's yellow ties. And Austin carried a monkey that we also borrowed from a friend. He looked cute, don't you think?

Ballerina Libby

Monday Libby attended her first ballet class, and boy was she excited! The Park District has ballet classes for several ages and Libby's friend, Anna, invited Libby to her class on Friend Day. Libby didn't turn four soon enough to be enrolled in the class. However, I believe I will enroll her for the winter session because she loved it! Although, I don't know which she loved more, the ballet or just dressing up in the ballerina outfit! :)

Thankfully, we had the ballerina outfit amongst all her dress-up clothes that we've accumulated from garage sales and hand-me-downs from friends...

She's already asked me when she can go to ballet again. (Austin even asked me yesterday if boys can take ballet - wouldn't Chad love that).