Ride 'Em Cowboy!

A couple weeks ago, Jack was trying to play cowboy and he announced, "Mommy, while we're at school tomorrow can you go to a cowboy store and get me one of those horse heads on a stick?"  If I'd had food in my mouth I would have spit it out laughing.  I like that he didn't ask for a toy horse, but for a "horse head on a stick."

I didn't come across any cowboy stores in my travels so he had to rein in (pun intended) his cowboy ambitions for a bit.  Luckily for wanna-be cowboys, Nana and Pop Pop came in town this weekend and Nana's friend, Miss Deb, let her know about a potential cowboy store.  Sometimes it's called Big Lots and sometimes it's called The Cowboy Store.

After lunch out with Nana, we headed over to the store to see if they had any horse heads for sale.  In the meantime, Jack had gotten a little hung up on some Cars 2 toys that he wanted.  He's pretty sure that if he talks about something for long enough and is very serious about his "needs" that he will get what he wants.  He decided he needed some special Cars 2 Action Agents cars and the Battle Station that they accessorize.  Of course this Battle Station can't use the same size cars that we already have.  It needs newer, smaller, specially built cars.

It's really my fault that he even knows about the existence of these cars in the first place.  I let him watch YouTube videos that review a lot of the toys.  It started off with reviews of some of the Lego sets that he likes/has and has moved on to Cars 2 toys.  He knows a lot of random facts about toys that he doesn't even own.  I think it's safe to say that his letter to Santa might have a long list in it.

Anyway, while Jack was busy searching for Action Agents, Nana found the horse barn and as soon as Jack saw Nana holding his new pet, he forgot all about those cars.  The horse heads on sticks turned out to be pretty nice.  They even had a pink one for Casey.

The nice lady at checkout spent some time putting the horses in bags and covering them all up so they wouldn't get wet in the walk to the car.  Jack and Casey were appreciative but it really was a wasted effort since it took her longer to cover them that it did to walk to the car and rip them out of the bags.  These horses had to get saddled up immediately!  Or at least get named.  There were a few trial names, but I think they've settled on Tipper for Jack and Marley for Casey.

Tired Cowboy

Fashionable Cowgirl

Since then, we've been living all rodeo, all day.  I can't buy apples and carrots fast enough.  In between watching YouTube videos about toys we don't have, that is.

Jack just figured out that he can record the music he plays on his toy piano and he has composed a special cowboy song.  Today they also attached the horse to a storage box that has wheels so that it would be like the horses pulling Cinderella's carriage.  I love their imaginations!  It never would have crossed my mind that my kids might like one of those horse heads on a stick, but now I'm the proud mama of two little equestrians and I hope they continue to ride the range as far as their imaginations can take them.



 

Early Christmas Wishes

Jack and Casey were just talking about some things they would like for Christmas, inspired by the show Max & Ruby.  Jack would like a remote controlled crane that is blue.  Casey would like a "dancing baby baby doll".

Jack very confidently said, "Santa's going to get that crane for me."  Casey echoed Jack.

I decided it was time to remind them that Santa only brings things for good behavior.  I asked, "What do you have to do to get presents from Santa?"

Jack said, "Be good."

Casey said, "Never mind.  I want to get my baby doll from Auntie."

I'm still laughing!

I ran over to the computer to write that down and Jack came over to say, "If you see a remote controlled crane just get it for me because I want to get it sooner than Christmas.  Do you mind if you order it for me?"  He is getting a little too wise about internet shopping!

Casey and her Friends

Casey finally made it back to school yesterday.  Poor girl was sick on Friday and missed her second day of school.  With my free time yesterday, I made it to three grocery stores and got the groceries put away before I had to pick up the kids.  It's amazing how fast I can scoot through the commissary when I'm not driving the big rig that Casey still calls the "car cart."  I didn't have to stop numerous times for someone to walk or to get back in the cart or to pick out fruit snacks or to look at all the random crap that only Jack can spy and ask for.

After the commissary I headed to the Natural Heritage Market.  I got a groupon for it back in June and was just waiting for school to start so I could look at things at my leisure.  I'm pretty sure it was the greenest, crunchiest, granola-iest store I've ever shopped.  Any item I've ever come across in a recipe and could never find at any other grocery store is there.  I've been looking for months for unsweetened coconut and no other store has it but I finally found it.  There is a great collection of bulk items and it's worth shopping for them, but everything else was highly overpriced.

I wasn't really intending to write about grocery stores, but it's already done :)  Back to Casey.  Unlike Jack, she is more than willing to share with me what she does at school.  Unfortunately, I'm trying to figure out how many grains of salt I need with her stories.  This summer, she began telling me really nice stories about her "friends."  Her friends are named Neela, Keela, Darma, Karma, Katie, and Caroline or maybe its the group with Nasa, Lacey, Meena and Kumba.  She starts talking about these girls and the random names just roll off her tongue.  If we're driving somewhere, she'll tell me that a friend lives in a house we just passed or down a certain road.  She also has a special friend who lives in a house near the beach we visited in Maine.  She talks about her a lot.  It was too rainy for her friend to come out and say hi while we were there though.  Needless to say, all these stories are made up but if you didn't know her and you didn't notice the suspicious names, you might actually believe her.

Now that she's in school and I'm not with her to know exactly what happened, I'll have to decide whether it's a true story or not.  Luckily I know the names of a lot of the kids in her class.  Hopefully she'll tell me some real stories about them!  I'm already trying to figure out if someone gave her a piece of cheese on her first day or she just made that up.

School Days

Jack started kindergarten yesterday and Casey started preschool today!  Jack is liking his class but it's Casey who is very excited.  Although I'm not sure if she is more excited or if I am.

Jack is going back to the same preschool he went to last year and has the same teacher for kindergarten as he had for preschool.  She moved up with the class.  He has several friends back from last year and some new friends to make.  He starts 20 minutes earlier than last year so he told Pat he was worried that he might not have time to play in the morning before school.  So far that hasn't been a problem.

Casey has been talking about going to school all summer.  If ever anyone was ready for school, it was her.  I think she would rather have started yesterday when Jack did, but she had her first Little Gym class of the year yesterday and a new haircut and a donut from Dunkin Donuts to make her feel better.

When we met her teacher a few weeks ago, Casey was very shy and wouldn't play with the other children or talk to the teacher.  She was so excited today that she just walked into the classroom and couldn't wait for me to leave so she could start school.  She practically pushed me out the door and waved goodbye enthusiastically and that was it.

When I picked Casey up, she skipped out the door and was so excited to tell me that she got to go to the playground two times today and she met a girl named Olivia.  Interestingly Olivia is not in her class so I guess she met her on the playground.  She made a picture of a school house, had snack and someone gave her some cheese.  Overall, I think it was everything she had hoped it would be.  She can't wait to go back on Friday although she thinks we should go shopping tomorrow while Jack's in school.

And now I have some time to myself for the first time in 5 years!  I have a bazillion things planned for all this time - which is really going to be less than 9 hours a week.  I plan to make the most of it.  Today I did some grocery shopping in peace and went to the dentist without having to ask someone to watch the kids.  Boring, but so much easier without kids!