How a Tokarski Decorates a Christmas Tree

This would be why it takes so long for us to decorate the tree.  Each ornament needs to be used as an accessory prior to getting placed on the tree.

Sigh.  xoxo

Deb

Disney Cruise Slideshow

Finally.

Better late than never?

Special thanks to Aaron for technical support (which means holding my hand and literally walking me through the process of setting up a slideshow.)  Technology is not always my friend. You'll need to click on the white box below to get the slideshow started. Still haven't completely figured out how to caption the photos, but they're all fairly self explanatory.



xoxo
Deb

When Bree Wished Upon a Star

Last week we went on a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas with our dear friends, and Bree's godparents, Kamar and Becky Adeleke, and their own brood, Kasim, Khalid, Layla and Sophia. 

For those who don't know, Bree is obsessed with the Disney Princesses.  In the weeks leading up to our departure, Bree plotted her attack on any and all Princesses she encountered.  The term "stalking" came to mind while listening to her detail her plans. 

Mission accomplished.

xoxo
Deb
p.s.  There will be more to come from our travels.  Just trying to get caught up. 
p.p.s.  Keep scrolling down.  There's four shots of four Princesses accosted by Bree.  No comments, please.  Jason does this for a living, not me!

For Mommom

Love you, Mom!

So does Bree!

xoxo-
Deb

Trick or Treat!

As most (all?) things go with Chaos & Mayhem, trick or treating wasn't

easy for us.  It wasn't dull, but it wasn't easy either.

The preschool that my little cherubs attend had a Halloween parade for the 4-year classes.  All of the kids get dressed in their costumes, parade through the Hall and then return to their class, remove their costumes and have a Halloween party.  Sounds simple, right?

Not for Nick.  He went, to quote my dear friend Cristin, "bat-shit crazy."  He was terrified of his friends in costumes, didn't want to stand up in front of a bunch of adults he didn't know and was having no parts of looking "silly" while wearing his costume in front of a bunch of people he didn't know.  In Nick's defense, for a variety of reasons, this is the first year we were actually able to "do" Halloween, so he had no experience with any of this.

That being said, I didn't force him into the costume and then parade around in it (mostly because I figure he'll need enough therapy later in life as it is already) but I did make him watch the parade and go to the party afterwards, as the other kids all removed their costumes for the party. 


Flash forward to Sunday afternoon:  Due to the "fun" that had been

Friday, we had decided to stay home.  I would hand out candy to the little beggers (my term for trick or treaters) with Nick and Jason would take Bree trick or treating.  Then the phone rang.  It was Uncle Aaron checking to see if Nick and Bree wanted to go trick or treating with their cousins.  If there are any people that can persuade Nick to do something, it's Alex, Abby, Amanda and Aidan.  Here's hoping the four of them don't decide to jump off of a bridge.

Wrap up:  Nick turned into a trick or treating pro.  Bree's little legs ran four steps for everyone else's one stride but I think she may have ended up with more candy that the others.

Nick obviously was Buzz Lightyear.  Bree was supposed to be Snow White, however due to the temperature, we ended up throwing together a pink princess costume as I'm pretty sure she would have ended up with frostbite instead of candy if we had sent her out in the Snow White costume.  Many thanks to Jenn Z., Kim Turner and Aunt Becky!  Portions of their birthday presents to Bree ended up as part of her Halloween costume.

Halloween ended with Bree meticulously sorting her candy by type and Nick plotting Christmas while perusing a toy catalog.

xoxo-
Deb

Belated Bree Birthday Bash Babblings

I was trying to see how many "B" words I could work in there.  Not my best attempt, but I still managed to amuse myself for a few moments.  But as usual, I digress...

My baby is three!  Being the loving mother that I am, I woke her up on her birthday, cuddled her gently, gave her a soft kiss and told her she was three-years-old now.  I then handed her the want-ads from the Sunday paper and suggested she look for her first job prior to selecting her new apartment as her income would indicate how big of a pad she could afford.  Oh, stop it.  Jason got me out of her room before I got all of her clothing packed.  Damn him.

Instead of cramming all of our loved ones into our more-than-slightly overcrowded home, we elected to throw a joint birthday party with our friend Jack (Happy Birthday little Dude!) at Nana's church this time around.  We had pumpkin decorating, cake, a LOT of presents and even a couple of jugglers, The Juggling Hoffman's.  I'm pretty convinced that the male half of the Hoffman's was a bartender at one of the establishments that I used to frequent in college.  Based on my typical state of mind (and inebriation) during college, while on Main Street in Newark, it's highly probable that my memory may be a bit flawed and this guy has never been in a bar in his life.  Regardless of any questions regarding his previous employment, he and his Mrs. treated us all to a really good show.  I think everyone enjoyed themselves, especially my mother, Jason's mother and my Aunt Liz, who spent the show making jokes amoungst themselves that I understand were really not at all appropriate for a three-year-old's birthday party.  I think you all know where I get that mentality from now, don't you?

Thank you to all who helped us celebrate Bree and her birthday!
xoxo
Deb

Happy Columbus Day! Well, not really.

Nick had Friday off from school for Columbus Day (which was actually Monday, so I'm not sure why his school celebrated it on Friday, but I digress...)  Anyway, both kids had no school on Friday, so rather than have to actually take care of both of my children by myself for another day, I respectfully requested that Jason take Friday off and we do "family crap" together.  Please note that my "respectful request" sounded like "Unless you want me to find out how much I can get on the black market for a semi-potty trained four-year-old boy, you might want to take the day off from work."

Rather than being trapped in the house with his beloved children and cranky wife, Jason packed his family up and took us all to Milburn Orchards for the day.  Apparently every school in the region decided to fill their school buses with the kids that annoy the teachers the most and send them to the orchard for the day, as well. 

Despite that, we had a good time.  Nana showed up once she was finished with work, which meant that instead of two kids to keep track of, we had two kids and a Nana to try and keep out of the baby goat pen.  And if you're reading this, Lane, for the last time, NO, we will not get you a baby goat for Christmas.  Just like your grandchildren, the baby goats will grow up and no longer be cute and fluffy. 

The kids and I got lost in the maze several times.  Yes, I'm aware that I can see over the maze but I have no discernible sense of direction. Incidentally, having Jason standing outside the maze "patiently" directing me out of the maze?  Not so much with the helpful but it did appear to entertain everyone watching me.

xoxo
Deb

When arts and crafts go bad

Unlike my last post, there is a story here.  And based on the picture, I'm fairly certain that I don't need to tell it.  I'm pretty sure you can all figure it out for yourselves.

xoxo
Deb

Comic relief

There's no story to this.  Just had to share.

xoxo
Deb

For Chrissee

Whenever I question whether or not I am Bree's actual mother all I have to do is watch her in a shoe store. Trust me, she's mine. Girl loves her some shoes.

How stinking cute are these? Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the all-pink ones are very sparkly. Those are the ones that she wore on the first day of school that helped to spark new friendships.

Please note, she wore the blue ones today and also received compliments.

xoxo

Deb

School Dazed

Yup. The picture says it all. Despite my best efforts, Bree is in preschool. I tried locking her in her room and barricading the door with stuffed animals and outgrown clothing, but Jason fought his way through and rescued his princess. Damn him.

The preschool she's attending eases the little ones (and their parents) into the year with short sessions with only half the class for the first day but Bree already made a friend. Due to my insane need to be on time for everything (it's genetic, I can't count how many family weddings for which my parents and I arrived at the church before the priest. Thanks, Mom!), we were twenty minutes early. Eventually Bree's classmates and their parents began arriving and the last to show up was a little girl with long dark curls. We'd never seen her before but she and Bree must have known that they were kindred spirits. They looked at each other, squealed and ran to one another. Bree told her that she had pretty hair and that she liked her shirt (red with puppies.) Bree's new friend, Gabriella, returned the compliments focused on Bree's shoes (which really are quite awesome) and her Princess backpack. They then each giggled, jumped up and down a couple of times and each ran back to their parents. They then ran back to meet again and repeated the compliments. And then each returned to their respective starting points. To then run back and repeat the compliments. And then... you get the picture.

The teachers took pity on us after about seventeen renditions of "Bree meets Gabriella" and let us into the classroom. Bree played with play-do and when it was time to sit in a circle she first had to HELP THE TEACHER CLEAN UP THE PLAY-DO. That's right, the child that won't pick up a single toy at home helped a complete stranger clean up. Circle time went pretty much as I expected. Bree sat down for 3.8 seconds, got bored and left the circle to go play, very quickly demonstrating to her three teachers and the rest of the parents present why her nickname is "Chaos." I so enjoy the looks of complete and total pity that I routinely receive from total strangers courtesy of my beloved children.

Nick has also begun school again. Surprisingly, his teachers didn't retire or go into a witness-protection program to avoid him, so there wasn't much new for Nick this year. Same classroom, same teachers, but a couple a new-to-Nick students. I tried to explain why some of his classmates from last year weren't in his class any longer. He got bored and walked away from me while I was in mid-explanation. That happens a lot with Nick. His main source of concern is that the "marble-toy" hasn't made a reappearance in his class yet. Whenever I try to talk to him about school he reminds me of the missing marble toy and mutters in a very grumpy, threatening voice about "needing to have a talk" with his teachers about this. I kid you not. And while I did get plenty of shots of him with his eyes open for the annual first day of school picture, this one cracks me up, so this is the one I'm posting.

xoxo
Deb

p.s. For my fellow Fantasy Football-playing friends and loved ones: Based on having a couple of Saints on my fantasy team, I'm starting a petition to have them stripped of the Vince Lombardi trophy. 'Nuff said.

Passport Picture Drama

Jason, Chaos, Mayhem and I needed to get passports for an upcoming vacation. Seems like a simple enough undertaking... fill out the forms, get the pictures taken, take out a second mortgage to pay for the passports and go order them. Seems easy, right?

Yeah, you haven't tried to get pictures taken of Chaos and Mayhem, have you now?

I went first, by myself, to Walgreens to have my picture taken so I could explain to my little darlings what to expect. (Please note, any terms of endearment used in this entry towards my childen is completely and fully sarcastic.)

A couple of days later, I take my cherubs to Walgreens and go to the photo counter. I explain to the two very nice ladies that I need to get passport pictures taken of my son and daughter. The two nice ladies look at the kids. The kids smile back sweetly at the ladies. One goes and gets a stool for them to sit on and the other gets the camara ready.

At this point it started going downhill. Mayhem sees a toy that he wants to look at and I, who uses every opportunity possible to bribe him into good behavior, explains that he can look at it once he has had his picture taken. Insert Mayhem temper-tantrum here. Chaos, not be be outdone, adds her shrieks. After a few minutes they got tired of screaming and started hitting each other. A display of stuffed animals got knocked down at some point. The nice lady with the stool was now holding the stool in the manner of a lion tamer, trying to keep my angels away from inflicting any bodily harm to her.

I AM NOT EXAGGERATING.

I give up. Take the kids home. Start researching military preschools. Jason decides that we'll give it another try and the four of us head back to Walgreens. Same two nice ladies. Same stool. Stuffed animals display was once again upright.

Guess what? The kids behaved perfectly. Jason looked at me and acutally said "I don't know what the problem was, they're fine."

Yup. I hit him with the stool.

When I went back later to pick up the pictures, the two nice ladies were describing our two visits to another lady. They were all laughing. I don't think the first two ladies are so nice any longer.

xoxo
Deb

Demolition Dergy Update

It would appear that the demolition derby we attended (see previous post) also made an impression on Chaos & Mayhem.

I'm currently attempting to pack for a long get-away weekend to Ocean City. Jason is at work so I'm encouraging the kids to amuse themselves. They are. Nick has created his own demolition derby with his monster trucks and it is being attended by the inhabatants of her various dollhouses and a couple random Disney Princesses.

xoxo
Deb

Career Change

After careful thought and consideration, I have decided that it's time to embark on a new career. I've liked working in advertising and media but I've discovered something I love. I'm going to become a demolition derby driver. Anyone who has seen the condition of my Mazda would agree that I clearly have the driving skills required.


Jason only has his brother, Aaron, to thank for my new career path. For many years Aaron, his wife, Julie, and their various and sundry offspring go to the Cecil County Fair and attend the demolition derby. And for many years, they've asked us to join them. This year, we finally relented. Actually, I decided that Nick would go with Jason while I stayed home with Bree. The conversation went something like this:

ME: "So, you go with him."

Jason: "No, you go."

ME: "No, you go."

Jason: "No, you go."

After about 30 minutes of this, it was decided that perhaps Bree might enjoy the derby as well. Actual discussion: ME: (Literally throwing hands up in the air) "Fine! We'll all go."

And we had a blast. Nick spent the entire derby screaming, "This is SO awesome! I LOVE IT!" Bree was fine as long as she sat in someones lap and they didn't cheer too enthusiastically. Which meant she sat on Nana the whole time.

The only negative was once we were packed into the car to go home, Nick sadly looked at the little toy car that he had carefully selected to come with him to the derby and said, "I didn't get to drive."

I know, Nick. I feel the same way.

xoxo

Deb

Membership = Rocketship?

In my neverending quest to find ways to entertain and occupy Chaos & Mayhem, I have become a big fan of the Delaware Children's Museum.


http://www.delawarechildrensmuseum.org/


A bored child is a scary thing. A bored Chaos usually ends up with marker drawings on everything in sight, including herself and the dog. I'm not making that up. A bored Mayhem generally results in a trip to an emergency room. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. We usually only end up at a minor medical emergency facility. Or they wedge a limb into one of their toys. Or wedge a toy up their nose. These are NOT exaggerations.

Anyway, based on a couple of trips to the DCM, I purchased a family membership. Nick was especially excited by this purchase and has been explaining what a
membership is to Bree. I happened to actually listen to one of these conversations. Somehow, in Nick's mind, a memberSHIP is the same thing as a rocketSHIP. I've since tried explaining that they are two different things and have not had much success convincing Nick that he does not actually have access to a rocketship. My first problem is trying to explain what a membership is to a four-year-old. My next problem is that Bree keeps packing for her trip on Nick's rocketship. I think I'll leave this one to Jason.

xoxo
Deb

Life's a beach... thank goodness!

For the second summer in a row, I vetoed our usual family vacation to Virginia Beach. (See last year's entry containing my fears of a 5+ hour car trip with Chaos & Mayhem followed by spending a week in a one bedroom hotel room with them.) Thus we packed the kids, the dog, seemingly their entire summer wardrobe (still had to do several loads of laundry), the baby sitters (opps... meant to write Nana & Poppop) and headed to their condo in Ocean City, Maryland for a week. Jason immediately put Bree to work setting up the umbrella at the beach.

xoxo
Deb

Yikes! It's the middle of July already!

It's possible that I'll have to refrain from making fun of how much time there was between Jason's posts on the old blog (www.15westbellamy.com/family) as I haven't done a new post since May. It's possible that I should refrain, but let's be honest, it's me, I'm not going to refrain from making fun of Jason about that or anything else.


My only excuse is that between heading to the beach every chance available and work, there hasn't been a lot of time to sit in front of the computer to write a blog entry. Well, if I wanted to stop doing silly things like feeding the kids and getting them dressed, then yes, I'd have time to write blog entries. If someone had told me five years ago that getting two small children dressed on a daily basis would be one of the most challenging, time-consuming tasks I'd ever face I would have laughed and then quietly mocked them to someone else. Honestly, I'll wrestle the clothing onto one child (yes, wrestle) and then turn to tackle and clothe the next child. By the time the second one has clothing on, the first child is now stark-naked and I get to redress that child. Typically the stark-naked child is Bree. We're averaging about three nights a week with dinner preparation interupted by Bree streaking through the kitchen naked giggling like a maniac. Anyway, here's a rare shot of her with clothing on. She's also wearing some foam sticky things. The girl does love to accessorize.

And in other news...

NICK IS POTTY TRAINED!!!

We're still having "accidents" but they're get fewer and farther in between. Now that I've written this, he will have nothing but accideents for the next three weeks. Sigh.

Hope your summer is going well!

xoxo

Deb

How Poppop spends his beach weekends

With Bree on one side and Daisy on the other.

xoxo

Deb

Wow.

I really have no words of explanation or description. Just going to let the picture speak for itself.

xoxo

Deb

Parks & Wreck

It's been a busy couple of months for Chaos & Mayhem. We've had holidays (Happy Easter!), birthday parties (Happy Birthday to cousin Alex, Nana, Finley, Justin, Nick and Taryn) and several trips to local parks, specifically Bellvue State Park and Paper Mill Park.

Our two trips to Bellvue State Park included the Autism Walk (Go Team T-Dog!) in April and most recently for our friend Taryn's second birthday. The kids recognized the park from the Autism walk as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. They can't remember to tell me about needing to go to the bathroom, but they can remember a parking lot from almost a month ago. Yup, that's the legendary Tokarski memory skills at work there.

Taryn's party was very low-key and relaxing, just what this portion of the Tokarski clan needed. Jason taught Bree the finer points of horseshoes and prepped her for the summer season by spending a fair amount of time shoeless in the sand on the volleyball court, much to the chagrin of the people actually trying to play volleyball. Nick, meanwhile, spent the afternoon following after Justin, his godfather Mike's son. They climbed trees, kicked balls and spent a fair amount of time trying to convince Mike to let them go fishing, despite not having fishing rods, line or bait. Kim, if you're reading this, Mike said "No" and at no point did it seem like they were going to dangle Nick in the water in place of a fishing rod.


Our next trip to the park was to one of my personal favorites, Paper Mill Park
in Newark. Nick's pre-school hosted a family field-trip which meant that the teachers, for once, got to serenely walk around chatting with the parents as the parents scrambled after the kids, trying to stop them from killing themselves and each other. After having watched the teachers with the kids in the playground at school, I can say that Nick's teachers earned their morning of serenity. The school also tricked Jungle John into bringing several of his critters to amaze and entertain our own little critters. The snakes, the turtle, the ginormous icky frog and the alligator were big hits. I swear the alligator kept looking at the adults in his/her audience and was thinking "please, God, help me" as he (or she) was overenthusiastically patted by dozens of sweaty, sticky, dirty hands. And in case Daisy ever becomes lonely and decides that she needs company (and I lose what's left of my tiny mind) and we add another pet to Tokarski household, Chaos & Mayhem discovered an animal that's big enough for them to share. The catch here is that it's a python.

xoxo
Deb

Potty training. Still.

As many of you know, potty training at the Tokarski home isn't progressing well. To be honest, it's not progressing at all. I mean, Jason and I pretty much have it figured out, but Chaos and Mayhem are simply not interested. They both generally politely but firmly refuse to use the toilet and prefer diapers. And fighting over who gets to wear the potty seat as a hat. As Mayhem is approaching his fourth birthday, I'm beyond tired of diapers. I hate diapers. Hate! Hate! Hate! Them. My dear friend (and boss) Donna has recommended waiting for warmer weather, stripping them both naked and letting them loose in the backyard, arming myself with a bowl of treats, a potty and let them figure it out themselves. I'm not ruling that idea out. We've tried everything else. In the meantime, Jason and I took some pictures of the potty training attempts and would appreciate any suggestions as to what we're doing wrong.

xoxo
Deb

Playhouse Tokarski

After three years of relentless nagging from me, Jason finally gave in and we purchased a playhouse for Chaos and Mayhem. Here's Jason putting it together:

And this is how the kids spent the afternoon once the house was assembled:

xoxo

Deb

Worn out with Winter

Between the snow and the cold, cold temps, Chaos and Mayhem are completely over this season. Until this past few days of 50 degree+ weather, I couldn't get them out of the house. To the right is the reaction when I suggested going outside and playing in the snow. If I recall correctly, I think Nick actually stuck his tongue out and blew me a raspberry when I suggested venturing outdoors. In their defense, the snow actually was over Bree's head for a good portion of February.

In my attempts to find new (and inexpensive) ways to occupy them indoors, we purchased some dreadful little creatures called "Zhu Zhu" pets. Basically, they're mechanical hampsters. I don't care how ridiculous these things are, I don't have to feed them or clean up after them. Bree's :"Zhu Zhu" is pink (of course) and white named Jilly. Nick's "Zhu Zhu"goes by Skoodles and is brown and white. According to Nick, both Jilly and Skoodles are lonely and need more friends. Personally, I think the damn things can keep each other company, but what do I know? I did break down and help build houses for them. I tried to explain that they were battery-operated and really didn't need a built-to-size house each, but I got out-voted. Again. That's becoming a theme these days...

xoxo

Deb

Hey, guess what? It snowed.

As I spent the morning throwing snowballs at my beloved, I'm exhausted. Much too tired to write much. Seriously, I nailed him a couple of times. He must have bruises.

We built a snowman. Nick named him/her/it "Bubbles." I have no idea why he chose the name "Bubbles" because I don't think our snowman resembles a stripper in any fashion.

And yes, in this picture Nick is indeed about to place a very large snowball in Bree's hood. She was not pleased.

Hope you and yours are somewhere warm and dry with lot's of hot cocoa.

xoxo
Deb

Nick vs. Mommy

Nick has been... "fun"... lately. His favorite activities generally involve screaming at me, smacking me or throwing things at me. These activities can be performed solo or combined for a really entertaining afternoon. He's three-and-a-half. And male. So, in Nick terms: Daddy rocks. And Mommy is the evil ruiner of all things fun.

Case in point: Everytime he tells me he's going to be something scary, like a race car driver or a football player, I suggest that being an accountant sounds just as exciting and fulfilling, but leaves out the possibility of crashing into a wall at 160 mph+ or having a 300 lb. creature named "Tank" pile drive him into the turf.

I love Nick with all of my heart and every ounce of my being. However, based on the current anti-Mommy sentiments, I'm boycotting all pictures of the little cherub. Enjoy the shot of Bree featuring her Disney Princess obsession.

xoxo

Deb

Holiday wrap-up

Sigh. The three Wisemen have moved out of Bree's dollhouse and back to the Nativity. The tree came down yesterday. And while our tree was shaped more like a pyramid than a Christmas tree at least we didn't actually poke a hole in the ceiling with the tree this year, unlike some other members of the Tokarski clan. You know who you are...

Chaos and Mayhem lived up to their nicknames leading up to Christmas. I tried several times to cancel Christmas as a means to threaten them into good behavior. Jason rescinded that decree each time I made it and has started referring to me as "the Grinch who tried unsuccessfully to cancel Christmas." He's not very good at bestowing titles or nicknames.

Nick really got into the idea of Santa Claus this year and is still trying to figure out what the man does now. I've suggested that he's somewhere warm and tropical, and hinted that Mommy should go check on him. Guess what else Jason has vetoed?

Despite those and other family dramas (including Nick laying down and pretending to make a snow angel on the marble steps directly in front of the alter at Church during Christmas Eve Mass - true story, even the priest cracked up) it was a good holiday season. We didn't really do anything exciting, but got to see a lot of family and friends.

Hope your holidays went as well (or even better) and we wish you happiness and health in 2010.
xoxo
Deb