Viva Las Vegas! and Paris?

The whole fam headed into the desert to celebrate Christmas. And I mean the WHOLE fam. Jeremy's parents flew out and we all stayed with my parents at their new digs. I was expecting some warmer weather, but it was chilly (my parents claimed it was a dry cold, lol). On the big day my grandpa (the girls great-grandpa), my aunt and my cousin came in too. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone and watching the girls. My parents sent Jeremy and I along with his parents on a helicopter ride into the grand canyon. It was awesome! http://homepage.mac.com/chrisnoonan/PhotoAlbum45.html
That night Jeremy and I headed into town on our own. We started at Bellagio, which was fantastic, then crossed the street to Paris. We decided to grab some dinner, but had to wait 45 minutes for a table. Well, what are you going to do? So we sat down at some nickel slots. We each put in a dollar, but upon realizing you need $2 to bet all the lines, we put in 20's. Well, I doubled up pretty quick, and Jeremy was steadily losing. 5 minutes had passed. So we cashed out and decided to look for something else to do. That's when I saw it. The Tiki Torch slot machine seemed to be calling my name. We walked over, and Jeremy announced it was a penny slot. Oh. We did a walk around, but I thought no, let's play it anyway. $40 in a penny slot. That should kill another 30 minutes. The credits were in, and I hit bet max. That's when something strange happened. Three little pearls lined up, and there were free spins, and the winnings started adding up as I pressed the automatic spin button, and 'coins' started shooting out of the image on the screen. Jeremy announced I had one $10. Wow. But the thing was still spinning it's free spins, and then I had more free spins, and more coins and Jeremy is laughing in my ear. I hear him say, "$1, $10, $2, $10" He's reading off the winnings from all the lines that won. The next thing I know, we're looking at the winnings count, which is much higher than my credits remaining. In fact, it says over $100. But it's still spinning. I'm just laughing at this point. There was well over $300 by the time it was done. Jeremy asked, "You want to cash out?" I wanted to, but I had only pushed 2 buttons! I made a couple more spins because I felt like I should. And cashed out with $321.50. Not bad for penny slots! We then headed to the gift store, got me a t-shirt, and had a fabulous dinner and still had plenty left over. So if you ever make it to Las Vegas, head to the Paris and find my penny Tiki Torch slots machine. It needs some more deposits for my next trip out!

Going to school?

Cassidy went to her new preschool yesterday for an 'assesment'. She passed with flying colors. But when she walked into the classroom without me, my heart started to break ever so slightly. At least the crack started so that I am going to be very thankful to have Jeremy with me on her first official day, so someone can hand me tissues. It's a great Montessori school, and they have a great playground with a few goats, chickens and a duck. I'm sure Cassidy will have a blast.

Hanging with the Cassidy's

Yesterday was a very rainy day that meant no trips to the park, but we did get in touch with the other Cassidy's parents. They gave us an invite to come over for some food and drink last night along with some of their other friends. Our Cassidy proclaimed, "I want to go to the other Cassidy's house, and I want to go in the wagon, and she will say, 'Wow! You came to my house in a wagon.'" So we decided that was a good way to go since the clouds had finally cleared. All the kids played and seemed to get along well. No screaming fits, and only one person cried because of toy swipping. The parents all hung out in the kitchen and just ate on munchies and had a few drinks. Well, Jeremy had water, and Robyn had 2.5 glasses of wine. It was over several hours, and I didn't feel it until I got home. Thankfully Keira went down easily and Jeremy got Cassidy down without much trouble. We had adult conversation and talked about the kids with them. It was a nice mix. Hostess even pulled out a camera to take pictures of our Cassidy. I'm guessing she wanted proof to show family and friends. When Keira started fussing at 6:30 on the dot (her bedtime) every one was talking about getting together again after the new year. Woohoo!

How to start your own business in one week

Once we moved to Washington we realized why fleece is so popular out here. A) It's cold. B) It rains. We had some problems going for walks with Cassidy though. She would always kick off her blanket and it would fall under stroller getting caught up in wheels or dragged through puddles. Makes it so you don't want to put it on your baby anymore. So I came up with a "sock" to put over her that wouldn't fall off. I was so amazed that I couldn't find what I wanted in the stores. Well, Jeremy and I talked about trying to make it and how we could sell it, etc. Then we were moving into our house and then oops! 'out of commission' for the next year. Well, this fall, I busted out Cassidy's old "sock" for Keira. Again, amazed that no one had put it out there yet. So on Tuesday I whipped up a new and improved version. Which caused Jeremy to REALLY start talking about how to get them on market. I threw out the ever optimistic, "Yeah, but how do you find the place to make them and to do all the stuff that needs to get done?" Well, I threw down the gauntlet and Jeremy took the challenge. We have a web site reserved, a trademark registered, samples coming from fleece and tag companies, pricing for sewing contracts, and packaging options. How did this happen?? I'll post a link and some pictures soon. And I expect everyone to order one for every baby and pregnant woman they know!

Cassidy meet ... Cassidy?

So quite an amazing thing happened just over a week ago, but I keep forgetting to blog it. And when I say quite amazing, I'm not kidding.
I needed to get out of the house, and since the weather was awful, we thought to try McDonald's so Cassidy could play on the playland (see previous blog about when we finally got there). Well, apparently it was an early release day for all the schools, so Mickey D's was like a zoo. We just hit the road and ended up at a park near Jeremy's work. As we headed towards playground a little girl who looked around Cassidy's age, started running towards us. Her Mom said she was excited by the prospect of a playmate. So I prompted them to start conversation and Cassidy said, "I'm Cassidy. What's your name?" The other girl replied, "Cassidy". We looked at her Mom, and she said, "Did she say Cassidy?" "Yes" "Wait, her name is Cassidy too?" "Yes"
Well the Cassidy's started to climb on the equipment and us Mom's got to talking about the girls. How our Cassidy will turn 3 in February. At which the other Mom asked, "What day?" "The 21st" Turns out her Cassidy turns 3 on the 23rd!! Well folks, buckle your seat belts because we're just getting started.
Other Mom, "So where do you live?" "Education Hill" Other Mom, "Yeah..." "Abbey Road subdivision." "Yeah.... We live on 108th" "We live on 110th, which I think turns into 108th if you follow it around." Turns out she has also had a hard time meeting people besides a few neighbors. She also found a similar problem with her neighbors that we have, NOSY! Other things in common: She was on her way to be in her best friends wedding, and I just got back from doing that. I mentioned we were in Hawaii, they were there in April. Her mother lives outside of Boston, just like Jeremy's parents.
We are anxiously awaiting their return so we can get together with them. It's a small world after all.

Cassidy at McDonald's Playland

I was feeling under the weather today, and thankfully Jeremy took the day off of work to take care of his 3 girls. I decided I wanted 'bad' food for lunch so we figured McDonald's would be good. Plus they have an indoor playland so Cassidy could go down slides and generally run around and have fun. We were the first ones there, and Cassidy took awhile to venture in to the tunnels. Then more and more kids started to arrive. At first, Cassidy would just yell, "Daddy" and hope he would chase them away. It seems that she thought that this playland was ALL hers. After several attempts, she finally went in again, and actually played a little bit with some of the other kids. Then a few more seasoned playland 'vetrans' arrived. Well, they could tell Cassidy was a little more timid, so if she was starting to go for the entrance they would race around her and scoot on up before she could make it there. After one boy really cut her off, Cassidy made a disgruntled, "argh!" turned to us and said, "I'm very frustrated!" Then took off and in for one last time down the slide. Needless to say, Jeremy and I were laughing, and I'm pretty sure the other parents were green with envy that our little 'princess' not only put her emotions into words, but had such vocabulary to boot!

Operation: Sleep through the night

After Keira pulled an alarming wake up 3 times in one night, and since Jeremy always brings her in to me if he goes to check on her, we had to come up with a new plan of attack. We decided to go with the 'extinction' method. Sounds hard-core and tough because it is. We knew that Keira could handle it though. So after putting her down for the night, we closed her door, instead of leaving it open like we normally do. That way when she woke up at 2:30 am her screaming wouldn't be too loud for us or her sister. After 5 minutes, all was quiet. Then at 3:30 am, she tried a second attack. This time Jeremy broke down and went in, but he only returned her pacifer and was out of there. About 10 minutes later, all was quiet again. 6:45 am, which has been her too early wake up time the last 2 weeks, which was another reason we decided to stop with the waking up at night, she's sleeping like a baby. Of course, Cassidy woke up then. Keeping our fingers crossed that last night was the worst of it.

Batteries

It's amazing how quickly kids learn. Cassidy understood at about 18 months that if a toy wasn't working, that it probably needed batteries. So it's not surprising, that she tells me when a toy needs batteries. Yet, she surprised me yesterday. She was playing her harmonica and pulled away a little bit so the sound sort of went soft. Suddenly she looked up and said, "Mommy, this needs new batteries." "Really?" She puffed in half-heartedly and the harmonica made a squeally sort of sound. "Yes, it needs batteries."