Tonight's Reason #385 For Why Katie Cannot Go To Bed Now:

"My feet are too big."

I pointed out that Daddy's feet are even bigger and he was planning to go to bed shortly.

Interestingly, it seems to be quiet now. Maybe too quiet...

Katie turned three years old today. Because I had to go to a Capricon meeting tonight -- which meant missing dinner with daisy_knotwise, Katie, and Julie -- we went out to Red Robin for lunch. There, they brought Katie a little chocolate sundae and sang their happy birthday song for her. Katie was delighted.

On the way home, we stopped at the bakery and picked up a small cake, because there had to be candles some time. Katie insisted. :)

And Katie had a decent haul of presents. Julie gave her the "Melody Time" DVD that Daddy had picked out, while Mommy and Daddy gave her several Dr. Seuss books and a box set of Curious George books. And there was much reading as a result.

But not when the cake was present, as you'll see.
( Photos and cake inside... )

Today is Katie's birthday, about which more later. But before I get around to that, I owe pictures dating back to the pre-WindyCon 36 era. Like, for instance, November 1st, the day when Julie turned 18 months old.
( Photos inside... )

daisy_knotwise has decided that it is time for Katie to have a haircut. Given that she'll be three years old next week and hasn't yet had one, I suppose she's correct. I especially suppose she's correct given how little Katie likes to have her hair washed and brushed.

But I recall how my father used to cut our hair. One false move and it was time for a crew cut.

I'm hoping Katie didn't squirm too much.

I went to Sam's Club and the Jewel to pick up supplies for dinner, as I'd requested Superburger as being really, really easy to chew. And fried potatoes. Also really, really easy to chew. But we were out of onions and low on potatoes, so first to Sam's for those. I would have picked up more ground beef there too, but they were out, so I'll grab some tomorrow so we can make meatloaf. (Chorus: Really, really easy to chew!)

I also picked up several birthday presents for Katie -- a selection of Curious George stories, three Dr. Seuss books in a bundle, and the classic Disney music DVD -- as we're at T-minus seven for her third birthday. Those all remain safely hidden in my trunk for the moment.

When I called daisy_knotwise to let her know that she'd need to thaw the remaining ground beef in the freezer as I'd struck out on fresh, I asked her if there was anything else she wanted from the Jewel other than buns and Julie formula.

"Yes," she replied. "I want something wonderful, but I don't know what."

So I promised I'd look. And on the way there, I realized what the correct wonderful thing would be. So when I walked into the Jewel, I started to head toward the bakery section, except the wonderful thing was sitting on the display right as I walked in.

Pumpkin pie. I picked it up and dropped it in the cart. I made sure to pick up more pressurized whipped cream, because I didn't want to run out in mid-pie, along with the other Superburger ingredients to replenish what we were about to use up, and the Julie formula.

When I got home, I announced to Gretchen that I had found the wonderful thing and produced the pumpkin pie. Not at all to my surprise, she concurred.

So later in the evening, we cut up the pie, giving a small piece to Katie, a fair sized piece to me, and a big piece to Gretchen, as I warned her that Julie would mug her for part of her pie.

Boy, did she! Eventually, she was grabbing the remains of the pie out of Gretchen's dish and chowing down on it. And Katie also requested more pie. So Gretchen got more pie and got Katie another small piece.

And there was much pie. And it was good.

And there is still one large piece left. :)

Nobody here is desperately ill, but no one is exactly well either. Katie has a loose cough, Julie has some serious nasal congestion, daisy_knotwise has been under the weather for a bit and hit the wall this evening, and I've been fighting off a cold all week.

I think I'm also about to lose a tooth.

It's been more than a week since I came home from OVFF, so numerous details are starting to fade. In some cases, that may be good. :) But let's see what I do remember.
( Con report inside... )

I still owe pictures of the girls and an OVFF report. However, daisy_knotwise was out tonight visiting a friend who is recuperating from surgery, so those will be a bit more delayed.

On the other hand, I got a good bit of actual work done today. :)

When it gets to be November 1st (and Daylight Savings Time ends), it's hard to continue the delusion that it's still really summer. Accordingly, I have removed the cushions from the new patio furniture and stored them on a shelf in the garage until next spring. daisy_knotwise and I have to figure out where to put the items that the cushions displaced, but they're less bulky than the cushions. :)

I picked up a three-pack of licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium today and am installing it on one of the laptops. Having tired of staring at counters slowly incrementing on a screen, I grabbed the second laptop to get online with. And thus I'm here.

And Julie is eighteen months old today. After her bath -- which should remove the fine layer of chocolate that she's coated with following Halloween! -- there will be pictures. :)

We've had two groups of trick or treaters come by so far, but it's still early. According to the Des Plaines website, trick or treating is recommended to stop at dusk. I suspect that won't be the case.

I'll be going out with Katie and Julie around 5 PM. daisy_knotwise will be staying here to man the candy bowl.

In the meantime, the treat on our end is that I have taken advantage of this opportunity to rearrange the furniture in the dining room to make more space around the table, mostly according to Gretchen's specifications. This looks like a substantial improvement so far. :)

And the third group of trick or treaters has just arrived. Katie is demanding "More kids!" Mind you, she's also giving candy out by the handful. Obviously, she hasn't internalized that she's getting the leftovers. :)

After the last few nights when Katie fell asleep like a log, tonight's bedtime was more adventuresome. On the fifth or so intervention, I went into her room to find out what was wrong and was told quite earnestly that "Jet take rocket soup." Now, daisy_knotwise had been explaining to Katie that she was hearing jets from O'Hare. But what this had to do with rocket soup (jet fuel maybe?) was a mystery to me.

Until Gretchen explained that there's a character named Rocket in Little Einstein's and that they'd brought him soup on a jet.

Right. "Jet take Rocket soup."

Well, that makes more sense.

daisy_knotwise and I continue to mull over going to GAFilk. The problem is that Gretchen doesn't get to see much of the evening activities if she's having to put Katie and Julie to bed. It would be possible to exchange names in that problem and have me put the girls to bed, but then I miss most of the evening activities, so either way, one or the other of us isn't where we'd like to be.

We were wondering if anyone knew of a responsible young person who would be interested in picking up some extra money by watching the girls in the late evening hours. They're pretty much night owls, so they aren't likely to go to bed before 10 PM in any case.

The existence of such a responsible young person wouldn't guarantee that I could lever Gretchen, Katie, and Julie into the van with me for a trip to Georgia this January, but it would help the odds. :)

Ok, we'd planned to invite samwinolj and Carol (who is in town helping her mom) over for dinner tonight. Sam and I would watch the animated Green Lantern DVD that I'd picked up (and which Katie eventually joined us for, although she was a bit disconcerted by the larger number of explosions than usually occur in the Hundred Acre Wood), then we'd make cookies, and grill some burgers for dinner.

But when daisy_knotwise went to the grocery store with Katie, she came out with marshmallows. So Katie and Julie were already well sugared up before the cookies came out of the oven.

It was an interesting evening.

But the conversation was excellent!

Before I could leave for lunch today, Katie insisted that I turn on Rock Band and sing "Eight Days A Week" for her. I may have created a monster.

In a good way. :)

Rock Band: Beatles for the Wii arrived just before we left for ConClave. I carefully did not open it on Monday, because the cleaning lady was coming on Tuesday and increasing the amount of mess around seemed counter-productive.

Tonight, I set it up and we gave it a try. Katie is interested in the drums and guitar, but we have to get her to actually pay attention to the game long enough to do something.

Of course, she's not three yet. :)

When it was time for Katie to go to bed, I told her that I would read her one story from her Curious George book. She then proceeded to "read" the other five stories to me. Memorized and fragmentary, but I'd say she really wants to be able to read the book.

And it did postpone bedtime by about five minutes. :)

We're home from ConClave. We had a good time, about which more later. Since we forgot to turn the heat on before we left, the house was at 55 degrees when we got home. Katie announced that she was cold, walked into her room, crawled under the covers, and went to bed.

Will wonders never cease? :)

I made a bottle for Katie and she headed off to her room. By the time daisy_knotwise was done putting Julie to bed, Katie had grabbed her favorite Tigger and Pooh blanket off the basket of clean laundry, shoved her other covers aside, curled up underneath it, and gone to sleep.

Aw.

You know, it's that cute thing that helps them survive to adulthood. :)

And because I couldn't sleep, the website is now updated with the lyrics to everything except "Albuquerque". That one's not done because I need to get the chords from a songbook in Julie's room and I really am not going to chance waking her up.

Aside from everything else, daisy_knotwise would justifiably yell at me. :)

We went out to lunch at Red Robin earlier today, then proceeded home. While doing this, we were listening to the new Phineas and Ferb CD. Did we mention that Katie really likes Phineas and Ferb? And since jeff_duntemann mentioned that he and Carol would really like to see some new pictures of the girls...
( Photos inside... )

Tonight, I'm trying to catch up on various WindyCon related matters. Things like stuff for the Program Book and website.

Wish me luck. I have little girls who want the laptop. :)

If you had two innings in the "How long will Bill and Katie stay at the baseball game?" pool, you're a winner!

It actually wasn't too cold, as the wind wasn't in our faces, but Katie started wanting to leave her seat in the top of the first inning. Substantially aerobic exercise ensued before I gave up after two inning, fervently hoping that there would be a bus to take us back to the parking lot.

After about 15 minutes, there was. Fortunately.

Katie wants to go to a Cubs game. I had planned to blow off the Cubs game tonight, because it's cold and I have things that I could be doing. But I'm running out of Cubs games this season and they're giving away Fergie Jenkins bobblehead dolls tonight. And the tickets are a dead loss if I don't use them.

So we're going to bundle up and head down to Wrigley Field. And if Katie wants to leave earlier, well, I really won't mind.

Wish us luck.

We're winding down the rehearsal schedule for the SpaceTime Theater show at ConClave. This was our next-to-last Saturday rehearsal, which was a scheduled day off for Dawn (who had her kids) and an unavoidable day off for Greg (who needed to cover for Cary who was required at the Capricon meeting, because having your hotel liaison there is a lot more important than having the guy who is running your filk program). So we spent the time running through the bits that didn't include them, pulling out and practicing with the sound system (which we haven't done in a while), and -- after a late lunch! -- coming back and going through the prop boxes. Sam and I left Bonnie, Steve, and Gretchen to do that while we kept Katie occupied outside and safely away from the assorted attractive nuisances inside.

Overall, a successful session. And I need to remind Sam that he needs to make lemon squares for next week's rehearsal.

Maybe this post will work. If not, I'll try something less subtle.

So daisy_knotwise got back from the nursery with the 21 rolls of sod in the back of the minivan. And just as I went to put it down, it started to rain.

The problem is that we have things to do tonight that involve driving out to Schaumburg with the girls. That's not going to happen with 21 rolls of sod in the back of the van. The sod needed to come out. And once out, it needed to be put on the spots that needed sodding.

So Gretchen and I were sodding in the rain with the girls happily running around the yard and periodically trying to steal the knife she was using to cut the sod. Eventually, we finished.

And we were all very wet.

Gretchen is currently bathing the girls. Then she gets to clean up. Then I do.

And it turns out that I still need two more pieces of sod to finish off covering the dig at the bottom of the yard. I thought that I'd need at least three pieces -- it turns out that four would have been more like it, and one piece got cannibalized to fill in holes up around the patio.

Maybe later. :)