Love/Hate

I love Trader Joe’s Maple Leaf Cookies! I opened the box, and my kitchen smelled like Emmy had spilled a whole bottle of maple syrup on the floor. Mmmm! Syrup! These cookies are incredibly good, especially the maple syrup cream! I’m a maple syrup convert…my parents don’t like syrup, so we never had it growing up. I never knew what REAL maple syrup tasted like until Ed convinced me to pour some on my french toast one day. It was a bottle of 100% pure maple syrup, the real stuff, not diluted “maple flavoring.” I converted immediately! (Although there’s nothing like a little butter and sugar on pancakes.)

Getting Emmy dressed in the morning (a feat in itself considering Emmy is TWO) is such a pain when I have the cutest pants for her to wear with an adorable matching zippered sweatshirt, and no matching shirt to go underneath. I rummage through her dresser like a mad woman looking for something…anything…to wear under said sweatshirt. This is why Emmy often clashes. These two-piece sets should definitely be sold as three-piece outfits. Just one of my pet peeves.

Do you have any love/hate you’d like to share?

Which Witch? Or Maybe Not a Witch At All

Yesterday morning I found myself at Walmart. Walmart is the LAST place I want to go on a Saturday morning. The parking lot is full, the lines are long, and the place is a mess. Unless you get there before 9:00 a.m. Which is the LAST thing I want to do on a Saturday morning.

Friday night, however, right after we put Lily to bed, we heard sobbing coming from her room. Ed and I both raced up to her room to see what was going on. It turns out that she was the ONLY witch in her preschool class, and she didn’t want to be a witch for Halloween.

Our hearts broke.

She wanted to be fancy for Halloween, and her plain, black witch dress just didn’t cut it. All her friends were either: 1. fancy princesses with wands that lit up, glittery shoes and shiny crowns, or 2. ladybugs. She was the only witch.

Ed and I both understood.

So the next morning found me at Walmart with Lily and Emmy, looking for a fancy princess Halloween costume. The only one that was left was way too big for her, but I knew there were dress-up princess dresses in the toy section. The only problem I faced was that once we got home, I knew Emmy would want a fancy princess dress, too. These dresses were $20 each, and I WAS NOT GOING to spend $40 on dress-up clothes.

In looking further, I found something called a “Fairy Dress-Up Trunk,” and for $17 we could own 3 fairy skirts and shirts, and an assortment of fairy accessories. Fortunately, the term “Fairy Princess” fit right in to Lily’s fancy vocabulary, and we brought home the fairy trunk. The girls happily played dress-up for the rest of the morning, Lily was able to be a fancy fairy for Halloween, and both Ed and I were able to have two little happy girls. If they’re happy, we’re happy!

And here are the trick-or-treaters, in their costumes, ready to ring some doorbells! (The little puppy is our neighbor.)

(Fortunately, Emmy decided to be a bunny, not a fairy, because it was pretty chilly trick or treating this year.)