Teenagers

So I've really been looking forward to a break from teenagers for two weeks. I do like and appreciate them. I could never be an elementary school teacher, don't think I have the right kind of patience, but teenagers definitely are patience testers in their own loveable ways and as much as you love them, you do need a break. Funny thing is, here I am at home, to my surprise, with a different species of teenager called the toddler teenager. She rolls her eyes at me. She tells me she's "over it", she goes into her room to listen to music, she bosses me around when we're listening to the High School Musical Soundtrack (I always want Breakin' Free, she wants "Bop to the Top"), she's moody and she has clothing issues (I want to wash the Bratz pajamas, she wants to wear them 24/7). She also got teary eyed when Troy and Gabriella got into a fight during High School Musical II. She turned to me and said "Mom, he loves her."
Me: "Yes he does Maddy."
Madeleine: "But he can't be with her."
I turn and stare at her. Did that really just come out of her mouth?
Madeleine: "It's okay, she needs to be alone right now."
Really? Is she really saying this? Oh my god, the real teenage years....the ones with dating and break ups and bitchy friends.....are going to be a breeze! My four year old toddler teenager totally gets it already! I wish I had been so astute when I was crying over guys who should have been crying over me!

Boxing Day 2007

For the longest time I thought Boxing Day was a celebration of Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and all those who sacrifice their two front teeth. It wasn't until my obsession with all things British, and my becoming a self proclaimed anglophile, that I realized Boxing Day is much more exciting than someone getting their ear bitten off on live tv. It's the day we clean out our closets, box up the old, and bring in the new! So all day, I've been rummaging and purging. I have boxes of items (mostly old toys) to give away to the needy. I was introduced to freecycle a few months back (if you're not familiar with it, visit http://www.freecycle.org/) and I have been listing things all day long.



As we cleaned out the girls closets, and made an even bigger mess than we started with, Jason uttered the phrase we all utter, with no intention of following through. "We are not buying these girls anything all year!" Yeah right. I broke that rule four hours later when I went to Nordstrom and bought Maddy some "must have" knee high socks with pom poms on them. I do agree that they do not one more thing labeled "My Little Pony", "Strawberry Shortcake" "Disney Princess" or "Pet Shop". I think we cleaned the shelves of all these items. I have to say I was quite proud of this conversation:

Me: Madeleine, I haven't seen you play with your dollhouse in months. Do you still want it, or should we give it to children who don't have toys?
Madeleine: Do we have to give them my ponies?
Me: No, I'm talking about the dollhouse.
Madeleine (thinking): (pause) Okay, you can give it away.
Me: We don't have to. I just thought..... (she interrupts)
Madeleine: Mommy let's not talk about it, I said just do it.
How charitable, and decisive.

Speaking of decisiveness - we got two bunnies. Our beloved Shabby escaped her cage a few months ago and has gone to live on a farm upstate with many other rabbits. The girls miss playing with her so they asked Santa for two new bunnies. As of now their names are Flopsy and Mopsy. Though I came up with these names, I'm not totally committed to the decision. The girls and Jason however, are. I feel like Flopsy and Mopsy are to rabbits and Debbie and Susie are to people - lovely names of course, but a dime a dozen. They are both girls so we were trying to think of famous female duos but so far Flopsy and Mopsy are sticking.





Overall, our Christmas was nice. Christmas Eve was spent at Babcia and Poppie's and Christmas Day here at home. We left cookies and milk out for Santa and even sent him a letter, express mail - Maddy worried it was too late, Jason assured her he would pay premium postage for overnight delivery to the North Pole - and after three days of obsessive bunny talk, Madeleine and Lily woke up on Christmas morning, ran downstairs and right past two live bunnies in a cage and screamed "Santa got me The Littlest Pet Shop!"



This was definitely a joyous Christmas season filled with laughs and magic and fun. I know these years will go by so fast and I try not to dwell on the sadness of that thought. I always wake up on Boxing Day with a renewed spirit. I'm ready to cleanse, not quite put Christmas away but looking forward to a fresh start of a New Year. I already miss the Christmas Carols on KOST but I'm sick of my gingerbread scented candles. My lights and decorations are staying up but my crispy Christmas tree may have to come down. I'm ready to hide the Polar Express DVD but I'm still looking for Peppermint Ice Cream in the store. I guess if anything, I'm consistent.....consistent in my indecision. So without wanting to totally put Christmas behind me, but looking forward to the start of a new year, I wish you...

Happy Boxing Day to all, and to all a good night!

Gingerbread Girls
You can't catch me I'm the gingerbread girl
Cameron, excited about how tasty her creation is!
Fancy Ruby
Real men wear aprons.....and ride Princess scooters

Haute Moms Baking Day

Okay, this was our first annual Haute Mom's Baking Day. I stole the idea from my mom and wow, what a "sweet" time we had. Everyone showed up armed with their favorite recipes, ingredients, cookie sheets, oven mitts and Christmas cheer. We nibbled on finger foods, sipped wine, and soda for some (preggie Jen) and we baked. I tried something new called a cake cookie. They were very yummy, I filled them with white chocolate chips, cranberries and coconut; then another batch was with white chocolate chips, coconut and tiny peppermint pieces. Gina made an ooey gooey PB & Chocolate treat, and Jennifer some peanut butter drops, you know the ones with the Hershey's kiss? Yum! I loved Stacy's Mexican wedding cookies, even though Tim gave them a 4 - he obviously does not appreciate a good south of the border treat - Ole! Candie made some oatmeal caramel bars and of course her famous Smores cookies. They don't hold a candle to Jason's "famous burritos" but hey, he's been making them for years - they'll get there!

The kids had fun "baking" too, decorating sugar cookies and gingerbread persons and they even got to exchange gifts with each other at the end of the night. It looks like this will be added to that ever growing list of annual events. Thank you to my sugar mamas for mixing up so much fun with me yesterday!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.....

Where the heck have we been.....you may be asking yourself. Well, everywhere it seems! Maddy and Lily started preschool together, I went back to work at La Canada High School, we moved to Chino Hills and Jason went back to work at Central Casting. Oh and we pretty much did that all in the same weekend as Jenni and Rob's wedding!

But now, we're back online and ready to once again share our fun times with you. So, where have we been......since the holidays started, everywhere it seems! 1st stop, the Merriest Place on Earth!

Happy Birthday Taylor! Pump it UP!!!!!

Oh yeah, it's as fun as it sounds! We went to Taylor's 5th birthday party at Pump it Up and I'm not sure which member of the Rupe family had more fun on the giant slide. This was not the first time at Pump it Up, we went with the Tinsley's a few weeks ago to check it out. For those who have not experienced Pump it Up, it's the new and improved Chuck E. Cheese. No skee ball, no lame hammerhead shark games, cardboard pizza and freaky animatronic mice whose mouths don't move in sync with their "voice". No, Pump it Up is an inflatable party zone where you bounce on in for a good time jumping and sliding and taking turns in the big birthday chair (yes, even Jason and I tried it out).

Candie put on a great party and once again we had a great time with the Tinsley's and all the other guests!

Pump it Up Pics

A balloon and a "pop", who could ask for more?

It's not our birthday but we still got to sit in the chair
The birthday girl!
Hot mama's think alike - no folks, we didn't plan this!

Skating Evaluation Day

Don't worry mom...I brought my "A" Game!
Our Anaheim Duckling getting ready to hit the ice!
Look, no chair!
Oh yeah, I can do tricks...

Evaluations are done and I'm movin' on up to Tots 2!

Forget Ringling Bros....

There was a new circus in town, and it is Buhac Huntington, Rupe & Tinsley Circus - and boy were the other patrons at Acapulco probably sad they picked that night to dine out. No really, we weren't that bad - we had 7 clowns (the kids) 8 jugglers (the parents), an acrobat (Lily climbed out of her high chair), a sword swallower(poor Hannah took a fork in the face)....yes we should've saved our money and just enjoyed the three ring circus that was dinner.

However, the second half of the night proved to be just as entertaining. We started out on the floor watching Asia the Elephant do a painting before the show. Tim would not have been pleased with this. He didn't attend because "the circus kills" and he wanted no part of that. How would he feel about his 17 mo. old daughters being a trunk's length away from a 2 1/2 ton Asian Elephant. The show was about to start so we headed to our seats way up in the nosebleed section, and it was just as well, there was no danger of a disgruntled tiger lunging toward us - the circus was not going to kill us!

With babies....and children over 2 posing as babies for the free admission, nestled in our laps, we were a cozy group, armed with juice boxes, goldfish, teddy grahams and bottles - and that was just the Rupe family. Madeleine was jumping out of her seat the entire time, Lily too. Lily's favorite part were the soft, cuddly "kitties" - tell that to Siefried and Roy, cuddly kitties, yeah right! My favorite part were the swaying poles, though I couldn't even watch. They had to be 100 feet in the air and people were standing on top of them....with no net! My hands were sweating and my legs were shaking. I was afraid to look because, well, you know, "the circus kills." It was impressive though - what little I saw of it. Maddy really liked the puppies and the elephants. I couldn't tell you one thing the elephants did. Why? They walked out, assumed their positions and the one decided to "drop a couple of kids off at the pool," if you know what I mean, which Jason felt the need to point out. I was focused on elephant crap the whole rest of the time. I watched the guy shovel it, I was worried he was missing big piles of it and that another elephant, or worse a dancer, would step in it. I couldn't keep my eyes off the whole process of cleaning up Dumbo's massive dump.

When all was said and done, it was a fun night. No potty accidents, no fits, no tantrums, no crying....and all the kids were well behaved too. The circus as a show was even better than last year. There were more acrobatics, a lot of the classic circus stuff like tightropes, more trapeze, better animals - although we did have a Zebra go down in the very beginning, he ran into his ring and hit the floor but don't worry, he was okay. It was quite the "Bello"bration and well worth the risk you take when you go to a place that "kills".

Why Happy Feet and Polar Express are SCARY movies!

I've posted the latest pictures of Madeleine's ice skating lessons and thought I'd give you a run down of how lessons are going.

Lesson One

Loves the skates, wants white ones, doesn't understand why she has to wear the brown rentals.

Maddy: "These are not my favorite. They're too....too.....just brown."

Mommy: "Maybe if you stick with ice skating, Santa Claus will bring you pretty white ones."

Apparently this option is acceptable. Off to the rink with Taylor to find their class. We enter the rink area and I see Maddy surveying the scene very carefully. It turns out skating is a HIT! She loves it! Taylor and Maddy are in Skating for Tots, Lily and Austin sit on the sidelines with goldfish and teddy grahams. Cut to end of lesson, Madeleine is crying....

"But I don't want ice skating to be over!" Yes! Score one big point for Ice Skating!

Lesson Two

So we start with complete enthusiasm about getting the skates on, wearing a pretty sweater, having fun with Taylor.....it's time to go out on the ice.....tears, tears and more tears!

Maddy (screaming): "I don't want to do skating!"

Where did this come from? She spent the entire lesson two crying. Cried through skating, cried through standing, cried through sitting in her plastic chair while the teacher pushed her around on the ice, cried through it all.

Lesson Three

Maddy: "Mommy, I was crying last time."

Mommy: "Yes you were, but ice skating is fun."

Maddy: "Yes, I love ice skating. I'm going to be a big girl."

Phew! Maybe last week was just a bad week. Everything was fine until it was time to go out on the ice and then, once again came the screeching "I don't want to ice skate." I'm baffled as to what is freaking her out.

Mommy: "Maddy what is wrong? You loved skating last time!"

Maddy: "Is this the kind where you go through?"

Huh?

Maddy: "You know, it breaks and you fall in? With the water?"

She's desperately trying to make me understand, and finally I do. It turns out we've watched Polar Express and Happy Feet one too many times. The poor thing was terrified that the ice would break when she was on it and she'd fall through! Whether she has some mad ice skating skills is yet to be determined, but I have learned that without a doubt she has inherited her mother's overactive imagination. I guess I will have to teach her to use her powers only for good.

Goodbye Myspace Hello Blogspot

Okay fans, I have made the transfer, gone legit, if you will. No more will I post my blogs on Myspace.....in fact, I may even (gasp) phase my Myspace page out. I've gone on to bigger and better things, like Facebook. So when you need a dose of Rupe musings, pictures, updates or for whatever reason, find yourself with an insatiable appetite for our mundanely pedestrian lives over here in Rupeland, log on over and see what's up with Jason, Kerry, Madeleine and Lily Paige.

http://rupethoughts.blogspot.com

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