It's been 4 months. That must mean...

Well, I haven't posted in 4 months so you know what that must mean...yep, pregnant again! When that fatigue hits, I can barely get the kids in bed before I'm falling asleep on the couch, much less get on the computer. Well, and it didn't help that our computer crashed and we were without it for a couple months. But now that I think I see a little bit of light coming over the fatigue-horizon, I seem to sometimes have a little bit more energy. So here's to seeing if I can start posting again!

A week of Days

Last week was Red Ribbon Week at the kids’ school, so the theme of the week was Say No to Drugs. Each day highlighted the message with a fun dress-up activity.

Monday: Pajama Day “Don’t let drugs destroy your dreams.”

 

Tuesday: Hippie Day “There’s nothing peaceful about drugs.”

Blair almost didn’t dress up because she was so worried about “looking silly.” Her outfit ended up being her normal clothes that she wears all the time, with the hippie addition of a flower in her hair. So I guess she “looks silly” every day? Silly girl.

 

Wednesday: Silly Hat Day “Put a lid on drugs”

 

Thursday: Nerd Day “Be smart, don’t start”

(Blair didn’t want to “look silly” so she didn’t dress up.)

Sloane and Elise had their Halloween parties at school on Thursday, so they got to dress up too. Elise’s unicorn costume was sent to us by my good friend Jill (thanks again!). She looked so cute in it, so I was happy that she didn’t try taking the hood off, although she did have a little trouble walking in it since the head was top-heavy. :) Sloane dressed as Sloane—which means she wore exactly what SHE wanted to wear…yellow and blue dress, black pants, pink shoes, and a green striped sweater.

 

Friday: Crazy Clothes Day “Don’t be crazy, don’t do drugs.”

Reid received this shirt for Christmas last year. I thought it was cute and thought he would like it, but he refused to wear it, saying it was too crazy. So I pulled it out for Crazy Day this year. After school, I asked if his shirt was really all that crazy, and he finally admitted it was not. (aha, I won!) Blair, as you can guess, didn’t want to look too crazy so she wore this dress. When I asked her why she didn’t dress crazy, she replied, “Hel-looo, I’m wearing a polk-a-dot dress with pajama pants and brown shoes and there’s no brown in my dress. That is crazy!” Well, excuuuse me!

 

Monday: Halloween Costumes “Don’t let drugs disguise you.”

Blair was originally going to be Minnie Mouse or Wonder Woman for school, but after the Halloween Festival at our church, to which she wore Cinderella at the last minute, she decided to wear the same dress to school too.

Oh, and to back track a few days, their Fall Program at school was 80s theme so we had to come up with 80s outfits for them. This outfit, accompanied with a side ponytail, is the most Blair would wear because, and I hate to sound like a broken record, she didn’t want to look too crazy. (Funny how she is so concerned with looking silly or crazy, yet there are some days where she doesn’t match a bit, and when I try to tell her she looks silly, she refuses to believe me.) Reid wore Jeremy’s Hammer pants from his high school days. Yes… I’m sad to say my husband actually wore those things out of the house! In fact, at one point in the evening, Reid said, “I found this paper in the pocket” and handed it to us. It was a movie ticket stub from a showing of Misery in 1990! Talk about a blast from the past.

We’ve got orange guts. It must be Halloween!

 

Ahh, the smell of Halloween. There’s nothing like cutting open that pumpkin and smelling that, um…pumpkin smell…

As always, each of the kids got to gut, design and carve their own pumpkin, with a little help from mom and dad.

 

Sloane drew her usual smiley face.

So cute.

Blair used hers as a canvas and covered it in art.

I think there are a couple dogs on there, a few different faces, and even some words.

Reid had to make his just perfect.

It could almost be confused with a fake one from a craft store!

Ooh, spooky!

And Reid carved a tiny little one—we’ll just call that one Elise’s.

And Blair would not let us stop until we roasted pumpkin seeds. We did salted ones and cinnamon and sugar ones. I thought they were disgusting—they don’t really break apart when you chew them, which I’m quite certain has to do with me having no idea how to make them—but she loved them!

Halloween 2001—Part Boo!

So the church Fall Festival is behind us and we're ready for the big night. The big game. Showtime! It feels so good to actually have all the costumes put together and to not be running around the afternoon of Halloween, like a headless chicken, trying to make final arrangements. And what a relief it will be to not have a huge creative mess waiting for me after a busy night of trick or treating. Wait...what'd you say? Jeremy really does want to dress up after all but he still needs a costume? And Blair is changing costume ideas yet again? And how much time do I have to crank this out, get everyone fed, dressed and out the door? A mere two hours? Yep. That’s how we roll at our house...  All kidding aside though, I was super excited that Jeremy was letting me make something for him so he could dress up. The kids really wanted him to, and I know he secretly likes it, although he won't be too loud in admitting it. And, well, Blair finally settled on my old Minnie Mouse costume, so how could I say no to that? And it's not that any of these things are difficult to make; they're just difficult when you're pressed for time and trying to do 20 other things at the same time. In the end, the incessant “Mama! Mama! HEY!” for snacks, cartoons and potty assistance, and my “That’s it, I quit!” proved to be worth it. We had a fun-filled night of trick or treating with friends and everyone was happy with their costume.




Unbeknownst to us, Elise had a "really bad bacterial infection"
(per the dr the following day) so she was not up for a good time.
She was carried the whole night. I tried to put her down at the last house so
at least I could say she T-O-T but she cried even for that.
She did get to eat a sucker though--it was the only thing to keep
her quiet and some!

 

We scrambled to make the ears at the last minute.



We liked the spooky houses.

 

And there were plenty of them in this neighborhood.



Couldn't run from house to house fast enough.



The Three Musketeers--we T-O-T with them every year.



The Three Musketeerettes holding hands down the sidewalk.



What???



I bet you didn't gnome he would dress like this.

Rainbow's little legs couldn't quite keep up with the big kids.



The biggest little people you've ever seen.



Forget what I said about not having a huge creative mess
to clean up after a busy night of T-O-T...

Halloween 2011 First Look

We had our church Halloween festival last night, so you get your first look at Halloween 2011!

The challenge I gave myself this year was to spend no money on Halloween costumes. Nada, zip, zilch. I usually do pretty good at keeping costs down, but it never fails that there is always something I have to buy, even when making my own costumes. However, I have so many supplies of all sort, shape, make and model that I knew I could do something with it all, so I was excited and up for the challenge this year. Let's see how I did...

A couple months ago, I showed Blair some of my childhood costumes, and instantly, she clung to the Minnie Mouse costume my mom made me when I was in 4th grade. I was really excited to pass that down to my own daughter. Well, then my sister sent some costumes that her kids had grown out of, and when Blair saw the Wonder Woman costume, THAT became the costume of choice. Well, one of them. If you know Blair, you know how she loves a good wardrobe change. When she grows up, I'm positive she will either be a runway model, where she gets to wear 15 outfits in one night, or a musical performer in the likes of Cher. So, with that in mind, you can guess that she decided to have more than one costume this year. She decided she would wear Wonder Woman to our church Halloween festival and to school and wear Minnie Mouse when trick or treating (because it's a warmer costume and would be better when running around outside). That plan was fine with me because they were both equally cute. However, at the last minute, a couple hours before the church party, she completely abandoned that plan and decided she would be Cinderella, wearing one of our ratty old dress-up dresses that we've had forever. I mean, this thing was so gross, we had to give it a quick wash in the bathtub (where the water quickly turned brown), and cut off all the frayed and torn edges. But, I knew I wouldn't be able to sway her otherwise, so that's what she wore. I was still hopeful that she would wear one of the other cute costumes for Halloween night, but she's already informed me she's going to be Cinderella and warm up with tights and a sweater. Yep, she already has it all planned out! Thinking back, I'm not sure why I thought she would be anything other than a princess...she was Ariel last year and Snow White the year before, so it's only fitting that she continue down the line.

Reid is much less concerned with his Halloween costume. Again, thanks to my sister, we had an Indiana Jones costume, an Obi Wan Kenobi costume, and this Luke Skywalker costume for him to choose from. The Luke costume was the largest of all 3, but that's the one he wanted to wear, so we went with it, even though he looks a little like a convict. I didn't realize until after we were at the church party and I saw a few other boys in the same costume that we forgot 2 important pieces of it, but I don't know if Reid even noticed. We'll get it right for Halloween night, though.  

When I asked Sloane what she wanted to be for Halloween, she kept going down the princess line too. Well, I knew that at her age, I might still have a little influence over what she wore, so I wouldn't give up. I saw her playing with a rainbow ornament (rainbows are one of her current fascinations), so I thought I'd throw that out there as a suggestion. To my surprise, she liked it! So in my effort to not spend any money, I rescued a long sleeve white shirt from our Goodwill-donation box and found some gray pants that were stained and that she wasn't going to wear anyway. I borrowed some paints, and started striping. I was trying to figure out how to make a sun for her head and lucked out when I came across this leftover foam crown in my craft supplies. More digging uncovered cotton batting that I was able to use for the cloud around her waist. When I asked her if she wanted to help me paint, she jumped right in. She asked my what we were painting this for and I reminded her of her rainbow costume. She said, "MAMA! I TOLD you I wanted to be a superhero!" I said, "No, you said you wanted to be a rainbow, remember?" She replied, "Oh, I was just teasing [about being a rainbow]." So I said, "Well then, you can be Rainbow Girl." We even made up a song and everything. :) In case you're wondering, her special power is making people happy by shining down her colors on them."

And what's a rainbow without a leprechaun to live at the bottom of it?!! Jer and I were debating over who got to be the leprechaun...I ended up winning because I had the most leprechaun-ish clothes. In retrospect, I'm not sure that's a contest I should want to win. But anyway, the base for the costume was just a button-up white shirt and black pants rolled up like knickers. I paired it with some old white trouser socks that are a holdover from my office days and some black loafers. Our Goodwill donation box, again, provided the green overshirt. Some white felt clovers, a green ribbon tied like a bow tie, and a black purse filled with gold fabric (for the pot of gold...no, don't feel bad, I know I'm the only one that got that connection...that's okay...I'm happy just amusing myself) finished the outfit. Next came the hat...ahh, the hat...you see, years ago, we bought a leprechaun hat because we (or more likely, I) thought it would be cute to dress up a two-year-old Reid as a leprechaun. Well, that costume never materialized, and with each subsequent two-year-old, the thought always entered my mind but never came to fruition. Meanwhile, the hat continued to occupy the kids' dress up toybox. So imagine how thrilled I was that, finally, we were going to get to use that leprechaun hat! It was, afterall, the basis for my entire costume idea. I eagerly went to retrieve it. I couldn't find it. I looked everywhere. I could not find that stinkin' hat anywhere. I was so mad that my whole costume revolved around this hat and now I didn't even have it. (In hindsight, I think I threw it away this summer, as a desperate measure to get rid of things that always seemed to be in the middle of the floor yet were never actually played with. I know, seriously, of all the years to finally decide to be a leprechaun, I have to pick the year that I actually got ambitious in decluttering my life??) So, in keeping with the spirit of my challenge, I tried to make a couple other hats work, and they would have been great had I been going as a leprechaun who pimps in his spare time. But I wasn't. So I had to say no to those. I also tried to figure out how I could make a hat, but let's face it, hat millinery is not in my skill set. So I broke down and bought one. But--but!--I justified it as a legal purchase because we had had a leprechaun hat for many years that I would have worn had I not gotten all gung ho on my cleaning spree. Stupid New Year's Resolutions. Oh, how much did this new hat set me back? Only $2. :)

Finally we get to little Elise. For years, I've wanted to make someone a peacock costume. Feaful that she will be an overly independent 2-year-old next year and refuse to wear a cute, original costume that I want to make for her, I decided I better get my peacock costume in this year, just in case she refuses next year. I drew up a template and started assembling. The inner workings are a piece of cardboard, wires, skewers, a piece of thin quilted fabric, and elastic. For the outside, I had originally planned on using turquoise for the tail feathers, but alas, I did not have a large piece of turquoise fabric. I was really stressed about what I would use since I wouldn't allow myself to go buy anything, but then I lucked out (again!) and came across a big section of green fabric (leftover from mine and Jeremy's Jolly Green Giant costumes in my college days) in my fabric box! Any combo of green, teal, blue, and purple scream peacock to me, so I went with it! More digging uncovered enough fabric scraps to be used for all the accent pieces. When it was all said and done, I used leftover aqua fabric from Sloane's first-ever Halloween costume (Miss Piggy since she was quite the fat baby), gold fabric from one of Aunt Denise's--and then subsequently my--formal dresses from earlier years, lavendar fabric from one of Aunt Melissa's formal dresses from high school, and teal paisley fabric (which I added to the purple and white tutu) from Blair's Little Mermaid costume last year. It's like a modern-day version of a quilt! Speaking of the tutu, it was a past Christmas gift made by Aunt Amy (thank you Aunt Amy) and we already had a green shirt and purple pants to be used as the base. And the aqua beads in her head feathers were once salvaged from a broken dress-up necklace. (You're probably picking up on the fact that I can't convince myself to ever throw away perfectly good craft supplies, no matter how insignificant they seem at the time. You just never know when they will be the perfect accessory to another project!) In the end, I was happy with the way it turned out and even happier that I was able to do it without spending a dime! Mission accomplished!

This one I had to include just because I like it...her coping mechanism is sucking her thumb while playing with her belly button. We have (or had) a hair-player, a blanket-sniffer, a hair-twirler, and a belly-button-player. Odd bunch.  





“Baseball, this is Reid’s Nose. Nose, this is Baseball”

Yes, the two were introduced at baseball practice the other night. Judging by the looks of it, I don’t think they got along very well! It looks like a fight broke out and Reid was in the middle of it.

The night of the incident 9/6. It was worse than what it looks in these pictures. We didn't take him to the doctor, but we assume it wasn't broken. He was given the option of leaving practice right then or getting back out there, and to his credit, he wanted to go back out and finish practice, bloody nose, glove and all!



Two days after


3 days after


4 days after