Funny morning

I just had to document this morning.

Christopher went to tell the kids to get dressed and ready for school, but I got out of bed quickly when I heard him shouting.  Apparently Kaitlyn was in the middle of writing a paragraph on the walls when he walked into their room.  So of course he was furious and she was sobbing (since she knew she was in big trouble).  I figured I would let that cool down for a minute and help Tyler get dressed.

Tyler's dresser is actually one of the ones that his Daddy used when he was little - and I'm sure my mother-in-law bought them at DI or a garage sale before that.  Hence, one of the drawer fronts has been threatening to come off for a month or two.  And this morning it finally popped off.  I thought that Tyler was crying because the wood bonked him when it came off, but that wasn't it.  He looked at me and started sobbing tragically.  "Mommy!  You . . . you broke it!"

The funniest part was that every time he looked at me this morning, he started to cry and get after me for breaking it again.  I had no idea mommy destroying his furniture could be so traumatizing.  Daddy had to get him ready for school, since he would stop eating breakfast and start crying again every time I tried to talk to him.

Of course, Daddy assured him that "I know, Mommy broke it, didn't she?  But don't worry, I'll get you a new one, buddy!"  Sigh.

Anyway, he made the bus, and so I helped Kaitlyn scrub her handiwork off the wall so she could get to school.  And I asked her to read it to me, since she has her own way of spelling everything at this point.  (Mostly, she skips all vowels.)

"I love Heavenly Father SO MUCH even though he lives all the way in Heaven." With check marks for Tyler and Kaitlyn.

Sigh.

And then I came downstairs just in time to see Jasmine take one crawling step.  (She's been threatening to do this for a while, and while I know I should be proud of her, mostly I like not having to have every single shred off the floors at all times and dig out the baby gates.)  I think we still have a few more days until she fully figures it out, but pretty soon nothing will be safe.

Ahh, Mondays are great, aren't they?

Costumes (Part 2)

So, what about the rest of us?  Well, I made good use of the BYU surplus sale.

Christopher's came perfect.  Well, I hemmed his pants, but that's it.  Mine took a bit more work, since the only women's top left was actually meant to go under a tank and ended just below the bra line.  So I added a bit to make it work.  And since I already made the skirt for Kaitlyn, I figured I might as well add some length to her top as well and then we could all match.

She even wore it two weeks ago when we went to go see the BYU parade.  So her costume went from this (last year):

To this:

As a side note, one of my favorite parts of the parade was laughing at Tyler.  This parade hands out almost as much candy as Trick or Treating does.  But one he got his first handful, he wanted to just sit and eat it.  But Daddy would rouse him out of his chair and interrupt to tell him to go get more candy.  And then he would try to go back to sitting and eating, and he really got annoyed with how much he got interrupted.  What is the point of getting candy if you won't let me eat it?

Anyway, tonight we all went to our neighborhood party.  We figured we should try and act the part, but this was the best stunt we could pull off!  I was a cheerleader for a year in high school, but as you can see I wasn't a very good "flyer".  I was much better at flag corps.

But the party was fun, as always!  There was face painting and games, which the kids loved.

Daddy conquered the ghost pepper chili challenge, which included signing a waiver so the Hazmat suit guy could hand you your portion.

And Jasmine liked getting pushed around in the stroller for a bit.

Followed by chili and donuts.  Yum.  I love our neighborhood!

Oh, and last night was the annual pirate party, too.  I had a friend do my hair and makeup for the night, which was really fun.

Kaitlyn saw the picture of Daddy carrying me away and asked me if Daddy is a real pirate.  Funny girl.  He did enjoy playing the part though!

Halloween Costumes (Part 1)

I don't care how much my husband makes fun of me.  This is one of my favorite things all year: making costumes.  The hardest part is usually figuring out what they can be.  Kaitlyn is on her own planning now, and  she says she's still deciding.  But Tyler and Jasmine still go along with whatever I make!

So what is Tyler "into" right now?  Well, he is really all about coloring and drawing lately.  He still loves singing his songs all day, though not as much as last year.  But his favorite thing in the whole wide world is his best friend, Ruffy.

Ruffy is a webkinz beagle that Tyler picked out from a group of donations to his preschool class.  Ruffy gets into some mischief every day with Tyler, but Tyler is sure to tell Ruffy "no no!" when he eats things he shouldn't or lands on everyone else's heads.  And Ruffy also loves to lick everyone on the face!  One day, as Tyler headed to school, he picked up Ruffy on his way to the door, said "bye, bye Tyler" in Ruffy voice as Ruffy "waved" to him, and then set him down and ran to the bus.

So maybe Tyler could pretend to be Ruffy!  I started to look at dog and puppy costumes for inspiration.

Um, no.  Yikes.  Not only are many of them . . . odd looking, but every single boy in them was 2 or younger.  I needed a way to make a slightly more grown-up version of Ruffy dog.  And then I found this store on Etsy.

And I was in love!  They are animals, but not meant for babies.  And instead of just wearing the costume a few times, Tyler could wear a coat every day to school if he wanted to!

Now, I'm sure the seller could have made me a really nice one if I paid her enough.  But the designs she already has made are $150, so a special order would be even more.  I'm sorry, but the only article of clothing I ever paid more than $100 for was my wedding dress.  Not to mention, her coats are dry clean only, which has no place in the life of my 6 year old boy.  By all means, if any of you have that kind of money and want a 100% wool coat, go for it!  In my case, not to steal her idea, but . . . it was time to make my own version.  And to make it a bit more of a costume, I made some pants at the last minute for Trick or Treating, while the coat can be for all winter if he wants too.

I made mine out of corduroy,  lined with black polar fleece for warmth.  Obviously it loses the polished look of the original, but is now more comfy.  My only regret is that the hood doesn't stand up as nicely as hers do.  I wasn't going to add pockets originally - my kids never use them - but then I realized that Ruffy needed a place to live.  So I had Tyler write out Ruffy's name and embroidered it onto a pocket.

Oh, and those buttons!  I love them, but they were cursed.  I figured they would be a nice touch, but lost two different sets of them in my house somewhere.  And then I sewed one of them upside down twice in a row.  Sigh.  They were worth it though!

And now Tyler loves to put it on and pretend to be Ruffy dog whenever he can.  Success!

On to Jasmine!  I tried to brainstorm, but . . . she's a baby.  She isn't exactly excited about any one thing in particular. And our nickname for her, Squish, comes from Finding Nemo when Dori names the jellyfish Squishy.  Turning a baby into a jellyfish wasn't a good idea.  Not only would it be hard to make and hard to wear, but it wouldn't even be cute.

And then I saw these at Costco and caved.  Ladies and Gentlemen, my first ever entirely store-bought costume:

I made something to go with every costume I have ever bought before.  A tutu to go underneath and add fullness, a belt, something.  But there was nothing for me to do here. And for $13, there was no way to beat it.  She can use the shirt and tights all winter, and the elephant is stinkin' cute.  So I'm just done!

Jasmine loves hammin' it up for the camera.  And Tyler loves to smoosh her!  I do think she missed them when we went on our trip, because she seemed so bored.  But now that we are back, she can go back to sitting in the family room and watching all of their antics all day. This boy is still her biggest fan, though!  He loves to play with her and talk to her.  So now they can be animals together for Halloween!

Someone else's vacation

Christopher had another management retreat this last week.  And don't get me wrong: we had a wonderful, relaxing time in a beautiful hotel, in a picturesque city.  But it sorta felt like we were on the wrong vacation the whole time.

Because why on earth would people who don't drink alcohol go to Napa Valley, California?

Of the eleven couples, I think 3 or 4 actually drink wine.  But in Napa Valley, our room had a complimentary bottle ready for us.  You are surrounded by winery tours that have a tasting at the end.  Even our breakfast at the hotel had champagne for us.

Not that I am going to complain about it.  Just laugh!

Our first event was actually really serendipitous.  It turned out that we flew into Oakland just hours after my dad flew into San Francisco.  So he drove over and had dinner with us the night we flew in.  Jackpot!  We knew some other people who lived in the area, but had decided ahead of time that since we only really had two and a half days there, we weren't going to try and drive all over the bay area.  Especially since we had company things almost every day.

So the next morning was taken up with a group breakfast and meetings.  I dragged my husband out for a walk after that, but then he declared he wanted to chill in our room.  And, in his defense, it was a really nice room.  We actually had our own little building!

So I went off to explore the shops, and when I came back, Jasmine was asleep.  And then, a few minutes later, we had this:

This is my husband's ideal vacation.  Relax, sleep, lay by the pool.  But I love to explore new places and check out museums and GO!  So I wandered out and took a photo walk.

This restaurant, just steps from our room, is "ranked one of the top three restaurants in the world!" and created by some world famous chef I had never heard of (that my mom knew right away).  At $250 a plate, I suppose it better be amazing.  They did have a cool garden across the street where they grow the food they serve.

I went back to our room: everyone was still asleep.  So I found a rose garden across the street.  Taking pictures of flowers in such a perfectly manicured garden is so easy it is like cheating, but it's fun anyway.

When everyone finally woke up, I was still in camera mode and Jasmine was happy.  So I had fun taking pictures of her.  I figured I would document what actually happens.  See, when Jasmine smiles, all the arms and legs go into happy dance overdrive!

I usually have to wait for them to settle a bit before I - CEILING FAN!

It's like the squirrel in the movie Up.  Gets her every time.  And then her daddy makes her laugh.  She loves smiling at him.

So hopefully I can get the perfect shot, like this one . . .

Before she decides she needs to lunge for me and eat my camera.

Anyway, the next day, I informed Christopher that it was time to go and do and explore.  My turn!  So we went to go see a castle, built by someone who has far, far too much money.

He was so crazy that he built this 105 room castle using the methods and techniques of ancient castles.  Most of it is for the winery, but there are some regular "castle rooms" too.

And at the end of our tour, we got to ask the baffled server for some grape juice to taste.

After that, we headed to the Petrified forest, where a volcano and thousands of years of geology turned trees into stone.  But when we got there, Jasmine was sleeping, and Christopher said he wished he could just stay and sleep too.  So I, once again, left them and headed off on the adventure alone.

Only it wasn't that cool of an adventure.  As one person said in their review online, "trees turned into stone.  Yep.  That's it."

It was amazing, but they basically look like fallen trees unless you touch them.  So I finished and went back to the car.  And then this guy pulled up!

Shop owner: "Wow!  What made you decide to put pens and markers all over your car?"
Pen car guy: "I don't know, I just woke up one morning and decided it would look cool."
The amazing part is that he looked like a normal guy.  With a really, really, not normal car.

And I told Christopher to check out the gift shop, because they had really cool, polished versions of the petrified wood that were more fun to look at than the big ones.

The next day was my favorite though.  It was Christopher's birthday, so we slept in and stayed at the hotel as long as we could before checking out and heading down to San Francisco to see the redwood trees.  And that was one of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen!  I couldn't stop taking pictures, but the pictures can't do it justice.  The trees are too majestic to fit in one frame, and the cool, damp smell of their wood made it a spectacular day in nature.

And of course, my husband is so in love with burning wood in our stove at the cabin that one his way of measuring how awesome they are is "wow, one tree alone might be 80 cords of wood!" (A cord of wood is a cut woodpile that measures 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet,)

Nerd.  All joking aside, we did talk about that atrocity of that.  I'm not an environmentalist that tries to protect tiny bugs or anything, but the fact that people cut down acres of these trees astounds me.  How could you not respect trees that have survived fires, earthquakes and anything else thrown at them for a thousand years or more?

How could you feel anything but awe as you walk quietly in their presence?

This forest doesn't even have the tallest ones.  These cap out at a mere 258 feet, instead of the 379 feet tall ones further north.

What amazed me the most was their determination.  Fallen trees would sprout new growth.

They even have a blackened tree that burned, and all the roots around it grew up into their own tree.  I saw trees that had fallen over sideways, and then sent up shoots vertically from there.

If only we all had such resilience.

After that, we figured we would run through the major San Francisco stuff as quickly as we could before turning in our car.  We drove over the Golden Gate bridge and down Lombard street (the really, really curvy one).

And we stopped at Ghirardelli square and bought way, way too many chocolates to bring to everyone at home.  It was a great trip, even if Jasmine has developed this noise we entitled "the pterodactyl screech" that she made whenever she wasn't getting what she wanted.  We aren't fans of that.  But she's cute enough that everyone forgives her for it quickly.  And the kids had a great time at Grandma's house, as usual, so all is well.