Lots of Fun on Halloween

One of the girls asked me the other day, "Why do we celebrate Halloween if it's about evil spirits and stuff?"

My answer was a question: "Do we celebrate evil spirits?"

Of course not.

We celebrate candy! :)

We don't really "celebrate" anything, except for the fun traditions of carving pumpkins, eating goodies, and dressing up. We celebrate good times with family that go way back. My Grandpa James started it, I guess. Maybe enjoying Halloween goes hand in hand with enjoying a good prank.

This is my grandpa with Katelyn, on Halloween several years ago.

Notice Doug's costume above...the family traditions continue!

My mom sewed the best, most beautiful, and elaborate Halloween costumes for us when I was growing up--until we turned 12, and then we were cut off from homemade costumes and Trick-or-Treating. (What a great mom! She went the extra mile to make things special for us, but she knew when enough was enough!) Some of my favorites: a purple Maid Marian costume in 2nd grade; a lacey bridal gown, complete with veil and bouquet of blue flowers; and--my most favorite of all-- a gorgeous, satiny Miss America evening gown, complete with a real hoop skirt.

I tried to follow in her footsteps, and create beautiful and unique Halloween costumes for my own little girls. I hit my peak with this little number

and believe me, we have gotten many years of use out of it! I've made sure of that--it was a royal pain to make!

So after that, I succumbed to the racks of treasures at second-hand stores and after-Halloween clearance sales. But even if I don't sew the costumes myself, we take great excitement in choosing our costumes each year. Come August, it's time to bring down the chest of costumes from its storage spot, and start hunting for any new items we might need to add to it.

For example, I found these dresses at D.I. one August, and was inspired with that year's costume idea.

A little accessorizing and....Adorable, right?

My daughters take after their mother, and love to dress up in something flowing and beautiful....most of the time. This year, Hannah chose to be a witch. But next year, she'll be wearing the gold dress I made. It's ok, I have faith that she'll come around. In fact, I recall wearing a witch costume in Kindergarten. My mom even found some black tacky stuff to put on some of my little teeth. (Like I said, the extra mile!)

And of course, a big part of the anticipation of dressing up is adding a touch of make-up. This year, as an added bonus, we have Aunt Jennifer in the house, who can create a princess hairdo extraordinaire.

She can even help a spooky witch look glamorous:

And there's nothing evil about that.

The Real Fairy Tale Princess

Once upon a time, two young and silly parents were blessed with an incredible, beautiful baby girl. (Well, actually, at first sight, this newborn baby was sort of gray and puffy, but within a few days, she transformed into a beauty!)

This baby grew quickly into a little child, and she was loved by all who knew her. She was brilliant and clever, cute and sweet, and just plain good.

Then one day, this magical little girl turned 11 years old. Her parents could not believe it, because at the age of 11, the girl was beginning to look like a grown-up kid.

She wore grown-up clothes

she ate grown-up foods

and she rode a brand new grown-up bike.

But the parents still considered her their baby, and they still loved her like they did when she was a squishy little baby, but even better, because they knew so much more about her, and they liked what they knew. They knew that they had indeed been blessed.

It wasn't the last one, after all....

Yesterday was a beautiful day! Sunny all day, blue skies with no clouds, and temps in the 70s. Can you believe it? In October! What a perfectly pleasant surprise.

Guess what the sunshine inspired me to do: Wash my windows. Wow, with the sunlight shining through, I could see how dirty they really were. You would think with all the rain, they would naturally stay clean, but no... So I dressed in short sleeves and spent the afternoon washing my windows. Doug helped me set up the ladder. (He worked from home yesterday.) The hardest windows to clean were the front, 2nd story bedroom windows. I had to climb on the roof to get to them. And I almost fell to my death once. And after taking that kind of risk, I'm not completely satisfied with those two windows. But at that point, I decided I'd rather have my windows less than perfect, and still have an unbroken body. :)

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the sun!?

Pesky Neighbors and Incentives

Question: What happened to our back fence?

Here's a hint: There are four culprits. They are all young, mischievous, have lots of hair, and some people consider them to be cute. (No, they are not our daughters!)

There really were four of them. This was last Sunday afternoon. We used to believe that racoons are nocturnal creatures, but around here, they're 24-hour party animals. Maybe it's because of the constant gray skies. Sometimes even I lose my sense of time in this place.





Now on to part two of this post.

Question: What will motivate Lauren to learn to ride a bike?

Answer: A new bike. It's not really "new", but it was new to her. It was a hand-me-down from our friends, from their youngest son, who has outgrown it. I love it when incentives come free! I don't think Lauren knows it's a boy's bike, but I don't think she would care. She was so excited to get a new bike. And it didn't come with training wheels. So Lauren decided it was time to learn to ride. Doug pushed her for about 3 steps and then she was off. He says, "She was ripe." Well, she is almost six years old.




She was so proud of herself. Of course, starting and stopping are the tricky parts, but she can pedal like a champ. And she is anxious to practice some more tomorrow. It will probably be raining, but does that matter? Nope.

2 in a Row

I'm one of those people who get sick on spinny rides. I always have. As a little girl, I would spin anyway. In the neighbor's spinning chair, on the merry-go-rounds at the park...I would spin until I got too sick to keep going. But it didn't take very many years for me to grow out of that sadistic tendency. I learned that I don't like feeling sick to my stomach. It's similar to feeling carsick, which I also experienced more as a young kid than I do as an adult--probably because now I'm always sitting in the front.

I don't know if this is how other mothers would describe "morning sickness", but it's the best way I can describe the way I've felt, basically 2 days out of 3 during the last couple of months. I'm grateful that it's been mild, but still, it's annoying.

But guess what--I've been feeling pretty good for 2 of the last 3 days. I'm crossing my fingers, hoping that this means I'm crossing a threshold. Now, if I could just talk my bladder into not waking me until morning...

Anger Management

Our home teacher came for a visit today. And it was probably my most embarassing moment in a very long time.

Katelyn sat pretty still, and even made a couple of sensible comments.

Emily was playing with a marble, as loudly as possible. She was rolling it along the coffee table, rolling it around in a decorative bowl, sucking on it, and trying to keep it away from all of her sisters.

Hannah kept calling our home teacher "President Hinckley". (He is pretty bald, but he's not very old!) She brought him books that she wanted him to read to her, climbed on his lap, and gave him hugs, when she wasn't running, dancing, or climbing around the house.

Lauren--where does this kid come from?? She was just plain goofy! She was stacking dominoes and knocking them down, gathering dust on her hands and clapping it in the home teacher's face, teasing him about his bald head, and calling him names like "Beaver Pants".

Meanwhile, Doug and I were trying to keep a handle on our wild children while still maintaining pleasant conversation with our guest, and then listening to his message about--guess what--not getting angry. Hah! I'm pretty sure our kids were set up to be a part of the lesson, for both us and our home teacher.

If we have new home teachers next month, I will not be surprised.

This may be the last...

Saturday was a glorious, sunny day. It had been a while since we had had one of those, and I loved it! Emily had a soccer game that was about a 45 minute drive away, in a more rural town that had several farms and open spaces. With the sunshine and fall leaves, it was a beautiful, enjoyable drive. It was nice to sit through Emily's game and not be wet or shivering the entire hour. She has really enjoyed soccer this season. She had her first goal (in a game) last week, and she had two assists yesterday. She also was in charge of bringing the after-game snacks, and she had decided a long time ago that when it was her turn, she wanted us to bring powdered min-donuts. They were a huge hit with the girls and the parents! Wow!

We had time for a really short family bike ride in the afternoon, which was bittersweet, since all I could think was, "This will probably the last bike ride we take for months!"

On the bright side, however, we are looking forward to lots of birthdays and holidays and a few family visitors during the next few months. Jennifer is going to be joining our household soon, and if nothing else, that means at least one good thing: convenient at-home haircuts! I will be so happy to have some family living close!

I'm sure Hannah will love watching Jen at work, too, since she has definitely shown an interest in feminine fashion and primping. She loves make-up and dress-ups. This morning as I was drying my hair and getting ready for church, Hannah came in, opened my make-up drawer, pulled out her favorite lip gloss, applied it to her lips, put away the lip gloss, stood on her tiptoes, looked in the mirror and puckered her lips and said a few inaudible words to make sure her lips shined enough while she was speaking. I guess she was satisfied, because she climbed down and left the bathroom without saying a word to me. I'm not sure she even noticed I was there, she was so focused on her adorable self. I think I know what she wants for her birthday next month...

And if Hannah is the last little girl we ever have in this family, she's certainly a good one to end with, because she wouldn't leave us wanting for anything more girly than herself!

Good Times With Gerb

I got to spend the weekend with the one-and-only Gerberta. Let me tell you why Gerberta is such an outstanding friend.

a) Do you know anyone else by that name? Nope, I didn't think so. Not many people can say they have a BFF named Gerberta. I can.

b) She didn't even get irritated when she had to wait at the airport for 1/2 hour for me to pick her up. At least, she didn't act irritated. She was her smiley self.

c) We both enjoyed a few waxy chocolate donuts during the weekend. Thanks, Gerb, for turning me on to that good idea of a snack. We also enjoyed cheesecake, Thai food (did you enjoy it Gerb?), and even hot dogs (at 10:30 am) together. Good thing we both have pregnant appetites.

d) Yes, that's right. Once again, Gerberta and I are going through the ups and downs of pregnancy at the same time. (She's not the only one--there's a whole slew of babies coming next spring--but that's another subject...) The ups, such as, she got to come to my ultrasound with me last Friday. And the downs, such as crying over something silly at the grocery store, and spending lots of time on the couch.

e) We love games. We squeezed in Settlers, Blokus, and Ticket to Ride this weekend. And she's not a sore loser. ;)

f) We are quite the bargain shopping team. Her visit coincided with the semi-annual city-wide Yard Sale. We didn't let the freezing rain or driving in Doug's old, breaking-down car deter us from our bargain hunting. It was so much fun! And, I'd say it was successful. When Gerberta arrived on Friday, she brought with her a purse and one duffle bag. But she left with all this:

g) Gerb understands that my home (especially when I'm pregnant and hosting company and dealing with a delicate potty training situation--once again, another story) is not a showcase, but a lived-in space. And even though we all love a spotless, glamorous place, she was ok with my imperfections.

h) We're both sure that at least one marriage will occur between her (going-on-nine) kids and my (soon-to-be) five. We're betting on Herbie and Hannah. It's the easiest and most legit way we can figure out to become "family". But to me, she feels like family already.

The Biggest BOO!

Every October, we get BOO!d. Someone comes along one night, early in October, and leaves a Halloween treat and a BOO! sign on our front porch. We've never caught the BOO!ers. This year, I realized that the first day of October happened to fall on a Monday, so I determined that we would be the ones to start the BOO!ing for FHE that night. We took buckets of candy to 3 families in our ward, and had a giggling good time doorbell ditching them (even though our crew is not the sneakiest around, I'll admit). Since Monday, I've seen a few new BOO! signs on other people's houses, so I knew the ball was rolling. And I was feeling so smug about being the first BOO!er this year.

Last night, just as it got dark, there was a loud knock on our own front door. Not expecting anyone, my first thought was, "Who could that be?", and then a split second later, I realized, "It could be a BOO!" I ran to the front window, anxious to catch someone running away from our front porch. I didn't catch the BOO!er again this year, but what we did see made us all gasp and laugh hysterically. Check it out:

I'm pretty sure this is the biggest BOO! ever. The garbage can wasn't full of candy all the way to the bottom, but it did go a good 6 inches down. Here's the loot, all organized into individual flavors:

Bummer of a time for Doug and me to be on a sugar diet, don't you think?!

My Gift

Happy Birthday Mom! Actually, it's a Happy Birthday/Happy Mother's Day present. Expected to arrive around May 10th. :)

I know it doesn't look like much now--it's only about 1/2 inch long. But I'm pretty sure that in 7 more months, it will be an adorable little thing!

The New Do

Jennifer cut my hair for me yesterday. It was the longest it had been in about 16 years, which was fun for a while, but took too much time and effort (unless I just stuck it in a ponytail, which was not very attractive for a woman my age ;) ). So I had been thinking about cutting it for quite a while, but this time I finally got the courage to do it. I really like it. It feels like the new, old me.

This morning I was getting myself ready for the day and enjoying the ease of my new style and how little time it took to dry and finish my hair. Just as I was finishing up, I heard a crash downstairs, and Hannah started crying. So I ran downstairs to see what had happened, and this is what I found...

Good thing my hair only takes a fraction of the time to dry and style now! Just imagine the trouble she could get into when my hair was longer!