Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! (Vampire, Jasmine, Nancy Drew, Lion)

Patience is a Virtue

Sometimes B has the patience of a saint. She spent an hour reading this VERY LONG version of Alice in Wonderland to her sisters. I swear that book takes as long to read as the movie takes to watch. I don't think they cut a speck of content from it.

Guy Smiley

The teeth on this guy break my heart. They are the most beautiful teeth I've ever seen. I don't know why I'm obsessed with them...but I am. Don't judge me.
He really, REALLY, likes to play peek-a-boo. His favorite location...in my bed.
"Seriously Mom...you totally don't know where I am. I am wearing camouflage. I know you can't see me."
"Ahhhh! You found me! Oh the hilarity!" This never gets old.

Fortunately

B's teacher read them the book Fortunately yesterday. She fell in love with this story. She told the whole thing to us in the car on the way to music lessons yesterday afternoon. We laughed like hyenas. Then they started making up their own Fortunately styled stories. I started to tell Daniel about it last night and he said, "Yeah...she already told me...the WHOLE story." Apparently she told everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if she called Grammy and made her listen to the entire reenactment.

Closet Raider

I owned this hat and these bracelets for less than 1 day before Bells "borrowed" them. I think she looks like Mary Stuart Masterson in Some Kind of Wonderful...I count that as a victory for my attempt at 80's accessories.

Freaking Piece of Junk

I'm about to throw my laptop out of my bedroom windows and into the Monsoon. I can upload pictures from my camera to the server, but I can't get them back off to post here...or anywhere for that matter. Why do laptops only last 3 years before they start getting dementia? I do not want to buy another one. The genius in residence has not been able to figure out what is wrong with this one. That does not bode well for its future. It is acting like it has a virus...but it doesn't. Every time I need a new computer I say, "Honey, just get me something cheap that is good enough to do my work on." And every time I end up with an extremely heavy, enormous, expensive monster that has overkill written all over it. Sigh. I swear I will not let him replace this one when it dies. He has proven himself incapable of technology restraint.

B also had a Halloween party to attend this weekend. She decided to go with a vampire-ish look, instead of Nancy Drew for the party. I think she just wanted glitter hairspray and red streaks, but what do I know? She had fun. We still need to get pumpkins and have 2 nights of Trick-or-Treating this weekend. It will be busy.

Pirate Photos

(Thanks to Rebecca for the photos)

The pirate event is finished, yay! It turned out well. Brooke did an excellent job of hosting. As you can see in the photo below, X escaped from the babysitters near the end. Now I am taking off my assistant hat because it's my turn to play hostess for an all girl 80's party. If you have any awesome ideas feel free to pass them along.

Berenstain Bears

I have a longstanding love affair with the Berenstain Bears. We have approximately 65 Berenstain Bear books dating back to somewhere around 1983. My kids love them just as much as I did. This post is not so much about the Bearenstain Bears though, as it is about my insanity.

We also love the Berenstain Bears show that used to be on PBS quite a few years ago. They also had a Saturday morning version when I was a child. But I digress, we recently changed our cable/phone/internet over to Comcast which has left us with On Demand access to some episodes of the PBS show. Which reminded me...every time I've watched that PBS show in the last several years, I've been convinced that the voice of Brother Bear is Michael Cera. Yet every time, I've forgotten to look it up. It's one of those annoying little things, like when you are trying to remember who played a certain role in a movie and can't remember, and you become totally obsessed with it until you HAVE TO go look it up. Except, I kept forgetting to look it up.

I finally looked it up today. And was thoroughly satisfied to find out that I was correct. Now I can stop obsessing about it everytime we watch the darn show. I know...it's shocking that I don't have bigger things to concern myself with. But seriously, little things like this drive me crazy. I need to get a life.

Costume Solved

I decided to go to my local Goodwill Select store to attempt to piece together something Piratical for an upcoming event. Jackpot! I knew I could count on you Goodwill. Target of course had the overpriced costumes that fall apart if you look at them wrong, and I am so glad I decided to take the time to just piece something together myself. I picked up a bohemian style long black gauzy skirt (size L, I'm going to have to pin it to fit), a black button up lace shirt (gag), and the most hideous gold ruffle vest that you've ever laid eyes on to go over the top. I also picked up some ghetto fabulous striped brown suit pants that I'm going to shred up for Daniel and a light tan gauzy shirt. I know we've got swords around here from the kids pirate costumes last year. I basically just need a couple of adult sized pirate hats or head scarfs, and some big ole hoop earrings and I'm calling it good. I'm so glad that is taken care of.

Target solved my Nancy Drew costume problem for Bella. I couldn't find any plaid skirts there in her size, but they did have school uniform pieces for super cheap (like $3) on clearance. So, I grabbed a light blue collared shirt, and a pleated navy uniform skirt. Bought 2 pairs of navy argyle knee high socks (pinned one sock from the extra pair into a thick headband), and grabbed a cute pair of brown preppy flats that I think really enhance the Nancy Drew factor. Now we just need to dig up the magnifying glass that is lost upstairs. Maybe she can channel Nancy Drew and find it when she gets home.

Vampire makeup, teeth, and glitter hairspray for Juli...check. Still need some costume jewelry to glam it up a little. Already had a red cape and black velvet dress.

The little lion and princess Jasmine costumes are ready to wear and don't really need any additions...though I did try to find some cute Jasmin-esque shoes unsuccessfully. If Disney Stores still existed I would just go pick some up. Well, maybe they still exist, but all the ones I knew of closed.

Houston Fire Museum

We did a field trip today with our preschool friends to the Houston Fire Museum. Other than the fact that we booked a tour, and no one showed up to give us a tour...nor did the guy running the place seem to care about that little issue at all...we had fun. Not that I'm bitter, ha ha.

Xander wrestling Phoenix for the wheel of the firetruck.

My friend Suzy helping Leia down the fire pole.

Leia did not want to take off this fire gear.

Feeding the ducks and misc birds at Hermann Park.

Lollipop Guild

And I wonder why my carpet looks so awful...it is clearly my own fault.

One of the thousands of reasons my kids are the best:

Juli is home sick from school today, fever, headache, sore throat. Belle got home a few minutes ago. Within minutes of coming home I noticed her running upstairs to check on her sister. Then she came down with Juli's water bottle, filled it up, and ran back upstairs. I think she is in there sitting with her now. How precious is that?

Zoo

We went to free zoo day yesterday with some friends. Xander has really woken up to the world since the last time we went. Above is his first time through the fish tunnel. I took the picture below because he spent most of the day with his finger pointed like this at every creature he could see. He enjoyed this area the most because so many of the animals were up close where he could really look at them. Many of the exhibits are so big that it is hard for him to see the featured animal.
Leia seemed a lot more interested in the animals this trip also. I guess they are growing up. We had a nice, up close view of an elephant getting his bath this trip. Don't ask me why I didn't take a picture, probably because it was pouring rain and we were all squeezed under the little roof like sardines watching the elephants.

My babies in the eagle's nest.

The bear was down next to the wall instead of up in his usual area. I'm not sure how he got down there, but he just kept pacing back and forth.
I thought this plant was pretty. I have no idea what it was. The leaves/flowers reminded me of a bouganvilla.

Leia and I enjoyed watching this lizard eating his salad.

Posing outside the reptile house.

This was also the first time I've gone to the zoo with a single stroller in almost 7 years. It was CRAZY. It is a whole different world getting around with one skinny little lightweight stroller.

Diaper Fail

Diaper FAIL

Conference Weekend

Look who recently discovered the television.

During General Conference weekend we tried a couple of new things. I printed out Conference Packets for the girls. They did pretty well with them. I also tried my hand at homemade yeast doughnuts. They looked and smelled delicious...the taste was mediocre. It was kind of a disappointment, considering the amount of mess and effort that went into them. We enjoyed conference nonetheless. I still need to load the audio of the sessions onto my Zune though. Sadly, I have a very difficult time paying attention to the sessions with Xander demanding my attention every 5 minutes. I'm looking forward to listening.

Stud Finder

Daniel has spent the better part of the past 2 weekends working on the built-ins for the niches in our family room. X is all over that. Here he is demonstrating how to use a stud finder. He presses it up to the wall and drags it across...just like Daddy. The kid has never met a tool that he isn't intensely interested in. I like to hold the stud finder on his tummy and say, "beep...beep...beep...I found a stud!" He thinks that is hilarious. At least someone around here appreciates my comedy.

This blog depends highly on photos. If I don't have photos...I can't seem to generate anything to talk about. My laptop has been disagreeable for the past couple of months. It kept telling me that it was running out of space, but no amount of deleting seemed to remedy the problem. Daniel finally got around to figuring out where all the memory was being wasted, and it looks like I'm back in business for unloading my camera. It was so full that I couldn't even load the photos from the camera through my laptop to save on the server. Watch out for a post explosion.

The Garden

I have a weakness for documentaries. It drives my husband crazy. He thinks they're "boring". Today I watched the Garden. I would recommend it. However, fair warning...it is frustrating. That's the problem with documentaries...they often don't have happy endings. I guess that's reality for you. Emotionally, I felt like I was watching Glenn Beck footage, or someone equally infuriating (I really can't stomach that man, despite the fact that several readers here love him). You come away feeling the opposite of uplifted. What is the opposite of uplifted? I know that does not sound like a very positive review of the film, but it was still worth watching. I would recommend it...if you enjoy documentaries that is. I totally did not mean for this post to turn into a political post. However, it is a political film, so I suppose it was bound to happen.

How Do People Do It?

I've recently made the decision to cut back my already limited work hours from 15 hours/week to 10 hours/week (I work at home, for those who don't actually know me in real life). It seems that just taking care of the 4 peas and running my household takes all day, every day. Which left me wondering, as I washed 5 sets of sheets this morning...how do working moms...or working single moms do it? I just can't figure out how. I'm awed by the magnitude of what their schedules must be like. I suppose with there only being 24 hours every day, one just has to make choices based on the amount of time available and their family's priorities. So, for the sake of my sanity...which is directly proportional to the happiness of my family...I had to cut back to the minimum. Minimum that is without outright quitting and not "working" at all. I've done the not working at all thing before, and it just doesn't suit me psychologically. I need to find the balance, which for me...is somewhere between not working and working very limited hours at home. So far...so good.

B reading Wednesday morning before school. She prefers mysteries right now.

The stud of my life.

Pirate Whore

I have really been slacking on the blog lately. It's basically become a log of the kid related happenings...and nothing else. I will attempt to remedy that.

My random observation today you ask? Why are all Halloween costumes for adult women so trampy? I'm a mother of 4 children, I do not want to be a Pirate Whore for the Mystery Halloween party that a friend and I are planning. You seriously can not buy a size small women's costume that covers more than your butt cheeks. Looking for a more conservative Halloween costume? I'm sorry, they only come in "plus sizes". I'm considering going with a girls size 14-16...but I'm afraid of a bust incompatibility issue. Has anyone else noticed this trend?

Yeah. This is a mild example. Most were not images that I wanted to place on the blog...because they were more suited to a Victoria's Secret Halloween catalog...not my blog.