Halloween 2009

Emma woke me early this morning with a "Wake up, Mom!  It's trick-or-treating today!"  We spent most of the day at the soggy, swampy soccer fields for our last round of games. YAY!  Soccer is over and I have a year to buy myself a pair of rubber boots before next season.  We stopped for an early dinner at a local teriyaki place and Chance got sick on the way home.  He spent the night with a suspected case of food poisoning.  I took the kids around the neighborhood and allowed Emma to introduce herself as Tinkerbell to everyone she met.  In less than an hour their buckets were full and too heavy to carry.  We tromped home where the kids promptly turned on a Halloween movie and entered candy bliss. 

Death by Soccer

Soccer season has ended!  Hurray!  Three soccer teams practicing and playing games every week is taxing.  I'm so ready for a break.  All that remains is to wade through the trophy parties this week. 

Emma had a rocky start to the season, but has really grown to love playing. I can't tell yet if she has any real skill for the game.  Her aggresive, competitive side comes and goes with her mood. 

Noah doesn't play much. (We're going with a different coach next year.) He spends a lot of time standing on one foot, doing the crab walk, eating his shirt sleeve, doing jump-n-twirls. You know, stuff like that. But occasionally he'll get to play. And then something bad happens. Like getting kicked in the hand (stupid soccer!) But its OK because they he can do some more jump-n-twirls.

Tyler never stops moving. The boy was made to play sports (probably gets that from me). He can't get enough time on the field and I think he's pretty dang awesome out there. He's a rockstar!

Pumpkin Patch Pics

Trip to the patch:

Took a walk through the corn maze with the kids.  About 5 minutes into the maze, Chance jumped out and scared them into histerics.  Then they attempted to scare us through the maze over and over and OVER again.  How quickly funny things becomes annoying.

Facebook Song

Loved this video! No idea who these guys are, but I needed a good laugh.  Hopefully this link will work:

Facebook Song
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1110274279502&ref=mf

I played it a couple of times while Emma was standing nearby.  Then she subconsciously broke into song and sang her own version of the Facebook Song. 

Noah's Names

I have mentioned before how when I was pregnant with Noah, Tyler told everyone the baby name was going to be "Harry Potter."  Noah loves this story.  He speaks of it often and loves to hear me tell it.  The other day he started talking about what to name our next baby.  (As if!)  He decided he wants two babies - a boy and a girl. The boy will be named "Harry" of course, since we missed out before when we named Noah.  And the girl?  Leia - as in Princess Leia. 

Unhealthy Vitamins

Like every parent, I continually worry over my children's eating habits. If only they would eat vegetables consistently. I used to give them multi-vitamins every day to help ease my mind. But that all changed about a year ago.

I fell asleep on the couch one late afternoon. I woke to find that somehow my children had opened up the "child-proof" gummy vitamins (COSTCO size) and consumed 1/2 the bottle. Its been a long while since I've called Poison Control. My mother-in-law, who is a former pediatric nurse, talked me out of it. Then I Googled "vitamin overdose" and found horrors of hospitalization and death.

I called Poison Control.

I spoke with a lovely woman who assured me that since our vitamins do not contain iron or fluoride that everyone would be fine. Apparently, my vitamins aren't vitamins at all. They are sugar! If only I had listened to my MIL I could have remained blissfully ignorant regarding the nutritional content (or lack thereof) in my children's vitamins.  And I wouldn't spend so much time worrying about their vegetables (or lack thereof) either.


"An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh." 
~Will Rogers

Happy Halloween!

Check this out: The Monster Mash

This was fun; the kids are wild about it. I hated my picture so I made myself the werewolf. Plus, the werewolf has all the best dance moves - check out my butt slapping! Enjoy!

What I do

I recently read my friend Jamie's latest blog post. A few months ago she had her 3rd child and I've noticed how much better she has handled her latest addition than I handled my 3rd baby. She recently opened up her own etsy shop and sells adorable little baby bundles. (She kind of makes me sick.) When Emma was born, my life was chaos for months. We lived in a hovel while our house was under construction. Seriously - a hovel. A two bedroom, one bath 500 sf hovel! Emma's "nursery" was in the living room/office. Every picture I have from back then has a pile of laundry in it because there was no laundry room. I'm completely serious - EVERY picture.

With Noah in Kindergarten and Emma in preschool most mornings, I have a few hours to myself. My friend Jamie has spent the last week doing home improvement projects on top of potty training, nursing/caring for a newborn and creating new baby things to sell online. And she's also done loads of canning recently. What have I been doing lately? Not home improvement, not sewing, not canning, not caring for an infant or potty training ... No, mostly I go shopping. By myself. Because I can. I suddenly can go anywhere I want and look at things I want to look at for nearly 3 hours. Its been over 7 years since I've been able to browse. But I need to stop. I can't afford this lifestyle!

So, I decided that I would be more like Jamie and create. There is this little project I've had in the back of my mind since last October. (Basically, I saw it at Pottery Barn Kids for $80 and decided I could make it myself.) I looked up the pictures for it again and started my design. Jamie inspired me! I am a new woman! My days will be productive!

And then I went shopping for project materials.

Germs

I've been ill this week. An unfriendly virus has infected my house and everyone in it. When I picked up Noah from the bus stop this afternoon, I told him I was freezing. He looked at me and said "Maybe you should go back to bed." I guess I look as bad as I feel.

Today, Noah's Kindergarten class learned all about germs. They looked at germs on their hands under a microscope and then had to count them. Afterward they washed their hands at the sink one minute for every germ they could see. (I'm not actually sure this is accurate because sometimes Noah confuses his minutes and seconds.) He proudly informed me that he had THE MOST germs of everyone in his class! And subsequently had to stand at the sink and wash his hands for nine minutes. No wonder I'm sick - my son is a petri dish.

Update:  It turns out they didn't look at their hands under a microscope, but with some sort of CSI purple light.  I thought it sounded strange.  But Noah truly did have the most germs in his class.

“Kisses blown are kisses wasted. Kisses aren't kisses unless they are tasted. Kisses spread germs and germs are hated. So kiss me baby; I'm vaccinated.” ~ Anonymous

I know this is a strange quote. I have no idea who said it, but it made me laugh today.

Slime Flu

**Note:  This post originally drafted sometime in October 2009, I believe.  Blogger lost the date again.  Just a guess on this date.

Chance and I are sick.  I seem to be on the downhill end of it, while he is still trying to survive the initial attack of this virus.  So far, no one in our home is showing signs of Swine Flu - or as my mother calls it "Slime Flu."  We had to miss church today because of our digustingness.  The kids were bummed because they are practicing for their primary program next week.  I am kind of bummed, too.  I feel all out of sorts when I miss church.  Too bad its not socially acceptable for me to show up in the pajamas I've been wearing all week.

Quote of the week:

Emma:  "Mom, I'm out of toothpaste."
Mom:  "OK, you can use mine."
Emma:  "Mom, I can't use yours!  Its too spicy!"

Feeling Strange

Yesterday was Emma's first day of preschool. I dropped her off in front of the school where her teacher was waiting. I hugged her, she grabbed her teacher's hand, turned, smiled, waved at me and was gone. Then I drove home by myself and sobbed. I phoned Chance who reminded me that I would see her in less than three hours. A mother's heart doesn't listen to logic like that.

I'm not exactly sure what Emma did while she was there. She came home with strange tales of chocolate, visiting the nurse, climbing the "jungle bars" and riding the bus (which I know she didn't do). And she sang "If you're happy and you know it ..." about 27 times. She can't wait to return on Monday.

Emma: "Mom, I didn't even rip anything in my school today!"
Mom: "Oh, good. Did you like your teachers?"
Emma: "Yeah, they weren't mean!"
Mom: "What did you think of Mrs. Chambers?"
Emma: "She was adorable and she was so nice to me and was so proud of my coloring!"

I had a strange morning by myself. The house was quiet. I made some phone calls and checked my email without anyone demanding snacks or help dressing a doll. No one interrupted my shower or tried to climb in with me. My hair was not in a ponytail and I wore clean clothes that no one wiped their hands or face on. What is this new world I'm entering? And why do I miss my old one?

Religion on the Bus

"Are you a 'Born-Again' Christian?"

That's what the school bus driver asked me this afternoon when Noah got off the bus today. It was the most unexpected thing for her to say. I don't usually label myself that way, but I knew that she was asking whether we were a religious and Christian family so I answered "yes". She went on to describe what an interesting little missionary my Noah is. Apparently he told her all about the Resurrection yesterday on the way home:

Noah: "When you die -- 'cuz people CAN die -- you get resurrected. You get a new body and get to live forever! But people who don't go to church don't know about it."

Thankfully, he's just about the last stop and there were not any other kids on the bus at the time. I would hate to get complaints from other parents regarding my 6 year-old's school bus proselyting! But I have to admit that I feel a sparkle of pride when I think about it.