Halloween Frights and Delights

Halloween was a CRAZY day for me. I was dreading parts of it weeks in advance because Adah and Maggie are at two different schools and I had no idea how I would be at both of their schools for their Halloween parades. In White Salmon the little children and I would usually dress up and go over to the school a little bit before the parade to help the girls get in their costumes, do make-up, or whatever else was needed. I wasn't sure how I would manage it this year. As the day approached, I was even more confused because we weren't getting clear communication from Adah's school about whether or not there would even be a parade.  Well, when word finally came, I was not happy with how it was panning out.

Here was my schedule for the day:

8:00 drop off Adah at school

8:45: drop off Maggie at school

10:00 Adah's Halloween parade

10:50 Maggie's Halloween parade

12:00 Adah released from school

12:50 Maggie released from school

Say what? I could NOT get a decent explanation of why they have the Halloween parade in the middle of the day. No one else seemed to think it was strange to have the parade at a time that required parents to make THREE trips to the school that day.  Never mind that I had to juggle two schools. Even doing it at one seemed like a pretty lame way to schedule things. In White Salmon they always had their class parties and then went out to the parade. Then parents could pick up their children from the classrooms or just wait out front for the bell to ring.  All it meant was coming to the school 30-45 minutes early, if you wanted to see the parade. No special, separate trip.

I began the day not even knowing if I'd make it to their parades. Finally, I figured, what the heck! I at least arranged for someone else to pick up Adah so I didn't have to zip back across town after Maggie's parade. We just stayed and played at the park until her bell rang, then got Adah at our neighbor's house.

At Adah's school, all the classes lined up in the schoolyard and were called up grade by grade to parade around the rest of the group. It was quite a crowd.

 

Here's Adah the jellyfish. She got a sort of "best-in-show" prize--a ticket for a free pumpkin--handed to her by the principal as she paraded past. I don't know if he gave out one per class or one per grade, but she was excited and I was proud of my homemade costume.

 

Maggie's parade was a little more complicated and I was afraid I'd missed her by the time we found parking and made it onto the schoolyard. Here, the kids were snaking around in some convoluted path lined by parents and other kids. I didn't ever quite figure it out, but we got to see our little peacock parading along with everyone else.

 

This was my favorite costume of the day: a Superman Lego guy. There was one other Lego guy there; they must have been brothers. They were clearly homemade, but so well done.

 

Holly has lately become enamored with Hello Kitty (it's so adorable when she says it; she can say her L's perfectly), so she was delighted to see her at Maggie's school. That's the principal!

 

It was nice that the girls got out of school early on Halloween because it meant that we had the whole afternoon to recover from the busy morning and to rest up for Trick-or-Treating that night. Still, I was flying solo Halloween week (you'll find out where Damon was in the next post), and by dinnertime I was really wishing he was there because I was pretty beat and would have been perfectly content to let him take the kids out Trick-or-Treating while I gave out candy.

Nevertheless, we suited up and carried on, led and protected by our knight in shining armor, Gunnar.

 

His shield and leg plates are made from foil baking pans. There were arm bands, too, but they didn't really stay on well. The leg ones kept falling down, too.  His breastplate is made from little foil baking cups cut in half and taped down in overlapping layers. He's got a silver duct tape belt and sword also. It was truly shining in person.

 

Maggie the peacock. This was another fun costume to make. We already had the turquoise clothes, so the feathers and a little felt were the only expense.

 

Princess Holly: She chose to be a princess and I was happy to oblige, seeing as we had all the necessary items in our dress-up clothes already.

 

Jellyfish Adah: This is a straw sombrero padded with bubble wrap and plastic bags and then covered with an iridescent pink fabric (thanks to a TON of hot glue and some strategically-placed stitches). Then I sewed lengths of rickrack and wavy pink ribbons to it.

 

Here they are, ready to set off from our driveway:

 

It was a very different Trick-or-Treating experience for these kiddos than what we were used to in White Salmon. Our neighborhood here is well-lit with sidewalks and lots of houses close together. There were a fair amount of homes decorated for Halloween during October. I figured we'd have a pretty happening neighborhood. Nope. We saw about 4 other groups of Trick-or-Treaters in the course of 3-4 streets. AND there was no one home at about 2/3 of the houses!! Maggie, especially, was quite bummed out by this.

In White Salmon our house was pretty much Trick-or-Treating ground zero. Everyone who lived out of town would drive in and Trick-or-Treat in our neighborhood. We probably saw over one hundred kids at our door every year. The streets would be pretty full of people and we always saw friends. Even I have to admit that our neighborhood here made a pretty lame showing and I was really having to be positive for the kids.  We did finally tuck into some townhouses nearby where there were a lot of people out and things were a bit more festive, but by then my kiddos were pretty tired out and ready to head home. Here you can see that Adah's the only one left with a smile on her face. Holly wouldn't even stay put for the photo and came running for me.

After that photo I had to pick up Holly and carry her home. She was out within a few minutes--and just got heavier and heavier, I tell ya.

 

Which princess was Holly, you ask? Sleeping Beauty, of course:

 

This year I was finally able to train the children in proper candy-sorting techniques. When we lived in White Salmon, we always followed our Trick-or-Treating with a trip to "pumpkin lane" where we viewed expert jack-o-lanterns. The kids usually fell asleep on the way home or went to bed immediately, so there was no time for dumping out all the candy, putting it in the appropriate piles, and then making trades with each other.  That's what my brothers and I always did growing up, so it was fun to teach my kiddos how to do it this year.  I bartered with Holly's candy. (She never knew any better.)

They thought it was fun to swap Snickers for Reeses and Hersheys for Tootsie Rolls, and this helped to save the night after all. Hopefully by next year we'll be more settled in this neighborhood or another and will know just where to go on Halloween for the best Trick-or-Treating.

Jack-o-Lanterns

I think that the photos here pretty much speak for themselves.
 

 

 

 

 

 

(l. to r.) Adah's, Holly's (with some parental help), Gunnar's, and Maggie's

The Park by Maggie's School

Because Maggie and Adah attend different schools with different start times, there's always a need for us to kill a little time in the morning in between dropping off Adah at her school and the bell ringing at Maggie's. (Maggie's starts 45 minutes later, but it only takes 15 minutes or so to get there. They can't play on the school playground before school, so I need to stick around until it's nearly time for school to start.) Luckily, there's a city park right next to Maggie's school, and we live in California, meaning the weather is pretty nice.




See those tall trees on the right? One day a branch fell on the restrooms, which are just out of the picture. The roof was damaged and the doorway to the men's side was dented. On my birthday the girls had a short day (parent-teacher conferences) so we had a picnic at the park for lunch while we watched a team of workmen cut down all 3 or 4 trees. You could tell we came from the Northwest (lumber country). We were transfixed by the chainsaws and falling limbs while the other park-goers mostly ignored it. : )

Now that it's January it is pretty cold in the mornings and we tend to stay in the car with library books, but into November we spent our morning time at the park.  Gunnar, Holly, and Maggie would happily run around on the toys while I dutifully ran around and around the playground to get my morning exercise.

Maggie's not featured in any of these photos since I actually took them mid-morning after being at her Halloween parade. Still, I wanted to document this little part of our daily routine. Having Maggie and Adah at different schools has been a big pain in many ways, but daily trips to the playground were definitely one bonus. We look forward to the weather warming up in another month or so so that we can resume our trips to the park. 

 

 

 

 

Ten-Year-Old in the House

Adah reached double digits on October 22. We've been parents for a decade. Crazy.

 

Her birthday was on a Monday. The day before we went to Uncle Jotham's and Aunt Dana's house in San Mateo since Grandma and Grandpa were there, too. We had a mini-birthday party with presents and treats there. She got a horse book and posters and this really cool Crayola light-up animation toy. I can't remember what it's called, but it's really fun...and complicated. Adah's going to have to teach me how to use it.

Before school on her birthday she opened the complete Harry Potter series. Adah and I read the series simultaneously this spring--we shared a book or got our own copies and read them at the same time so we could talk about it--but she really wanted to own the set. She read the entire 7-volume series AGAIN between October 22nd and the beginning of December. I've now imposed a Harry Potter moratorium for her, although Maggie's now on the second book.

 

The books were a gift from us and from my parents.

 

Rather than a big birthday party this year, we opted to invite one friend over for dinner and then we all went to Great Jump, an indoor trampoline arena here in Milpitas. I forgot the camera, but we had a GREAT TIME bouncing and bounding on and across the rectangle of 20 or so trampolines! Even the walls were made of trampolines. With enough speed, you could bounce right off them and back where you came from. 

 

When I put the candles on Adah's cake, I did the same thing my dad did for to me when I turned ten. I made a Roman numeral 10 (an X) on the top, but that only used nine candles. So the tenth candle got stuck in the side of the cake. ha ha It makes blowing out the candles just a little trickier...and hence more fun, right?

 

 

 

Adah wanted her cake to be her three favorite colors: purple, blue, and green. It worked a bit better than my last attempt at a multi-colored cake.

 

At ten, Adah is a voracious reader. She loves Harry Potter, but enjoys reading a wide variety of books. Newberry winners Johnny Tremain and The Twenty-One Balloons were recent reads. She also loves horses and has begun drawing them very well. Adah loves to give hugs and we have to warn her to not do it too tightly. She's a great big sister and can be very helpful when it comes to making soup or pancakes for everyone or buckling Holly into her carseat. We're proud of her success in school and in how we are seeing her testimony of the gospel grow. She's now working on a goal to read the entire Book of Mormon on her own.

 

We love you, Adah!

A Little Bit of the Everyday

This post is just a potpourri of photographs that were taken throughout the fall. While the people are the main subjects, I tried not to crop them too much so you can see a little bit of our new house in the background.

Maggie dressed her stuffed sheep in some doll clothes and found herself a coordinating outfit.

 

I found these two sitting happily on the stairs munching away on on some giant carrots.

 

 

Here are the 4 couch potatoes, looking much as they did in the White Salmon. Only their surroundings have changed. The two doorways in the background each lead into the kitchen. The kitchen table is just outside the right corner of this photo. The stairs are to the left, just opposite the kitchen door.

 

A little story time:

 

Holly found some snow boots which were much too large for her. I thought she looked pretty cute with her giant pink boots, pigtails, and her smoothie mustache. (The whole downstairs of the house has that hardwood floor, quite handy for cleaning up accidents during potty training--if we were lucky enough for her to not be on one of the rugs or upstairs on the carpet. Holly potty trained in the fall--no more diapers here!)

 

Back at the Oakland Temple

On June 9, 2000 Damon and I were married in the Oakland California Temple. We made our first home in Boston, MA, then went on to Arizona, England, and Washington. While we visited family in the Bay Area on a number of occasions, we never returned to the Oakland Temple until this last October after moving to Milpitas. 

Here we are 12+ years later, now with four kids in tow.

 

 

I remember a nearly-identical shot of Damon and me (or just one of us?) going into or coming out of the temple on our wedding day, but it's packed away somewhere. If I can find it I'll scan it in for comparison.

 

 

Distance and lack of babysitters meant we still didn't get to go into the temple together, but we were excited to take the children and show them where we got married. When I came outside after my turn, who did I find waiting with Damon and the kids? Our bishop from the Bedford Ward in the UK!! His brother was getting married in the temple that day and he thought he'd recognized me as I walked into the temple to meet Damon. He wasn't sure until he saw Damon walk out a moment later. It was such a fun surprise and made our first trip back even more memorable.

Gunnar's Prehistoric Birthday

Author's Note: Gunnar turned 5 on October 3rd. Today is January 3rd. I'm a little behind on the blogging, but I'll blame it on computer troubles and the fact that we have had 4 birthdays and every major holiday since October 3 to fill up my time. Now, a new year brings some new resolve to be a better blogger. Gotta overcome those computer issues first though...so be patient.

Gunnar's 5th birthday party was billed as a "Dinosaur Splash Bash." Thanks to our wonderful neighborhood pool, this was among the easier parties that I've planned. Swimming took the place of all games and activities. We had lots of fun with the food, though.

First, the dinosaur dig cake. It earned a thumbs up from the birthday boy.

 

I was so pleased with how this cake turned out. The "bones" are sugar cookies! I used a template to cut the dough into the right shapes and then baked them before placing them atop the chocolate graham cracker "dirt," which was stuck to chocolate frosting.

 

Gunnar had a great time swimming with all of his guests. We invited two families that we've met at church in Milpitas since moving here. We also invited Damon's brother and family (which means cousins Cassie and Braden) and Damon's long-time friend and now co-worker Huck and his family. Grandma and Grandpa also came.  (My sister-in-law Joette came to our house a few days before the party and we celebrated with those cousins that day. My brother was away from home for training, so no Uncle Jed.) It sure is fun having family near enough to celebrate birthdays together!

The ladies had fun cooling off in the water. My mother-in-law and I, it turns out, were the only women at the party who weren't pregnant!

 

In addition to the cake, we also had hot dogs and "dinosaur eggs" for the carnivores and lots of fresh veggies and some chips for the herbivores.

Dinosaur Eggs: Washed grapes rolled in Jell-o powder and then frozen. We also had red.
These were easy to make and a big hit at the party.



 

The birthday party was actually four days before Gunnar's actual birthday. So that there was still something fun for the actual day, we held back the gifts from us and from my parents so that he could open them on October 3.

Nana and Gumpin gave him a saber tooth tiger stuffed animal. He appropriately named it Saber Tooth, and he LOVES it. This kid is really into prehistoric animals and has been for quite some time. You should quiz him. You'll be impressed with his smilodon and homotherium (or homoferium, as he says it) facts.

 

We gave him a dinosaur sandbox.

It's a fun set with dinosaurs, bones, plants, and a volcano that comes with a shovel and rake for digging. Lots of fun, and minimal mess.

 

 

Despite the party four days earlier and the gifts in the morning, all day Gunnar kept asking me when his friends were coming over for his party.  Hmmm....  I think the pre-birthday party was a tough concept for him to grasp. Luckily, Damon had invited our neighbors, with their 3-year-old triplets, to join us for cake, so we did have another mini-party.

You gotta love this photo of Gunnar strong-arming Adah who was crowding his candle blowing. It's very representative of their oft-stormy relationship.

 

Gunnar really is a delightful little boy who still loves tigers and the color orange. Dinosaurs, mammoths, and saber tooth tigers are tops right now, though. He's a great bike rider and a fun brother. He likes to jump, growl, and wrestle, but he's also a good cuddler who can sit patiently and look at books. He's learning to read small words and I can't wait for him to be able to read all of his animal encyclopedias himself.

 

Happy Birthday, Gunnar! We love you!