31 October 2005

There is one house that I have always admired. The landscaping is always, and I mean always beautiful, the color of the house is fun, and yet tastefully perfect, and at Halloween time, these women put on an amazing production! Just take a look at these pictures. They are all hand carved and they use real pumpkins every year!

Costume Day, I’m a little Pepper

Monday, 17 October 2005

Today has been costume collection day…

Rebecca
We went through lots and lots of “I wanna be _____” before Rebecca finally settled on a KU Cheerleader, three weeks before Halloween. GR and I checked all the large department stores, then the local sporting good stores, before looking online and calling the University bookstore. Online the outfits had a $30 price range! Add to that the wait time and shipping costs and we opted for the local bookstore. On the morning of the 17^th I called and they had one left in her size which I asked for them to hold. The plan was to pick it up while the girls were in school.

That morning I put Sam in “big boy” underwear – we’d had two successful trips to the potty and I opted to keep him in his underwear for this jaunt to preschool and campus. Unfortunately while I was picking which pose of Emily’s school picture to purchase, we had a little accident. Here’s the huge difference between boys and girls. With girls, there would have been a huge puddle, shoes would have been soaked, etc. With Sam, just a small softball size wet spot on his shorts… no running down the leg, etc.

I took off his wet clothes and put him in a pull-up I had stashed in my purse and off we went to the bookstore… “I’m a Little Pepper” t-shirt, pull-up and sneakers. It simply wasn’t worth the gas or the time to go home and get him a new pair of shorts to wear.

He was too cute walking onto campus without any reservations. Totally confident and wanting to do things on his own. One guy tried to hold a door open for us, and Sam told him, “Mine!” I tried to explain, but how to you explain it to a 19 year old in 5 words of less so they really understand – you can’t. But Sam did it, he opened and held open each of the doors we went through for me. On the way in we got some odd looks from students, but on the way out, all he got were comments about the awesome shirt he was wearing (thanks Ezra!).

Becca’s outfit fits her perfectly – I was a little concerned she wouldn’t like it because the skirt wasn’t pleated, but she was ultimately happy with it and it looks so cute on her!

Emily
Emily has been very set on being Tinkerbell. The same night we went looking for cheerleading outfits, we looked at Tinkerbell costumes. The ones we saw weren’t the right size and just weren’t “fairy princess” enough. We looked at the patterns and had the same problem – they were really disappointing. So I spent quite a bit of time over the weekend looking online and watching auctions on eBay. We’d gotten a Disney Store Catalog with the perfect costume, but were concerned about sizing and getting it here in time for a couple early Halloween parties.

I found lots of Disney Store Tinkerbell costumes on eBay, and was watching 3 or 4 auctions all at once that were getting ready to end Monday night. All of them kept getting higher and higher and higher until I finally called GR… he called the store at the mall and they had everything we wanted. After work he went and picked up the outfit, wings and shoes – he called me from the road and said “I love my daughter very much.” “Yes, dear I know you do – what are you doing?” “I’m driving to Indpendence Center to purchase a wand” “You don’t need to, she doesn’t need it and if she does, we’ll make it.” (Plus how is she going to hold a wand and a tricker-treat bag? That’ll be the first thing that gets handed to Mom to hold.)

Thankfully it wasn’t missed, and Emily’s face was pure delight when she opened up the bag and tried on her costume. The entire ensemble was perfect and she beamed each and every time she put it on.

Sam
Side note on Sam's costume. We looked at purchasing one of those too, but none of them looked right. Most were Thomas the Train costumes that looked more like Thomas PJs than a Train costume. And Sam wanted to be a choo choo because he likes trains, not because he's obsessed with Thomas. So that's why we spent time and made his costume.

Even more Halloween

Sam has always wanted to be a Choo Choo. And the amazing thing is you'd ask him (after having not been asked for days) and he'd respond the same way every time - Choo Choo. GR did 80% of the work and I did the other 20%. He literally spent 6 hours painting it on Saturday. When Sam came down from his nap about 2pm, he looked at the box and said in a quiet awed voice - "My Choo Choo?!" By his reaction you could just tell he thought it was perfect, and he knew it was for him.

But when it came time to put on the costume for our block party on Saturday, he wasn't real sure he wanted to wear it. It took having Rebecca put it on to show him before he was willing to wear it. And he wore it for a good 30 minutes before wanting it off so he could run around and play.

On Halloween he wore it for 4 houses before wanting it off - he wasn't able to walk very well - so we put it in the wagon and he pulled it along to the remaining 12 houses or so that they went to.

Saturday 29 October 2005


Thrusday night is Reality Sisters. A group of 5-6 of us meet at 9pm and watch that nights Survivor. We also usually bring a little snack of some kind. Some bring sweets, other bring appitizers, etc. The food really varries and I tend to bring "test" recipes to see their reaction. Although this week, I was able to take them one of Grandfather's pomegranets. Grandfather sent me a box of ~10 and I took one to share - and they LOVED it so much I'm taking another next week.

These women have introduced me to some great foods with thier snacks. This week Shannon brought two things I've never had before - Havarti cheese and a yummy flavor of Triscuit - Rosemary and Olive Oil. I liked it so much that I picked up some this morning when I stopped at the store for milk and hot dog buns for the Halloween Block party tonight.

The kids LOVE combination of a little square of cheese on the triscuit. GR on the other hand, didn't. An hour later he was still complaining about the taste the triscuit left in his mouth! I admit they are strong, but the cheese really mellows the flavor and they make a great combo snack!

Halloween continued...

Kindergarten Fall Party - 2:00


Our school has never done Halloween Parties, only Fall Parties. Basically it means no costumes and many parents like the fact that they don't have to mess with two costumes - the school costume and the tricker-treating costume.

The kids have been learning about spiders and I volunteered to bring the craft project - paper plate spiders - a craft Rebecca did years ago at her first "Fairy Tail Forest" at the Nature Center in Liberty, MO.

We used small black paper plates (I spray painted the bottom of the plate black cause they come white), 9 strips of black construction paper cut 3/4" wide, 2 - 1" circles (I finally found a valid reason to purchase a circle punch!), and a long piece of black yarn. I had the yarn already strung through the 2 holes I punched in the plate, and the rest of their supplies were put in baggies to make distribution easier. They did a great job and had already practiced the fan or accordian fold earlier in the day when they made spider hats - the little guy next to Rebecca in the bottom picture is wearing his - they were super cute.

A picture is worth a 1000 words

30 October 2005
At the beginning of the month (the day of the Fun Walk at the school actually) GR bought a couple Pillsbury Halloween cake mixes that had the directions for this pumpkin/jack-o-lantern cake on it. We decided that it might be best to make it for his co-workers since it makes a ton of cake (you use 2 bundt cakes and 2 cans of frosting!). He made it Sunday night and took it to work on Halloween.



31 October 2005
Preschool Halloween Parade - 12:45
Emily's class was so cute! They had great costumes and were so excited to wear them to class. They did a parade for the parents and then sang 5 or 6 Halloween songs for parents (yes M&M we recorded it, although I think Stella knows all the songs!).


Sam fell asleep in the car on the way to preschool... and never woke up. He slept on the floor of the class room while I helped Emily into her shoes, he slept on the floor of the chapel during the parade, then he slept on a table during the Halloween songs, and then GR took him home where he stayed asleep until 3 or so. This is very unusual for him. I can usually move him once, but a second time, never!