Dallas Building Falling Down, Falling Down, Falling Down

We had a once in a lifetime chance on Saturday to see the building next to Red's office demolished by implosion. We dragged the kids out of bed at 6:30, and after a picnic breakfast in a conference room, settled into some comfortable seats to see the show. We were not disappointed!

Happy Halloween

Tonight we had our neighborhood Halloween party and trick or treating. The kids were beyond excited, especially about the bounce house and trackless train. As worn out as they were from all that bouncing and riding, we still did some neighborhood candy begging. They had a great time!

A few words about Blue's costume. A while ago he insisted that he wanted to be the UPS guy for Halloween. I dismissed it, thinking he would opt for Superman or a toy story character instead, but the UPS guy thing stuck. Finally, in a skype conversation with Vermillion, who had asked about a few things that I have been really excited about lately, and my

answer was always "amazon.com", Red put it together for me - the reason Blue wanted to be the UPS guy is because of my love of amazon, and that his grandparents and great-grandparents live far away. The UPS guy is kind of like Santa Claus around here - constantly delivering really good stuff. Guess I'd want to be the guy bringing the presents, too!

Proving that with the right motivation (party + candy), they can, in fact, hold still for a picture and act like they like each other.

Boo!

As a preview for the coming candy-begging, we had our church Halloween party tonight. Blue insisted that he wanted to be "the UPS guy", so we managed a costume; and not surprisingly, Pink decided to be a princess...wearing pink.

A Motley Crew

Blue turned 5 this week, and celebrated this evening with a Pirate-themed party. We were lucky enough to have his great-grandparents in town to work as slave labor join in the fun.

Here's Blue with his pirate gear on:

Great-grandpa acted as the tattoo artist. As an added bonus, he impressed the preschool crowd with his WWII era coast guard tattoos.

What's a pirate party without weaponry? Red acted as the swordsmith, and impressed the preschool-parent crowd with his balloon artistry. He also does poodles, but they didn't seem appropriate.

Pink was grateful to join in the fun. Green was grateful that she took a nap before the party so that she wasn't a cranky mess.

Wondering how we managed to have a party at our house but still take pictures? Here's Blue's girlfriend Pretzel - her mom took all the pictures in this blog post.

The requested Pirate ship cake. With a major shout-out to my friend Mauve who showed up late last night to save me from my frosting nightmare.

Nothing quiets a room full of kids down like a great-grandma with a story book. The perfect transition from outside games to sitting still for pizza.

Happy Birthday Blue! Here's to another swashbucklin' year.

No more radio silence.

About a year ago, I chronicled my adventures repairing the power mirror on my car that somehow failed to survive being rammed into the side of our garage. Basically, I fixed it myself with a little help from a website, a fedex shipment, and a whole lot of luck - and for about half the price that the dealership quoted me.

Last week, I lost power in my car to the radio and clock. How does that happen? Well, if a 2-yr-old inserts a penny into the cigarette lighter, that may cause a bit of a short (which I actually felt when I removed the penny). Sadly, this has happened before, and the dealership was happy to fix it for about $100. Because I'm trying to laugh about the things my kids do rather then let them drive me to psychotropic drugs, I posted the shorted-out-the-radio blurb on facebook. And I got some very nice comments, including one from my friend Patrick.

A little about Patrick - he's a fix-anything kind of guy, who also is a great teacher. In grad school, he used to encourage me to rebuild my own cell-media pump after I would flood it, even though we both knew it would be faster and easier if he just did it for me. Like I said, he's a good teacher. So Patrick comments on my facebook status that the problem with my car is probably just a fuse.

That was last week, and I was busy, so the car never made it to the dealership. Today, during Pink's nap, I taught Blue how to wash a car, and while I was at it, showed him some of the engine. With the hood open, I saw the fuse box, and thought about my non-functioning radio, but all the fuses were fine. I grabbed my owner's manual anyway, and discovered that my car has another fuse box, tucked way, way, under the steering wheel. Like, only visible to a skinny 4-yr-old who can squeeze himself in between the gas pedal and brake. He found it, though, and I replaced (with the spare fuse included in the box) the blown fuse.

Thanks, Patrick, for fixing my car from 2000 miles away.

And thanks, Blue, for helping me save the $100 and the hours in the dealership waiting room.

Complete blogging failure

Somewhere in my mind, I think of this blog as a place to chronicle the really important things that happen in our lives - things like grandparents coming to visit, friends stopping by, important events that happen to those we love. And in that part of my mind, these things should be chronicled by photo, yet somehow, even though there are two phones in this house that take pictures, a point and shoot camera, and a digital SLR, we've managed to not take a single picture of:

Oma coming to visit. She was here for more than a week, played with the kids, ventured to six flags, cooked, cleaned, swam at the pool, and did I post a single picture? Nope.

The Periwinkles (yeah, everyone gets a color here), who are some of our favorite people from the Washington, DC years; whose son was born within weeks of Blue, and whose daughter is the same age as Pink; and whose company we love to keep - not a single photo. Nada. The kids playing, the adults catching up.... we got nothing.

Or maybe the Chartreuses? Since they came over hours after getting the baby they are adopting, stayed for a few days while we all (including our over-eager kids) watched this tiny little person in amazement, and let us share the precious early bonding time with their son. Did anyone whip out a digital imaging device? Not so much.

This week we've got the great-grandparents coming, Blue's birthday - and his first friend birthday party in years, and our annual church primary program. Even if I don't blog about any of it, could someone please remind me to take a picture of something? Please? Before my kids grow up and my mind grows old, and I can't remember any of it.

When did she get this grown up?

Pink had her face painted at a recent birthday party (in shades of pink, no less), and I just go this picture from the birthday mom. I can't believe how grown up my baby girl looks.

We're Just a Little Backwoodsy

An unusual series of events happened this weekend - First, the weather cooled down from "melt your face off" to "downright pleasant". Also, we realized we were, yet again, going to miss our church camp-out this month, which would surely break Blue's heart. Thirdly, Red had to spend some time working on Saturday, which is usually his play with the kids day. Additionally, earlier in the week I managed to douse our yard in twice the recommended amount of fire ant poison (yes, I doubled it on purpose). And finally, it was General Conference for our church, which meant that we wouldn't be seen by anyone on Sunday and could watch church on TV in our pajamas.

With all of that adding up, we decided it was the perfect weekend for a camp-out....in the backyard. This is really the best possible scenario for me us. The kids get to sleep outside, but we still get to maintain our minimum hygiene standards.

Red and the kids worked hard to set up the tent:

I tried "living on the edge" and didn't use my stove top grill attachment:

Red, proving what a good sport he is, but also hiding from the mosquitoes:

Everyone piled into the tent, or, "proving we can contain our excitement for 10 seconds for a picture" - it was difficult:

Pink trying out her new "big girl" sleeping bag:

Blue, with his favorite Lightning McQueen bag:

Much to my surprise, everyone (including me) lasted through the night in the tent. There was some crying, but probably more out of confusion at being dressed in triple layer pajamas by your mother than actual sadness (hey, the temps were in the low 50's).

This really turned out about as perfectly as we could have hoped - Red had time to work while the kids and I hunted down supplies during the day, we didn't get bitten by too many bugs, the adults were not stressed by our usual Saturday-night-leading-up-to-Sunday-responsibilities scramble, and sleeping in the same tent with Dad more than made up for not having him every minute during the day.