Lead Up to Halloween

I'm going to take us back in time and post what I should have posted before yesterday.

Two weeks ago, I took the kids to Half Moon Bay to the pumpkin patch. I realize there are tons and tons of pumpkin patches a lot closer to Sunnyvale, but this one has become our tradition. The one we go to is nothing particularly fancy, as far as decorations or rides are concerned, but they have a huge selection of pumpkins and, because it's so much simpler than other patches in the area, it kind of takes you back to a time when things really were less complicated. If you're wondering, it's the 4-C's, which is the first one on the left as you head into HMB from San Mateo.

I had forgotten to bring my camera, so I took pictures with my phone, which has a delay. So, it was frustrating when I had a really cute shot of Asher, touched the button, and lost the shot because of the delay.

Can you find Asher?

Unlike last year's 55° and overcast weather, this year it was a cloudless 80° day. Beautiful, but it made me sweat hauling those pumpkins in the wheelbarrow.

Strike a pose!

Can he get any cuter? Actually, yes, he can.

Asher loved riding in the wheelbarrow.

Darn that delay! Asher was looking at me two seconds earlier.

So, this year, I severely procrastinated, and anyone who knew me in school knows I am a master procrastinator, and I barely got stuff done in time.

I was going to make Akiko's whole costume for Red Riding Hood, got all the material, and failed horribly when I tried to make the dress. I found a nerdy website that had instructions to make a lady's chemise, but I didn't read the part where it said that it was perfect for the "off the shoulder wench look." Oops!

So, I tried adding a yoke at the top to cover her shoulders and it ended up looking more like ghetto 'Little House on the Prairie' and less like Bavarian fairy tale. Then I remembered she already had the perfect dress for Red.

Oh well, lesson learned: Rifle through daughters wardrobe before buying fabric. The plus side is that I have tons of really cute fabric to make something else. I think I'm going to try making a purse, actually.

The cloak pattern was also found on a nerdy role-playing costume website and it turned out perfect. I was able to do it in about two and a half hours from first cut to finish. I'm super pleased with the result. As soon as it was done, which was last Thursday, Akiko didn't take it off all weekend long.

Friday was the school Halloween parade. So I dressed up the boys and we watched Akiko skip around the playground in the parade.

At first I thought that there was too much backlight, so I tried again...

... then the sun was in his eyes.

Little Red ready for the show!

All lined up and ready to go.

She's having fun!

So, the student body council was passing out slips of paper for "most creative," "best homemade," "funniest," and so on. I was bummed Akiko didn't get one for "best homemade." I guess my handiwork is just too good.

Looks like Red caught the "Little Cute Wolf."

I was supposed to be Grandma, but didn't get my costume in time.

Face painting wasn't allowed, so I didn't draw Moses' beard. I later learned that it was "scary" face painting that wasn't allowed. I wish they'd been more specific in the note they sent home from school. "Weapons of any kind" were also not allowed at the school, though I considered the ax more a tool than a weapon. I suppose it was ultimately used as one in the story. Whatever.

I don't know which picture is cuter. This one...

... or this one.

Really, how much cuter can this guy get? Wait till you see him in his beard.

Saturday was our ward party, trunk-or-treat, and parade.

In the car and ready to go.

My little sweethearts!

Akiko helped me pass out candy after she was done making the rounds.

Getting ready for the parade.

Oh! The little wolf succeeded in swiping the basket of goodies!

My camera started acting funny. It died on Monday right before trick-or-treating commenced. Sorry for the fuzzy.

This picture just kills me!

Moses won the "scariest costume" award in the 0-4 year old category. I honestly don't know how Moses could be scary in any way. He got a mini pumpkin for a prize. He kept saying he won "first place" because it happened to be the first prize that was given out.

Sometime between trunk-or-treat and the parade, Akiko started not feeling well. You can see it in her face in the "getting ready for the parade" picture above. When we got home she had a fever. I felt bad for her. I stayed home from church with her the next day.

The last time we went to a ward party, last Christmas, Akiko started not feeling well in the middle of that one, too. She ended up having strep. This time, however, it was just a 24-hour thing and nothing more than a fever. She was better by Sunday evening and went to school and trick-or-treating on Monday.

I'm going to stop this post here and talk about Halloween day later. I've got a robot birthday party to plan for this weekend. Somebody in our family is having a birthday on Sunday!

Happy Halloween!!

I hope everyone was safe and had fun. I know these kiddos did.

Maui 2011

Okay, so we've been back for almost a month now and I'm finally going to write about our trip to Maui last month. It's not like I've been super busy this month like I was this time last year.

Our Primary program took up some time and went off without a hitch, but even that didn't end up being as stressful as it could have been.

The kids costumes were easy to put together this year and I'm super excited to show you all, though, now that I think about it, I don't even know what they'll look like. I've just got everything, but I haven't put them all together on the kids. Guess we'll find out tomorrow!

The biggest reason that I haven't really written anything yet is because I feel like there's not a whole lot to write about. I mean, we lived there for a year and a half and we did all the touristy stuff when our friends and family would come to visit. So, besides the excitement of a wedding that we'd been waiting for years to happen, and a last minute baby shower, we mostly just hung out with the family and went to the beach. But, here are the pictures and the stories:

Joseph's first sister, Kailee, is expecting her first baby, a girl(!) in December. We realized, that since most of the family was going to be on island, what better time to throw her a baby shower than now (or then, since we're past tense now).

So, the evening of the day we flew in, we stopped by the house, said "hi" to the fam and then I left to go work on Kailee's diaper cake. I love making these. Megan, Joseph's second sister, bought me the decorations for the cake. Aren't those little pink sequin shoes the cutest things you've ever seen?

I love baby showers. I love diaper cakes. I love buying baby girl things. Thanks for having a girl Kai!

 

The reason for our trip was to see Megan get married. We all, especially Meg, have been waiting for this day for a very long time. We are so happy that Meg found the right guy for her. Josh is awesome.

I wasn't able to get a whole lot of pictures of the wedding because I got put in charge of the justin.tv broadcast, so that friends and family, who couldn't join us on island, could still be there digitally. I linked the broadcast, but I don't expect you to watch the whole half-hour, unless you know Meg and Josh and missed the wedding, of course.

Megan, with Char and Dave. Isn't Megan gorgeous?

Later that week, we all hopped on a plane and took a 22 minute flight to Oahu. Megan and Jake, Joseph's third brother, were going through the temple for the first time. Jake is leaving for a mission to go to the Philippines right before Christmas. It was exciting to have both of them go through at the same time. The whole session was pretty much just our family and a few BYU-HI students. We were a big group.

Joseph and I were only on Oahu for about 18 hours before we flew back to Maui. We left the kids with my sister, Kristen, and while the break from the kids was nice, I didn't want to burden her too much.

Kristen had fun with the kids though. She took them to Lahaina for the day and had all sorts of adventures. She also now knows what it's like to have three kids, even if it was just for less than 24 hours. She's really good with kids in general, but especially good with mine. I can't wait till she and Keith start having their own. She'll make a great mommy.

My favorite part of the trip, besides going without the kids and being able to go to the temple with my husband: when they announce on the flight that portable electronic devices are not to be used during the first and last ten minutes of the flight. Remember, the flight is only 22 minutes. Lol!

The only picture I was able to get of our short island-hopping adventure.

The rest of our trip was mostly hanging out at home and going to the beach.

Asher's not a huge fan and freaked out when he heard the water, but calmed down and just stayed near me and played in the sand. Then he would find a group of birds and chase them all over the place. It was so cute.

Moses surprised me and jumped right into the water. Mind you, he is not a water baby. When we're at the pool, he will not let go of me, so I'd have to carry him and Asher all the time whilst in the water. But, Moses loved splashing and playing with Akiko and getting tumbled in the breakers. Then, there was a breaker that tumbled him a little too much and he swallowed some water. He was done after that and played in the sand the rest of the time.

As for Akiko, before I could even set anything down, she kicked off her sandals and was in the water. Of course, I kept an eye on her, but I really didn't see much of her until it was time to go, except for a little here...

... and a little there. 

How I love this!

Sand monster!!

See how Moses' hair is all matted down from playing in the water? Sometimes he would come out and say "Hi" and it would be all over the place. So cute!

Akiko and her Auntie Hannah (Joseph's 4th sister). What a twosome!

Too much fun? No way!

So, we had a lot of fun. It was exhausting though. Even with Joseph there to help me, 4.5 hours on the plane with these remarkably well-behaved kids is hard. We were so glad to be home.

I used to love traveling. My mom works for Delta, so we get the flight benefits. I used to go all over the place. Akiko and I would fly back and forth to Salt Lake all the time when we lived on Maui and it just wasn't a big deal back then.

Now it's just so tiresome. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe it's just because my brood is expanding and I have to cater to different children at different stages in life. I don't know. But I do look forward to staying in California for the holidays. Anyone in the family is welcome to come join us, by the way, though I do know how unlikely that is.

I think we'll stay home for a while. We traveled a lot this year: two weddings and a funeral, plus an extra trip for wedding #1 prep. So, I'm asking everyone in my family to not die and not get married until next summer. I'm pooped. Besides, it's hard to just up and go somewhere once the kids are in school.

Fashion Faux Pas

I'm not making fun of him. I just think it's cute.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, I'll start the post.

So, I really love it when the kids get old enough that they can start dressing themselves. It frees me up to focus on other things so that we can get out the door a little faster, although, let's be honest, it is faster if I just dress my kids myself. But the kids need to do things on their own and they get that wonderful whoosh of confidence when they get it done on their own. I mean, that's my job as a mother, right? To get them to be independent members of society?

Anyway, so Moses has finally taken the reigns and has started to get himself dressed. I mean, taking off the clothes is the easy part. They figure that out at, like, 18 months or something, but getting clothes on is a little trickier.

If you'll remember about this time last year, Moses attempted to get his shorts on by himself with some comical results, as you can see here in this post. Well, he's gotten a lot better and can now get totally dressed all on his own (with the exception of his dress shirts with the tiny little buttons). Yay!

Well, nowadays, when we're heading out the door I simply have to tell Moses to get his shoes on, which, of course, we have to locate first because I cannot, for the life of me, get him to leave his shoes by the door.

Last night, we were heading out, and since it was a little chilly, I grabbed our jackets. Moses, apparently, figured his feet would get cold, so he opted for socks and shoes, rather than his flip-flops. I thought he was going to grab his shoes, but he still put his flip-flops on over his socked feet.

So, what do you do? I mean, he's so proud of himself, but he looks so silly. Christmas socks and flip-flops? Yikes!

I tend to side with him and let him go out like this, no matter how silly it looks. Akiko comes out of the door in some really wacky get-ups sometimes, too. So, my mommy philosophy, when it comes to my children's clothing independence is, very much, a laissez-faire approach. There are rules, of course, concerning modesty and the like, but I don't and will never buy my kids immodest clothes anyway.

I will, however, teach Moses someday, when he's old enough to understand better, that socks and sandals are one of the biggest no-no's you can commit when it comes to fashion.

...And We're Back!

And super tired. I spent the day catching up on all the blog posts I missed while I was gone rather than writing about our trip.

I impressed myself by not getting on my computer once the whole time we were there, even though I had brought it along. No Facebooking, no blogging.

I did check my email on my phone, though, so I can't say I was totally unplugged. I mean, I can't completely dodge my church duties while I'm on vacation, especially with our Primary program coming right up. But, it was nice not having my computer as a distraction. There are way better things to do on Maui.

Here Today...

...gone to Maui.

Aloha oe.

 

Multilingual

Yesterday, Akiko rushed in from playing outside, "Mom! Dad! The birds are talking to me and I'm talking back to them!"

"Oh really? That's cool! What are they saying to you?"

"...Um... They're saying...'What did you say?'"

"Anything else?"

"...And, um... 'You're cute!'"

"Oh, well, why don't you go back out there and talk to them some more and let me know what they're saying."

"Okay!" Akiko runs back outside.

Five minutes later, Akiko rushes back in and exclaims, "Oh my gosh! I just found out I wasn't talking to birds. Can you believe I was talking to a squirrel?!" She seemed utterly surprised at this revelation.

I knew Akiko was a perfect little girl, but I guess she got a dose of Chemical X*, too.

*If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a Powerpuff Girls reference. Bubbles speaks squirrel.