I'm not doing much blogging because of NaNoWriMo (computer time is preeeecious--and you're supposed to say that in your head in the exact same way as Gollum in the LOTR movies). But a couple of things.
1. Ethan's been in MN with his Dad having a grand old time shootin pheasants and visiting our old house. He hasn't been back since we moved almost 4 years ago and he told me it was "cool but weird. Everything's small. And not as wooded." He's coming home tonight, flying as an unaccompanied minor (and Forrest didn't find out until he checked him in at the gate a few hours ago that it's an extra 100 smakeroonies to do that). It worries me a touch, having him fly all alone, but then I remember that I flew by myself to Albuquerque to see my Grandparents when I was eight and nothing terrible happened. Other than the fact that I returned home with my hair cut short. As I remember it, my Grandma didn't really run that decision past my mom. But the cool thing about hair is that it grows, right?
Anyway, in honor of Ethan, I want to point everybody in the direction of his rarely-posted-upon blog. He has a new post up and he wants some input. So everybody visit here. Fly home safe, bud!
2. I've written about 22,000 words of the 50,000 I plan to have done by Nov. 30. I'm a little behind, it's true, but I think I can do it. I'm feeling more groovy (as in in-the-groove, not so much groovy-baby), and although I have no idea how the story's going to turn out, I've forgotten how much fun it is to have characters and conflicts start leaping up out of the bushes.
3. Wyatt refuses to be poop trained.
4. How come I never win cooking contests? In the past few years I've entered chili contests, cookie contests, and just this week, a cobbler contest. All of these are church activity or neighborhood togetherness related, of course. I'm more a social baker than a serious chef. No Pillsbury Bake-off for me. I mean, heavens, I'm like oh-for-five in WARD cook-offs. This last time there were FOUR entrants and they gave TWO prizes and I still didn't win.
It's enough to make a girl swear off cooking altogether. Except I do make wicked good chocolate chip cookies. Even if nobody wants to give them a prize . . .
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Family Photo Shoot
On Sunday I called Cindy with the bright idea to have her take some pictures of our family and I take some pictures of hers for Christmas cards, etc. (We both have the same camera.) But turns out that Tony and Cindy already got some pictures taken (gorgeous, gorgeous pictures), and as we started comparing schedules it turned out that the best time to get the pictures taken was exactly 25 minutes from the time I picked up the phone! It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we were all relatively groomed post-church, and I knew the colors I wanted to wear. So--shazam!!--I made everybody change clothes, put on a swipe of lipstick, fluffed Elise's hair, and out the door we went! We just barely caught the light--but we caught it! And the pictures turned out really beautiful, I think.
So here for your viewing pleasure--our photo shoot! And thanks so much, Tony and Cind, for taking such wonderful pictures. I'm thinking of using the first one below for our Christmas card photo. Whaddayathink?
So here for your viewing pleasure--our photo shoot! And thanks so much, Tony and Cind, for taking such wonderful pictures. I'm thinking of using the first one below for our Christmas card photo. Whaddayathink?
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Halloweenishness
So here's the Halloween rundown.
The night before Halloween, we had an adult neighborhood Halloween party. Most couples tried to coordinate outfits. You know, with their spouses. But Forrest and Cody had other ideas:
It really was a pretty good idea, though, I've gotta admit. Freaky and disturbing, but also pretty funny. And yes, he's wearing an old dress of mine from a decade ago.
But it did leave me without a costume "theme," so instead of trying to be an Elder or something (I guess I could have dressed up in a suit and been their Zone Leader??) I took elements of Elise's costume, ratted my hair, sprayed it silver (which made me look kinda like a 65 year old woman with bedhead, but what they hey) and called it good. I also put sparkles on my face. Just because we had them (for Elise's costume). Because under what other circumstances would I ever have the opportunity to put sparkles on my face?
Anyway, it was a fun party and Forrest only spoke in a falsetto about 40% of the time.
Ethan's costume consisted of a pair of realistic fangs we purchased on the internet. He begged and begged for the fangs--but nicely, he knows how to work the system--and like any good permissive parent he finally wore me down and I spent just as much on fangs as I did on Jonas's costume. He assures me that he's going to use them for movie-making in the future, though--and he was highly, HIGHLY pleased with the way the fangs turned out.
This cloak we dug out of the orange Halloween bin . . . since he spent all his money on the fangs, of course.
Ethan and two of his friends (the third hadn't shown up yet). As yet another example of my parental aquiescence, I let Ethan go trick or treating even though I'd told him that last year was the final year. Lots of kids his age were out and about, though--and they're still on the young side of teenagerhood. And they're good kids, too. Had fun. When they came home, we'd rented "Something Wicked This Way Comes" for them to watch in the basement (one of our classic PG rated 80s horror movies, that and "Watcher in the Woods"--remember??). But guess what? They all decided they didn't want to watch a scary movie and watched Napoleon Dynamite instead.
This is Elise, wearing much of what I wore to the Halloween party the night before (but not looking like a 60 year old woman). She looked dang cute, actually. When people asked her what her costume was, she said she was a "dead maiden."
Spooooooky!
Elise and Tayler. Both dead. Elise and Tayler and another friend from school trick or treated both our neighorhood AND the school friend's neighborhood. Double score!
Jonas was some kind of medieval knight / "Nasgruel" (??? Jonas supplied this spelling) Lord of the Rings character. Mainly he wanted the sword and the shield when he saw them at Target, so we bought both of those and rummaged the rest of the costume from the aforementioned orange Halloween bins. I really am not one of those "homemade costume" moms, apparently. And although I think homemade costume moms ROCK . . . I'm very comfortable in my store-boughteneness. We all have our talents, etc etc, right?
Jonas and a bunch of his friends at our neighborhood Halloween party, Halloween afternoon. Jonas took off trick or treating with this gaggle of boys and I didn't see him until almost 10:00 that night. Kids scattered hither and thither this Halloween!
Good think we have Wyatt still at home, willing to let his parents tag along while he trick-or-treats. Wyatt was going to be a dinosaur for Halloween, but changed his mind at the last minute. When I asked him if he wanted to wear the policeman outfit he'd found in Grandma Sweat's costume collection, he was all over it!
This is a shot of the Wy-dog post trick-or-treating. He was hilarious. Not only did he have to psych himself up for the "scary" houses (one house had spooky music and a bunch of zombie mannequins lining the walk and Wyatt was mumbling, "I not scared, I not scared" under his breath), but once he got up to the door, even though we'd coached him on proper "trick or treat" and "thank you" etiquette, he'd simply put his hand out, palm up, and wiggle his fingers in a "gimme gimme" gesture. Luckily most folks thought it was cute.
Muscles! He had a ball on Halloween this year, but he's glad that all the scary stuff has been taken out of the grocery store and the giant skeleton guy is no longer in the lobby of Lifetime Fitness. In fact, today when we went to Target and got to the "holiday" section he said, "Santa! I love Santa! Christmas! Mom, it smells like apples!" (And he was right. It DID smell like apples.)
So onward and upward. Christmas here we come!
The night before Halloween, we had an adult neighborhood Halloween party. Most couples tried to coordinate outfits. You know, with their spouses. But Forrest and Cody had other ideas:
It really was a pretty good idea, though, I've gotta admit. Freaky and disturbing, but also pretty funny. And yes, he's wearing an old dress of mine from a decade ago.
But it did leave me without a costume "theme," so instead of trying to be an Elder or something (I guess I could have dressed up in a suit and been their Zone Leader??) I took elements of Elise's costume, ratted my hair, sprayed it silver (which made me look kinda like a 65 year old woman with bedhead, but what they hey) and called it good. I also put sparkles on my face. Just because we had them (for Elise's costume). Because under what other circumstances would I ever have the opportunity to put sparkles on my face?
Anyway, it was a fun party and Forrest only spoke in a falsetto about 40% of the time.
Ethan's costume consisted of a pair of realistic fangs we purchased on the internet. He begged and begged for the fangs--but nicely, he knows how to work the system--and like any good permissive parent he finally wore me down and I spent just as much on fangs as I did on Jonas's costume. He assures me that he's going to use them for movie-making in the future, though--and he was highly, HIGHLY pleased with the way the fangs turned out.
This cloak we dug out of the orange Halloween bin . . . since he spent all his money on the fangs, of course.
Ethan and two of his friends (the third hadn't shown up yet). As yet another example of my parental aquiescence, I let Ethan go trick or treating even though I'd told him that last year was the final year. Lots of kids his age were out and about, though--and they're still on the young side of teenagerhood. And they're good kids, too. Had fun. When they came home, we'd rented "Something Wicked This Way Comes" for them to watch in the basement (one of our classic PG rated 80s horror movies, that and "Watcher in the Woods"--remember??). But guess what? They all decided they didn't want to watch a scary movie and watched Napoleon Dynamite instead.
This is Elise, wearing much of what I wore to the Halloween party the night before (but not looking like a 60 year old woman). She looked dang cute, actually. When people asked her what her costume was, she said she was a "dead maiden."
Spooooooky!
Elise and Tayler. Both dead. Elise and Tayler and another friend from school trick or treated both our neighorhood AND the school friend's neighborhood. Double score!
Jonas was some kind of medieval knight / "Nasgruel" (??? Jonas supplied this spelling) Lord of the Rings character. Mainly he wanted the sword and the shield when he saw them at Target, so we bought both of those and rummaged the rest of the costume from the aforementioned orange Halloween bins. I really am not one of those "homemade costume" moms, apparently. And although I think homemade costume moms ROCK . . . I'm very comfortable in my store-boughteneness. We all have our talents, etc etc, right?
Jonas and a bunch of his friends at our neighborhood Halloween party, Halloween afternoon. Jonas took off trick or treating with this gaggle of boys and I didn't see him until almost 10:00 that night. Kids scattered hither and thither this Halloween!Good think we have Wyatt still at home, willing to let his parents tag along while he trick-or-treats. Wyatt was going to be a dinosaur for Halloween, but changed his mind at the last minute. When I asked him if he wanted to wear the policeman outfit he'd found in Grandma Sweat's costume collection, he was all over it!
This is a shot of the Wy-dog post trick-or-treating. He was hilarious. Not only did he have to psych himself up for the "scary" houses (one house had spooky music and a bunch of zombie mannequins lining the walk and Wyatt was mumbling, "I not scared, I not scared" under his breath), but once he got up to the door, even though we'd coached him on proper "trick or treat" and "thank you" etiquette, he'd simply put his hand out, palm up, and wiggle his fingers in a "gimme gimme" gesture. Luckily most folks thought it was cute.
Muscles! He had a ball on Halloween this year, but he's glad that all the scary stuff has been taken out of the grocery store and the giant skeleton guy is no longer in the lobby of Lifetime Fitness. In fact, today when we went to Target and got to the "holiday" section he said, "Santa! I love Santa! Christmas! Mom, it smells like apples!" (And he was right. It DID smell like apples.)So onward and upward. Christmas here we come!
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