A Homecoming and Halloween

An episodic recap of our goings-on. But first a picture to whet your appetite for the story that is to come:



A Homecoming



First off we were super-duper excited for the arrival of my little brother, Freddie, fresh off the mish in Costa Rica. He spent a couple weeks at home in New Orleans before coming out here where he is getting himself all set up before starting school again next semester. The kids have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Uncle Dodo.

(twinsies)

My brother-in-law, Andrew, went to pick him up at the airport and apparently didn't even realize that they were dressed like twins until they picked up Sarah after work and she pointed it out. We all went to eat at Costa Vida that night, and Laura was able to hook us up with a fantastic discount because she works there. I'm thinking that having so many of my siblings here this school year is going to be the bomb dot com.

The Witches at Gardner Village
Next up was a field trip of sorts. For the last few weeks we've been wanting to go up to Gardner Village to see the witches that they have on display during the Halloween season. Scott and I went a few years ago while I was still pregnant with Grace, but the kids had never been. And since Scott didn't have school on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday of last week, we thought we'd take a little trip up there.

What I should have realized, of course, is that Ethan would be terrified of said witches and would want to leave right away. Grace loved it, though, so before we left we managed to squeeze a few pictures in.

Here are (some of) the witches:

This is the one that was the deal-breaker for Ethan apparently. (The witch was suspended mid-air over a little pond with the wheels spinning, and I guess this really freaked Ethan out).

Our Little Soph (pronounced with a long "o" in case you're wondering)

Its a good thing she's cute, right?

Grace climbed in bed with us this morning and as she settled in next to me asked, "mom, why does Soph (or Soap as she mispronounces it) have so many issues?" Why, indeed. I guess Grace has overheard me describing Sophie quite a bit lately. And what are her issues might you ask? Well, let's see.

She's entered into that ever-splendid phase of separation anxiety.

She seems to be allergic to every food she tries -- so far this includes pretzels, animal crackers, bananas, corn, cow's milk (it was given to her accidentally) and by that same token -- formula (and she won't even try a soy formula, so that pretty much makes me her sole food source. yippee.) And by allergic I mean she either starts wheezing, breaks out in a red rash, throws up, or gets a runny nose. Or all of the above. And over the last few days that I've tried to feed her other baby food, she clamps her mouth shut and pretty much refuses to eat anything.

Other issues? Oh, she won't ever let me put her down. She starts freaking out as soon as she is no longer in my arms. This includes even when she is in other arms -- such as her dad's, or my brother's. I'm really not getting a whole lot done while she's awake these days.

And I think she's teething. She sure is chomping down on anything she can get in her mouth. Hopefully once that's over she'll start to settle down a bit.

Oh wait, and the kids have been passing around a lovely case of pink-eye over the last couple of weeks, and Sophie has now gotten it for the second time.

The (Almost) Birthday Girl

Now onto Grace. In what has become the general philosophy in our household (or at least in Grace's world), why celebrate for one day what you can drag out for weeks? Grace's birthday is this Thursday, but when Emily's birthday package came in the mail last week, she went ahead and ripped into it. As you can see from the pictures she was super excited.



Papi came in town this weekend to see Freddie, and she got another early birthday present.

(Doesn't her hair look so cute? Laura did it for her)

As for her actual birthday DAY, she's already changed her mind a million times about what kind of cake and party theme she wants to have, so it will just have to be a surprise for all of us! Somehow I just know that as soon as I'm finished making her Rainbow cake (which she fell in love with when she saw it on a friend's blog), she will have changed her mind again and throw a fit because she wanted something else.

A Halloween Party

And now on to Halloween. With the MBASA Halloween party on Friday night, I had to get the kids' costumes done ASAP. Luckily Sophie was able to fit into Ethan's pumpkin costume from when he was a baby, so I just had to figure out something for Grace and Ethan. All along, Ethan has been saying that he wanted to be a "cute, little pumpkin, just like Soph." Meanwhile, Grace has changed her mind on a weekly basis (surprise, surprise). First she wanted to be Peter Pan. Then Annie. Then Cinderella -- but with a pink dress, not blue. And then Annie again. And then Cinderella again -- but this time with the blue dress. And finally last week she said she wanted to be a pumpkin just like Ethan and Sophie. I seized upon this and decided that the kids could be a pumpkin patch for Halloween. However, after spending way too much money on my "prototypes" for Enrichment, I realized that the costumes would have to be a cheap affair this year. While at Jo-Ann's last week, I found orange T-shirts on clearance for $1.99 a piece! Score, right? I decided to sew a backing to the front in a few lines for the pumpkins and stuff it with fluff to make it poofy. Its hard to explain, but it only took about 20 minutes to make, and for 4 bucks, we had some costumes. They even looked kind of cute on the kids. Although, as I was making them, of course, Grace wandered in and said she wanted to be a doggy and not a pumpkin. Sorry, girlfriend, too late!

Here is my pumpkin patch:

Sophie's look says it all.

The Halloween party was so awesome. It was really well-done and put together. The kids had a BLAST, and I had the BEST Chicken Tortilla Soup EVER. As soon as I get that recipe I'll have to post it. I had to take a few pictures of how the gym was decorated. And a few more of the kids, of course.




OH! And I had to take pictures of some of the desserts for the "Spooky Dessert Contest." I'm filing them away for future Halloween use.







A Harvest Festival

The very next night we went to a ward "Harvest Festival." It was so awesome. Seriously, I can't believe how well-put-together this thing was. I had to take lots of pictures again, just so I'll have ideas for whenever I may be a Ward Activities Chair.

(This was one of the decorations in the middle of the gym. These are REAL trees!)

There were all kinds of games set up for kids.

It was a family affair, as Sarah and Andrew came, too.

Miscellany

I hadn't taken pictures of these yet for the last post, but these are the blocks that I made as yet another prototype for Enrichment next month. (On the opposite side of "PEACE" is "ETHAN"). I think they came out really cute, and Ethan and Grace both love playing with "their" blocks.



And FINALLY, the story you've all been waiting for. So for the last few weeks, Ethan and Grace's rooms have been an absolute disaster area. We're talking toys and junk everywhere. I'm not even kidding, I think pretty much every toy they own, period, was on their floors. After telling them every day for all those weeks that they needed to clean their rooms, I finally laid down the law last Wednesday and told them that if they didn't clean up I would pick up all their toys and hide them.

Well, they didn't clean up, and as a result, that night around 11 o'clock I told Scott to get the trash bags and we went to work. Is it wrong that I relished doing this? A few minutes into cleaning Ethan's room, he woke up, saw me and jumped out of bed and tried to start picking stuff up and putting it on the shelf where it goes. I told him to get back in bed and go back to sleep and he listened -- probably because he was still half asleep, and I proceeded to pick up. As time went on -- because this was no quick task -- he woke up more and more until he finally worked himself into a full-on melt-down fit.

And then we moved on to Grace's room. She stayed asleep for the first part, but eventually woke up as well and threw her own fit. By the end, it was past midnight, we had two screaming children, and THREE giant garbage bags full of STUFF.

My dilemma now is that the kids really don't play with any of it anyway. And since their meltdowns that night they haven't even asked about the toys. Part of me would love to just get rid of all of it -- because if there are no toys, there are no toys to clean up. But the other part of me knows that eventually they will want to play with them again, and all those bags represent a lot of money spent on toys that I will not want to replenish at a future date. So for now they will just be hanging out, safely hidden, in the basement.

Okay, folks. Hope you've been able to get through all of that! Have a good night.