Happy Halloween

Any guesses on what these guys are? I'll give you a hint, each of the dogs "goes" with one of the kids. I'm not gonna lie... the dogs were a stretch this year. I thought I was being clever, but it really didn't translate to anyone who doesn't live inside my head. Notice Sandy is having a good time, and Skoopi is about to drop dead from humiliation. Answer is below. Mr. Man shows off his skillz and his pumpkin which kind of resembles him... don't you think?
AK as Little Red Riding Hood. I made this costume from scratch, no pattern and LOVE how it turned out. I was shocked when AK suggested it, she has been talking about being a Star Wars character or a princess all year. I jumped all over the idea and bought the fabric 10 minutes later.
I made this outfit for AK last year and was thrilled that it still fits. AK wore it everyday this week.
So if you guessed AK was Little Red Riding Hood and Sandy is the Big Bad Wolf you are correct! Shhh... The costume tag actually says, "Lion" which I didn't realize until I brought it home, but if you squint real hard she kind of looks like a wolf.
Mr. Boy was boycotting Halloween because I refused to buy him a billion dollar Boba Fett costume. The kid had 2 costumes last year, and yet wore his Batman Pajamas for most of the festivities, so I put my foot down on a new costume this year. At the last minute, he negotiated a compromise, ended the boycott and decided he wanted to be a pirate. Some scrounging around produced a decent costume, and Skoopi is a Crocodile, specifically, the one from Peter Pan who taunted Captain Hook. The crocodile costume was Nathan's idea and there is a green cape on Skoopi that isn't pictured that gives the "full effect" of "kind of, sort of, looking like a crocodile".

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I won! I won! I won! Thanks to all my pals and pals of my pals who voted, I won the Just Spotted Disneyland Holiday Giveaway!

Other than this... I've never won anything else in my life! I'm not a lucky person, and let's just say I wasn't voted "Most Popular" in high school. So this is a big deal.
So how does a winner spend the day... After perusing my tax return to analyze if the win is going to throw me into a new tax bracket. (And you wonder why I wasn't voted Most Popular!) I decided to share my good news with the residents of my 2nd home aka Nordstroms. Met up with "my shoe guy" who hooked me up with these bad boys. I wanted these boots since I first visited the Harley Davidson shop at the age of 14. For my 15th birthday I had the tough decision of deciding between these and cowboy boots. I chose cowboy boots, but for years I have pined after these. I decided to celebrate my good fortune by turning a gift card into boots. Now... If I could just talk Mr. Man into buying that Harley I've had my eye on!

On Raising AK...

She wants everything pink... Yet she can make the most scary faces... When it's time to get dressed up for picture day, she can wear the sweetest outfit.... but doesn't feel complete... unless she's toting a weapon.

Love it... LOVE HER.

Sweet Fancy Moses... I'm a Finalist!

I'm not a winner, my previous post about being one of the nerdy loser moms should be evidence. So imagine my shock and surprise when I found out that I'm a finalist in a contest.

One of my favorite local blogs is hosting a Holidays at Disneyland Giveaway! So vote for me, by clicking here. Click on Qwendykay!

You can read the finalists stories here. Mine is all about my fortunate experience at Disneyland introducing the children to Tinkerbell aka my archenemy, and how she shrieked when she saw me.

Thank you!!

Halloween is coming.

After the Halloween boxes were brought down... I walked by the window to see this in my backyard. A goblin child contemplating his next spell.

And I'm loving these vintage Halloween plastic plates, along with several other sets that I inherited when some family friends moved. The price tag says 45cents!

This giant creepy thing keeps showing up, and it freaks me out. However, we are knee deep in reading Charlotte's Web and the kids think this is Charlotte. So we have to let her stay. It's the time of year for Petting Zoos and Pony Rides. AK showing a "little baby doat" some love. "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" has been on playing on repeat at our house. The best part is watching the kids double over laughing when Lucy yanks the football away from Charlie Brown. AK has picked her costume, and then changed her mind 72 times. Mr. Boy can't decide because after buying him the 40 billion dollar Flash Costume last year to have him only wear it for an hour... I have put my foot down on buying him a new costume. It makes me feel like a giant Scrooge. Oh well. We've had a blast making homemade Halloween Decorations, and plastering the kids art all over the wall. Such a fun and festive time of year.

Once a Loser... always a loser.

Mr. Boy is at a new school, and while he is adjusting well... I am not. After being at the same darling little school for a few years, I knew the drill. This new school is big and full of new rules. Even worse, no one else is new, they've all been doing this for at least one year. I have NO IDEA what I am doing half the time. An insane amount of paper comes home, some in folders that have to be signed, there are shortened days, PTO nights, Family Activities, and more fundraisers than I can count.

I've been late for pick up twice by 6 minutes, and gotten lectured. You can park there.. but not here. Mr. Boy wants to buy lunch and I have NO CLUE how he would do that. Do I send him with money? A check? Does he buy a ticket? I have relied on my neighbor friend who I adore to help me navigate. She is an angel. Then there are the other mom's. The mom's who all have coffee twice a week together, who chat in the pick up line, who are in the PTO. These mom's have like a billion kids that attend this school and have been doing "this" forever. Supermom's who have time in the morning to make French Toast, pack lunches, and sew 20 costumes for the school pagaent all before it's time to take their kids to school. I am not one of them, and I feel totally intimidated when I watch them chat every morning. I'm sure they are nice people, they just seem to have it "all pulled together". With all the emotions I am feeling, imagine my anxiety when Mr. Boy's weekly homework packet came home the first time. The first letter of all the spelling words were cut off. Even worse, they were all "-at" words. Fat, hat, pat, cat... etc. So I had NO idea what they were, I just had a list that said "at" 10 times. Sight Word list B was on the schedule, but I had Sight Word list 21 in the folder. Math sheet 11 was nowhere to be found. Nothing matched up.

The next morning, I took the homework folder over to the "cool supermom's" and said, " Hey, um... did your spelling list look like this?" *holding up my list of "at"s* I felt there eyes look me over, and one of them said, "Yeah.. like we toooootally don't like, look at the like, homework until Thursday just before it's like, totally due." *

And then my fellow nerds and I retired to the nerdery with our calculators. (name the movie... win a prize!)

Being a mom to a gradeschooler... just like high school, except your car has more cupholders.

*maybe exaggerated for emphasis

Harvest Festival

It was 9 years ago that we moved into this little house. Mr. Man went ahead with the dogs and the moving van, and I was a couple minutes behind. Mr. Man called me and said, "Um... the freeway offramp is closed for a parade." A few minutes later, I got another call, "Um.. the streets are blocked off the house... due to a festival." We love this harvest festival... it reminds me that in the midst of this suburban sprawl... we live in a town with a long history and a deep community spirit. The kids had a blast on the rides. Poor AK wasn't tall enough AGAIN this year to go on much, but she took it in stride! She was tall enough to go on this little rollercoaster, which she LOVED and begged to go again and again.Mr. Boy loves this ride... and I love this expression. This ride has captured my heart. I learned last year that it is an antique belonging to one of the old great "carnie" families. It was a gift to his wife for her birthday back in the day. It made an appearance at Neverland Ranch, and then the carnival family bought it back. It is GORGEOUS and SOOO FUN. I hopped on it with Mr. Boy and it felt so liberating to fly through the air. I loved it! The best was watching Mr. Man trying to capture a pic of Mr. Boy and I from the ground. He was watching intently but couldn't spot us. Miss AK waved at me EVERY single time I went around, she had no trouble spotting me. I laughed and smiled so big my face hurt by the end.

I'm totally asking Santa for one of these this year.

Princess-Dinosaur-Butterfly-Star Wars Birthday Party

Remember ages ago, Miss AK had a birthday. Summer birthday's are tough, and so we experimented with having her party in the fall after she started school. AK could not pick a party theme, so I had her narrow it down to four. Even picking just four was ridiculously hard for her, she wanted a Dinosaur-Princess-Star Wars-Butterfly-Pokemon-Pony-Wonder Woman-Dog-Supergirl-Kitten-Cooking Party. I fully believe my kids are the hosts of the party, they pitched in and AK help decorate the cupcakes. AK picked out the world's largest bouncehouse, fit for a princess... and her entire kingdom. The kids helped me decorate, and I loved how girly it turned out... If you look a little closer, you'll see there is dinosaurs mixed in, attacking the princesses. Minutes before the party, AK decided she wanted a superhero party instead.... *sigh* When I popped a crown on her head, we were back into Princess-Dinosaur-Butterfly-Star Wars Party mode, and Superheros were stashed for next years party. Everyone got a light saber upon arrival, which was a big hit. Everyone had a good time playing Princess and Star Wars. All was well, lunch was served, a small fire extinguished, served cake, and opened presents. Oh, did I gloss over lunch? We had sandwiches cut out in dinosaur and butterfly shapes. Are you still obsessing about the fire? Oh, small detail. I had a citronella candle out by the food, and Mr. Man moved it right next to the napkins. A small breeze... poof the napkins caught on fire. Awesome! My favorite was stamping the fire out with my fabulous sparkly shoes and turning around to see Eight 4 year olds staring with wide eyes. Quickly I turned into a teaching moment, "Fire is hot, Stop, Drop, and Roll.. Yadda Yadda" Secretly, I hoped the kids would forget by party's end. AK told me at the end of the day, "It's so fun being Four, am I Four now, or do we have to eat more cake?" Her favorite part of the day was "having my class over to eat cupcakes and play Star Wars".

First Day of Pre K..

Somewhere along the line, AK's first day of school pics were uploaded but never published. Forgive me girly girl... Here is the first day of school breakdown. In an effort to break you of your dress habit, I bribed you into wearing shorts with the promise of ice cream. You also demanded "Two Ponies" in your hair. (ponytails)
Somehow, I misplaced the shoes we bought at our annual back to school shopping trip, so we had to run out the night before to get new tennis shoes. School kind of snuck up on me, due to the awesome laziness of our summer days and I felt horribly disorganized. You love that these have a star and real laces. We took our annual pic in front of the sign, and you were anxious to run off to be with your friends and your teacher, who you love, love, love. You have three pals in your class who you've known forever... ALL BOYS! When I left, I had a flashback to the many times I have fretted over milestones, and here you are talking in ginormous monologues all the while balancing on one foot. It seems silly that I worried about when you would walk and talk, obsessed over your weight in grams. Those days are far behind you. Mr. Boy was stoked that he hadn't started school yet, but wore his old school shirt to show his support. That entire morning he asked, "When is it time to pick up AK?" You were excited to tell us all about your day when we picked you up, and kept saying how you got to do things because "I'm bigger this year, because I'm four."