Thanksgiving 2012

We had a nice, low-key Thanksgiving. My brother Nate, SIL Alli and nephew Aidan came over. I cooked Thanksgiving dinner and they brought some great side dishes and pies.

My kids got really into the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this year while Brian and I got dinner ready. We ate with Nate's family fairly early, which provided for a nice afternoon of just hanging out, watching some football and going on a beautiful walk.

Here are the kids - they adore their baby cousin!

All in all, a great day to celebrate the many things we are grateful for.

Halloween 2012

It seriously is becoming more difficult to keep up with my blog. What with pics on phones and pics on the camera, my photos are not nearly as organized as they once were. And side writing projects, and life and growing kids and this and that and it isn't leaving me with much time or motivation. But as this is the ony place our memories are dwelling, I must keep up. At least try to keep up. Hello, here it is Thanksgiving week and I am just catching up on Halloween. A first for me.

Halloween was warm and beautiful this year, the costumes turned out well, the pumpkins were filled with candy, so I call it a success.

A few Halloween-y treats. The vampire pancakes from a few years ago were a MUCH bigger hit this time around (Connor was freaked out by them last time). We have named them vampcakes. And also some Frankenstein krispie treats-

Our carved pumpkins-

My favorite costume (maybe of all time) was Mason's owl costume. I had thought of it a couple of months ago and was so thrilled with how it turned out. My talented and dear friend Kristie made him the hat, and I sewed felt feathers and wings onto a cheap $5 sweatshirt from Walmart, and I bought some yellowy/orange tights at Target. It came together beautifully; the wings actually looked awesome when he pretended to fly, and when he "flew" around saying "hoo-hoo" the cuteness was nearly impossible to contain. He was a big hit at our ward party and trick-or-treating. And the picture of him drinking out of a cup with go down as one of the best pics ever. He was a well-loved and much-admired owl.

In true Lucas fashion, he chose something tough, the Mr. Incredible costume that Connor wore a few years ago. I made the mask, and because he insisted he needed long, shiny black gloves, I made those too. I'd never made gloves before, and he wouldn't want to wear them for anything besides in costume, but they worked and he was pleased. And tough, of course.

Isabel decided on being a candy corn fairy. She didn't want to be called a princess, but she didn't have wings, so we went with fairy anyways. I had a ton of fun making her wand and crown, and had planned on making a tulle tutu, until my friend Becky offered up a felt candy corn bubble dress she had made a few years back, and Isabel liked it enough to use it, so that we did. It went great with her wand! She looked sweet enough to eat.

Connor went through the most costume idea changes; he settled on being a fisherman just days before the big day, but since it was such an easy costume, I was fine with it. He made the paper fish, and then he and Brian sealed them on both sides with packing tape, punched holes in them and hung them on a stringer. They put some lures in a gander mountain hat, he wore a bug shirt that passed of as fishing flies, carried a tackle bag for his loot and we called it good.

All together-

Trick or treating!

The loot-

38th Birthday

Brian and I celebrated our 38th birthdays on October 29. We were excited to try a creole cafe called Lucile's that comes highly rated and much beloved, and so we thought our birthday was a perfect time to go out for an awesome breakfast. And it was! We had beignets, hot cocoa, fresh-squeezed orange juice, biscuits with homemade jams, and he had the creole omelet and I had the eggs sardou, which was poached eggs over creamed spinach with gulf shrimp, and cajun potatoes. And they served the meals on darling Happy Birthday plates. Amazing and fun and cozy and just awesome all around. What a great morning! We hardly ever go out for breakfast; it was a real treat, especially as my friend Jen took Lucas and Mason so we could have a leisurely morning, and we did some shopping after breakfast.

It was nice to get a lot of calls and messages from family and friends with birthday wishes, and that evening we went out to dinner as a family.

The next evening, some of my friends took me out for a costume birthday dinner to Hacienda Colorado, another fave where the salsa is so good they have to serve me my own personal serving in a large bowl. It was fun to see how everyone was dressed - they all looked awesome - but my favorite was my friend Jen's costume... she dressed as my biggest fan! She made a poster with my picture, a shirt with my picture, buttons with my picture; it was a little strange seeing so much of myself, but it was so clever and fun. Love good friends. I dressed as the queen bee, a costume I made and wore for me and Brian's first married Halloween, when he was a beekeeper and I was his queen bee. Ahhhh.....

I arrived home that evening to find this note from Isabel on my pillow; she often leaves notes for me and/or Brian at bedtime, this one was especially sweet-

All in all, a fun way to celebrate my life, although I'm not so much a fan of getting older. 40 is looking all to ominously on the horizon!

Isabel's 7th birthday

Isabel turned 7 on October 11, and ended up with no less than three days of celebrating, lucky girl!

On her actual birthday (a Thursday), she asked for fried eggs and toast for breakfast, easy enough. We gave her a couple of small gifts, a kitty necklace and a Lego Friends set (best things ever! love them!), because her main gift was yet to come (ear piercing!). Brian and I surprised her at the school cafeteria at lunch time with a pizza and a balloon, and ate lunch with her, then after recess we went to her classroom to hand out treats. She was SO surprised to see us at lunch (I had packed her a trick boring lunch that day), and said it was one of her birthday highlights, and that the surprise "touched her heart." It was awesome.

Being sung to in class and handing out treats-

Our 7 year old, and her necklace-

That evening was pretty quiet, as Brian had to be at the CU football game. She chose tuna hotdish for dinner (for reals!!!) and we had a movie party.

Her party was the next day, Friday, a no-school day. She had chosen a luau theme some time ago, as she is very into Hawaii. As I was preparing her party, she did say it would have been better to actually have the party in Hawaii. Um, sorry.

We hung a few decorations (I asked the kids to make some pineapples to display, they did a cute job)-

I made some "beachy" cupcakes-

When all the girls were arriving, Isabel placed a lei on them greeted them with "Aloha! E Komo Mai!" which means hello, welcome, enter. The girls were so amazed with her language abilities, it was darling.

Then I had them each color a tropical picture until everyone arrived.

I had cut out some felt hibiscus flower pieces; the girls selected color combinations and we glued them onto hair clips. They turned out very cute, and the girls felt pretty with their hair flowers.

For games/activities, we learned a bunch of Hawaiian words phrases; listened to hula/luau music and learned a bunch of hula moves with the girls taking turns wearing the grass skirt and modeling each move (I had grass skirts for each girl, given to me by my friend, but they shed some a ridiculous amount that I had to come up with plan B); did the limbo; and played hot potato but with shell, passing the shell around the circle to luau music and when the music stopped the girl holding the shell was out). They loved the games/activities; there was much giggling and happy screaming, especially when Brian did the hula. :)

Learning some hula moves-

She opened presents-

And we had cake and ice cream and Hawaiian punch-

And each girl got to bring home a luau bag filled with flip flop crazy straws, tropical tattoos, those little paper umbrellas (the biggest hit every, I can't believe how excited they got about them), and some tropical Starburst (and of course their hibiscus hair flowers).

All in all a very easy, cost-effective party with maximum fun and results. My kinda party.

The 3rd day of celebrating was Saturday, when Brian's mom and I took Isabel out for a girls night out and to GET HER EARS PIERCED! Isabel has never ever wanted to get her ears pierced until she saw her cousin Grace (same age) get hers this summer, and Isabel has been asking about it ever since. Brian and I didn't have a definite age limit set, so we agreed since she had been asking for months and that she's a responsible girl, we were fine with it. I didn't think she'd actually go through with it. But she did!

She brought her new lamb Lenny for comfort, and was brave as can be. She said it hurt way more than she expected, but she did not cry.

Before-

-

During-

After (eyes slightly red, but tear-free)-

We spent some time shopping for earrings, and I was pleased with how many little-girl appropriate sets they had that were sweet and cute. She chose a forest creatures set, a sea creatures set, and a winter/Christmas set-

 Then her Nanna gave us a ride on the train-

She took Isabel to the Lego store to pick out another Lego Friends set (seriously, such fun and cuteness), and then took us to Johnny Rockets for dinner-

 Here's her Lego Friends treehouse completed. She has been pretty much playing with it nonstop-

Whew! What a way to celebrate 7! We love Isabel so much and are so grateful that she is a part of our family. She is a really fun, chatty, bright, imaginative, entertaining, social, full-of-life girl.