Halloween 2010

The kids are of the age now when Halloween is a much anticipated evening!  They have been counting down for days.  Fancy found her costume at Disney's Animal Kingdom this summer, so she has been ready for a while.  Rella has a fascination with cheerleaders (not sure where that came from), so when we found a sparkly blue cheer dress a couple months ago, she had to have it.  Hi-Hat is loving Calvin and Hobbs these days and he decided to dress as Calvin.  Hi-Hat is the one who ends up with a homemade costume each year, and what seemed like a simple costume this year turned out to be a little more complicated in the end.  We found the striped shirt, black pants, classic red sneakers, and hair spiking glue, but I thought it needed a little something more to make it more obvious who he was.  Here's what we came up with:

I poured over C&H cartoon strips and found a cute Halloween one, and then I had to spend an afternoon playing cartoonist to draw the cartoon onto foam board.  My artwork got Hi-Hat's seal of approval, so that was good enough for me!

And here are my girls:

It's funny how when you're not at Disney World, people mistake leopard-print Mickey ears for just plain leopard ears - "are you a leopard? are you a brownie? are you a leopard-keeping leopard?"

I suppose an Animak Kingdom trainer is a little less than obvious.

with the boys next door 

with the girls next next door

Chomping at the bit for 5:45 to get here!

I think they figured that if they just went out and got started, we would have to declare that trick-or-treating had begun 

 They hit a few houses together, but quickly split up with neighbors into boys and girls

buddies 

I had to check in a few times to be sure that Rella obeyed the signs and "only took 2."

our jack-o-lantern at dusk 

our jack-o-lantern in the dark 

Fancy being attacked by the "vampire slayer" from next door

I think more than anything my kids like coming back to the house and passing out candy for the rest of the evening.  This year they kept grabbing handfuls and meeting the kids on the sidewalk before they could even make it to our yard, so we pulled out a table and benches and let them set up the candy in the yard.  We are full roadside service around here!  I'm pretty sure we had more than 300 kids come by this year.

A Room with a View

Hi-Hat has been wishing for a room makeover for some time now.  I don't really have many photos of his "before" room to share with you (well, I do, but they are stored on an external hard drive on another floor of the house, and I'm comfortable right where I am at the moment and don't want to go transfer them).  Instead, let me paint a picture for you.  On the walls, picture a lovely color with the name "Pulte Mist," which can best be described as the texture and color of sidewalk chalk that has lost its white balance.  On those lovely walls, picture handpainted murals of musical instruments, sheet music and staffs of music notes.  Envision framed pictures of dear little tiny Hi-Hat cradling a French horn, strumming a guitar that is taller than he is, and holding up a drum that is bigger than his own face.  Picture dents, scrapes, marks and gauges in the drywall from 5 years of play on little boy drum sets.  No corner of the room was exempt from these marks as the drum sets found homes in all corners of the room during countless room rearrangements.  Add to this basic background stacks of paperbacks, piles of Nerf darts, rocks, souvenir flags, trophies, silly bands, matchbox cars, Legos, iPod accessories, crumpled papers, dirty socks, pin-up posters from Scholastic book fairs and hand-drawn pictures tacked haphazardly to the walls.

On the one hand, I kind of liked his space filled with the stuff of Hi-Hat.  On the other hand, it made me want to scream, "if I have to pick up and magic erase this room one more time..."  It was time.  Time for a new, big guy space with room for all his little treasures and free of clutter.  Time for some color and imagination.  Time for me to find all my painting supplies.

Hi-Hat's vision for his room is best summarized as urban.  He is just the sweetest little guy, who happens to play the drum set, and sweet and tender as he is, he has list the slightest bit of edge to him.  You really have to look for it, but it's there.  So I was kind of excited about this urban theme.  His colors - aqua, orange and steel.  His inspiration - cables and light.  We still have a ways to go, but here's the result after 4 days of hard work:

First, let me say that I went to pick up Rella from preschool yesterday and got some strange looks from the teachers.  Later that afternoon a neighbor outside asked if I had been painting something blue.  She laughed and pointed to my glasses.  How ridiculous - I had no idea I was in such speckled spectacles!

The painted result - blue walls and ceiling with an orange accent wall.  There will also be an orange pegboard on one of the blue walls, surrounded by a steel gray metal casing.

Now for the main decorative element.  I was so excited about this vinyl wall decal project, shipped directly to us from Singapore!  Once I laid out all the pieces, I wasn't quite sure what I had gotten myself into... The image on the right is what I accomplished after 30 minutes of measuring, taping, remeasuring, adjusting, taping, scraping, etc.  All while a certain 7-year-old was hopping around exclaiming, "Is it done?  When will it be ready?  How much more is left?"

Here are some snippets of my progress as we approached bedtime.  I got a system figured out, and it really was very easy, though quite tedious.  QUITE TEDIOUS!

And here's Hi-Hat by bedtime last night.  The work was almost done, but the ridiculous detail work would have to wait for the next day.

Ta-Da!  The Finished Product

Hi-Hat and I talked about the mural and what one might interpret from it (because we're thinkers like that).  What we came up with is that it encourages him not to keep his imagination and creativity caged up, but to let them fly.  What do the lightposts and wires mean?  Well, that's a deep thought for another sleepless night.  I think it would be kind of fun to lay in bed at night and look at the mural and just think.  Or try to follow all the lines, or count the dots, or think about the folds that would be required to make the paper birds.  So, phase one of the project is done.  Now on to the pegboard and deciding what furniture is granted entry back into his wonderfully clean and clutter-free room.

One day I will again post a photo

but for now, another funny from the mouth of my child.  Overheard as Fancy and Hi-Hat were having a sleepover in Fancy's room last night (Hi-Hat is evicted from his room while I am painting in there*)

Fancy & Hi-Hat: msndbfjksdbfsdljfha giggle giggle giggle mgmsdfdksafjdskfasffg giggle giggle giggle [repeat for many, man, many minutes past bedtime] . . .
Fancy: Hi-Hat, I think we should be quiet and go to sleep now.
Hi-Hat: Really?  OK.
PAUSE FOR A MOMENT OF SILENCE
Fancy: I'm just kidding! We can keep talking about putting lipstick on meg-a-la-don sharks!


*Benjamin More Natura paint is amazing!  Great quality and coverage, no VOCs (including no VOCs in the tint used to color the paint), no fumes, no odor, quick drying, etc.  Love it!

And I fibbed.  Here's a picture after all.  Cutie little Rella at dance camp this summer.  How random.  How sassy.

Funnies

It's no secret that my three-year-old is not potty trained.  Not even close.  We have had major issues.  And while I'll certainly spare you the details of the pull-up change we just had, I'll leave you with words from Rella:
"Ugh! I am going to go erase my eyes!"

Overheard last night at Jason's Deli (while Fancy was eating her odd concoction from the salad bar):
"Ewww - this bacon has meat in it!"

And speaking of funnies, if anyone out there has great ideas on how to turn a child into a comic strip for Halloween, those ideas would be much appreciated here.  Thanks!

My sweet boy

Talk to the hand

Today, I have had it up to HERE with little Rella complaining about anything and everything under the sun.  So I told her I wasn't going to listen to it anymore and that if she had something to complain about, she could go in her own room and take it up with her stuffed animals.  Now, as I am cleaning out Fancy's dresser drawers, I am doing so to the sound of Rella holding court with her animals, fussing loudly about how she just doesn't have enough lipstick and that mean mommy won't plug in a night light behind her bed because it might catch fire.

I mean really, it's a hard life she lives.

Text-only Page

I saw someone at Sea World wearing a cute Disney World t-shirt that I thought would make for a great scrapbook page.  Yep - I was actually on the lookout for scrapbook inspiration on this trip!  I used the idea to list all the fun rides and restaurants we experienced on this vacation and I'm happy with the results.