FireStation and Nocturnal Parade

I've been busy producing an owl costume for Charlotte's nocturnal parade costume. It actually didn't take that long, one movie's worth of time, "The Wedding Planner" one of my favorites. All I had to do was glue on a bunch of brown feathers to a vest. I thought the owl would be finished at that until I put it on her and decided she looked more like Davy Crockett then an animal. So yesterday we had an emergency bib and hat making. We borrowed some owl glasses from a friend and we were set. Charlotte loved it, she was posing all last night.

I love how she still has "red eyes" even with the glasses. We joked that she should have been a raccoon because of her black eye. Since many of you asked how she got it.....she was dancing at a birthday party and got an elbow, or head, or some other body part thrown to her eye. Apparantley at the same time she got her head banged from behind. She started to cry and asked for an ice pack, while she was sitting there with the ice pack on they saw that her eye started to swell up and turn black. They kept asking her if the front of her head or eye hurt but she said no.
I'm glad the owl project is over. These kind of things are frustating because I put alot of love and care into that owl and then I get to parade and see things that are so cute and took way less time. If you ever find yourself making a nocturnal costume for you kid, take my advice...go buy some Zoo Pal plates, cut eye wholes and tape some string to it so it's a mask. It was so cute, so easy and so .25 cents. Why couldn't I think of that.
Next project, Halloween costumes.
I also got such cute pictures of Rozlyn and Mason on their recent fire station tour. Mason had no fear as usual. After the fireman was all geared up they asked if anyone wanted their picture. Mason was the first one to march right up there.

Getting the tour.

Almost as tall as a firetruck tire.

Cute kids.

Baskets, Birthday Party, Black-eye...

and so so busy. I really didn't plan everything to start with a B but once I started I couldn't stop. This post marks the end of my busy days. Last week was the busiest week in forever. I dreaded each day every morning I woke up, and all throughout the day I'd complain about how bad I hate being busy. I'm changing my ways.

As Charlotte's room mom I had the task of creating the class basket to be auctioned off. Our theme was "Pamper Me". We had tonz of donations so we had to split the baskets into two. I thought it would be fun to have Lottie participate, so away we went to all of the fun girly pampering kind of stores in town. The pressure of putting it together was a little daunting. We had to use shrink wrap which was a first for me, that is some fun stuff. Everything looks prettier in shrink wrap. We shrink wrapped the baskets, then shoes, then each kid got to pick out a toy. We had so much fun that we used up the whole roll. You can get it at Hobby Lobby for 4.99 and it really is worth the fun. You'll all be getting presents shrink wrapped from me for Christmas this year.

The baskets were due on Thursday and I was in charge of the combined YW activity on Wed. It was a huge birthday party for all of the girls. I'm sure your not really interested in the details but it did take lots of planning and I'm trying to paint you a picture of my busy week.

We had this gag gift exchange and I got the game Scrabble. I was so excited and it was much better then the old sequins dance unitard I gave away. I came home that night and it was late from cleaning up and made Chris play the game with me. There's nothing like ignoring all you have to do by playing board games late into the night on a weekday. I wasn't so great on night number one but on Thursday night I got the word "Quince" which is some sort of apple fruit. I was so proud that I knew what the word was and that I had all the pieces to play it that I got skipped five times in a row waiting for a place to lay it down. Chris hadn't ever heard of the word which made me more proud because it might be the only word I know that he doesn't. I'm so grateful for the ABC fruit book where I learned it.

Lastly, Charlotte survived another birthday party with no peanut emergency but did come home with a black eye. It's faded a little bit sense she got it a few days back but you can still kind of see it.

Chocolate

Roz brought home a teddy bear last Thursday in a cute little bag with extra teddy clothes from preschool. This bear came with a journal that was for recording Chocolate's (the bears name) adventures. I thought it was such a cute idea. We are a pet free family. We once tried a goldfish and I honestly was traumitized by it's death. Chocolate is kind of the next best thing. All the kids fell in love with him. For me it was a lot of pressure. We had to have something great to record. I've been in quite a lazy parenting slump. Maybe Roz's teacher could sense it in me when I dropped her off. The previous care takers from her class had such fun things to say about the time spent with Chocolate. In the end we didn't do anything elaborate. It's just a sad wake up call that a small Teddy Bear was what was driving me to be a fun parent this weekend. Chocolate ate with us, said prayers with us, participated in FHE with us, slept in Roz's bed with her and lost no limbs (even though there was plenty of tugging back and forth on this beloved toy). This morning before we returned it, Charlotte found him tucked under the kitchen cabinets on the cold tile where he slept last night. I'm sure that was an accident, but confirmed to me that Chocolate is the only kind of pet will ever have.
I hear we get one more weekend with him (if he survives his adventures until the end of the year). There will be a poll going on for suggestions to entertain Chocolate. Get your ideas ready.

My Month Long Sabbatical

Good stories to entertain you and make you laugh still on their way. For now just pictures.

Early morning hot air balloon festival. We had quite the good seats as you can see.

Family photos from our Idaho trip. I couldn't ever talk about it before because it was a big suprise for my mom's big 60th!!! It was the first time in who knows how long it's been since we've all been together. I think it was when my dad retired 6 years ago. The photographer was so great, just look how many of us there were. Plenty of kids and plenty of adults who act like kids.

Okay, long boring and no good stories.