Was it really that long ago?

This week has seen a temperature shift. It is chilly, overcast, rainy. And that means I'm baking and making soups. I wish my family loved soup as much as I do.


So it seems odd to look back at these pictures to a warmer time. With sunshine, shorts and sandals, sans socks.

The boys spent a morning preparing a tea party - denuding the yaupon holly bush of red berries, smashing them, mixing with water, straining and then serving.




I just liked this one. This boy has a sweeeeet tooth.



Ghoul & The Gang





Previous years we treated (because who tricks anymore?) with friends in a "planted" neighborhood. (i.e. we sugar-careful parents selected healthy treats to leave at the neighbors' houses for when we came to the door. granola bars, pretzels and nuts galore... It's really all about the process of costumes and friends, right? right? I haven't damaged my children irreparably?) This year it was full-on door to door chocolate. And as they lorded over all that they conquered, I was astonished at my candy repertoire; there were literally dozens of different types of packages of candy before me and I could identify with complete accuracy and clarity the contents of each; deftly singing "sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. almond joys got nuts, mounds don't."





The boys have had the habit lately of picking up the camera to capture something to remember, so when I dump the camera bits onto the computer I am met with several shots of something unexpected, like this playdoh turtle. I wonder if she had a name.




And speaking of remembering things, In Nbear's class they set up an altar for Dia de los Muertos, the day to celebrate and remember those who have died. I decided we should have our own altar at home.



Contents:
Photo of Grandma Hubbell at the beach
Photo of Me & Bruno in San Diego
Photo of Betsy & Bailey
Photo of Grandpa Alden
A postcard from Salt Springs because it is near Quaker Lake where my Great Aunt Mabel and Uncle Gene lived in the summers
Lilies because Betsy liked them, in her crystal vase
A trivet from Grandma Hubbell
A paintbrush from Grandpa Alden's workbench
Bruno's purple leash
Lace doilies from somewhere in my family
A tin of guava paste, scavenged from Betsy's pantry
A cup from my great Aunt Ann and Uncle Dick for me when I was born
A small dish of pine nuts for Betsy because she really liked them (the squid ink that she was always searching for to make black pasta was respectfully in absentia, because I can't find it either...)
And marigolds, because that is traditionally part of the Day of the Dead altar and they are growing in my garden.

To steal the phrase from Lisa, Sofa King cold...

Just yesterday, this was the scene at my house:



Painting, ahem, al fresco.





Today though, it is long shirts, long pants, socks, hats, scarves, mittens, wraps and still a bit nippy. Brr. I don't mind the cold. What I mind is 70 degrees one day (and I considered mowing the lawn) and then 35 degrees the next day.

A little from Column A, A little from Column B

A+) Nbear lost his two front teeth and just in time for Christmas! My, how many times have we heard that song? Not nearly enough! How often does that work out -- both front teeth AND Christmas?! It's like Jupiter & Venus aligning! (didn't ya'll see that?)

A-) When Nbear lost the first front tooth - it left the root bud behind. Firstly, I didn't realize just how absolutely positively squeamish I am about a loose tooth. I could barely look at him with it just dangling there. Then he lost the tooth, but the root was not quite ready so it left a "bloody stump" behind. Oh yeah. There were no night-time kisses for awhile. until it... just dissolved...



B+) Lisa came to visit for the grand spanking opening of Mr. Craig's latest adventure in well-tailored white pants! And I got to shake things up with Sinda and smack some things down with Dawn. No picture could capture the WHOMP! of that rolling pin crushing ice for drinks. It still scares me.




B-) I missed getting to go see the new Bond movie with Lisa (and the 18 other people who almost got kicked out the movie theatre because of those lovely white pants) as I was Blogging From Bed with the flu. Both Smith & I were kaput. The children however were fine. We woke up blearly and neither could summon the effort that it would take to get the children off to school and out of our hair. So they stayed home. Here's what I vaguely remember thinking that day:

- it's really really windy

- there sure are a lot of naked people selling stuff in dwell. it's a shelter magazine, does sex really sell everything?

- how much wind would it take to blow something off of the house

- spaced (the british TV series) is the best thing to watch while ill with the flu

- metal roofs are noisy

- i wish we could actually watch spaced but the children are around

- sesame sticks do not smell good on someone else's breath. ever.

thankfully the children, those self-sufficient marvels that they are, kept to themselves (for the most part, there was that run in with the sesame stick breath). They fed themselves and took every single multiple-pieced toy apart and played the heck out of it. missing (oh thank the heavens) was the flooding, the shampoo abuse, the toilet paper wasting and the rock writing on the car events of the last two months. There was one moment of silence though, it must have been 2 minutes long but Smith and I simultaneously popped our heads up listen. ??? and then back to playing it was. and to sleep. ah.



C+) Jbird wore this bucket on his head for an entire day. It fit him perfectly. I have no idea where it came from. On the other side, it read "Sol." N decided that J's face needed some extra flare with markers to finish the look. Who else looks this good with a bucket on their head?



C-) There is no minus to looking this cute with a bucket on your head.




D+) I got to see the babies! My beloved nieces and nephew are sofa king adorable. 7 lbers now too! How awesome is that?!

D-) I didn't actually get to touch the babies. I was over the flu, but was coming down with a cold. Drat! Uncle Tommy & Aunt Lynne were the best though - they loaded up and brought those little buggers over so we could at least peer at them through the back of the sneeze-guard back window. Did you know that 3 baby car seats can fit into the back of an extended cab Chevy pickup? Now you know. Jbird & Nbear got hoisted up into the bed of the truck to peer through at the sleeping wonders. J looks up with big eyes and proclaims: "WHOA! That's a lot of BABIES!" tail on the donkey that one.


E+) We sold our old house! Yeah! One less mortgage to pay. One less electric bill. One less everything! And new neighbors!

E-) They finally finished building the warehouse that backs up behind our fence at the new house. The parking lot lights are... how shall we say... flood-lighty?


F+) Thanksgiving!! One more year that I wasn't responsible for the bird. My dad, of course, as usual, was on the mark with the bird. I tried to help with the side dishes and the pie, but my mom is the master. I think I just got in the way. The best part of the Thanksgiving meal for me actually comes the next morning. I have pie for breakfast. And nobody tries to stop me!

My mom also sets a mean table.



I think my family is a tiny bit japanese.






F-) My dad gets jipped because his birthday is on Thanksgiving. So he bakes the bird and then has to blow out the candles (oh, and we didn't even have those) on the pumpkin pie. Sorry dad.


G+) I found Tina!
G-) I found her on Facebook.

Boo Ya'll!

A little election diversion, posted while the rest of the world is literally glued to media outlets waiting for the news.



Trick or Treatin'
We had a full on police force for the night out, where we went door to door in a friend's grandparent's neighborhood where us anti-candy moms have planted Halloween "goodies" like granola bars! dried fruit! graham crackers! (when Nbear is old enough to read this, I'm SO busted!)




The full lineup. While Jbird seemed to have developed an oral fixation on those cuff-a-links, Nbear seems to be totally enamored with the snow white princess. aw.






and speaking of love, Smith and I also celebrated a stealth anniversary night out. He had free tickets to a book reading (lots of folks in town for the Texas Book Fair.) I didn't feel like forking over the big bucks for a sitter and offered that he should go with Sinda, because she would totally enjoy it and it would be a small token of thanks for the myriad cool things that Sinda does for us. Like this: She opted not to go because "um, isn't that ya'lls anniversary? and can I watch the kids for you while you guys go out?" see? isn't she the coolest ever? Without her, our anniversary may have come and gone unnoticed for our own self-absorption. So she did watch the kids and we saw (and heard) Peter Sagal and Scott Simon read from their latest books. AND! My bonus of the evening is we had a small, teeny tiny, brush with fame. Smith and I popped out for dessert post-reading and the waiter informed me that the person who had been sitting in my exact chair mere moments before we arrived was none other than Claire Danes.

Houston, We have liftoff!

My friend Lisa has described the feeling of leaving the house, leaving the children, being off on one's own as being like a helium balloon - once let go, one drifts up and away feeling lighter and lighter.




Today as I bid both boys adieu at the gates of school, the feeling was more like a rocket had launched from my chest. and e x h a l e . I had been looking forward to this very moment often (remember this gentle reader?)

I now have some time and space alone for myself. Before now I could probably count the number of times I've been in my house alone on one hand (and Smith clicking and gabbing away in the home office is going to be ignored right now for sake of argument.) It feels good.



I ran into another person who was having the same feelings, but she was feeling guilty too. Somehow I am not. It can be painful to watch them grow up and away from me, but I am happy for my kids - they are going off on the next adventure of their lives (albeit with much less ME in it.) It is good for them. And I am happy for me, for I too am going about the next adventure in my life!

The Olympics, being Amish, and the best play on words I've ever seen from a 5 year old

Like the rest of the world, we have Olympic fever. The boys sailed up in their "boats" to get front row seats to the opening ceremony:



You may notice something funny about the TV? Yeah, well, that wasn't any photoshop trickery, that there is just a plain old TV set. Usually? we don't watch TV. We rent from netflix and watch on the laptop all cozied up in bed. Saturday mornings might get the occasional viewing of the Biscuit Brothers. But it wasn't until the Olympics that we realized what a sad sad state our TV is in. And this is our "upgrade" from the 12 inch. Our being "behind the times" sometimes gets us the moniker of being Amish (hey - that's an easy group to slander on the internet, huh?) Guilty. I still remember the cable guy in Vancouver coming in and taking one look at our meager set and remarking - "I guess I won't be talking you into a dish..."


And one funny from our summer - it's "Fire Chief! (get it?! maybe you can't see the fringe well enough to "see" the native american-esqueness of it?) and his sidekick fireman!

Guess Who is THREE?

and got a shiny new (albeit not red) wagon for his birthday?



(psst. it's the short one.)

Temperatly Confused

So what is the temperature like outside?




hat weather for sure!

Someone flirted with me today

To the cute young guy (ie under 30) who smiled sweetly at me at the gas station and continued to smile and wave at me all the way home up Lamar, even after spotting the car seats and the two year old in the back --

thanks dude. for totally making my day.