Simply a Fun Halloween Night

We had a fantastic Halloween night. We did not make any huge plans for attending any parties having just spent 5 days in Halloween Time Disneyland (working on that entry...my camera was missing after the trip so I couldn't upload until tonight) so we were just planning for a low key night trick or treating our neighborhood. But today we were invited to a block party at a friend's house two blocks away (we have usually ended up there anyway) so we were excited because really, trick or treating our part of the neighborhood is kinda lame. Not a lot of kids and a lot of dark houses. Party Poopers. So we carved our jack-o-lanterns after school today. (Which does not observe any Halloween traditions. Also Party Poopers.) We left our pumpkins glowing and headed over to the block party with pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to share.

Costumes...Lindsay wanted to be Girl Pirate so we pulled together what we had in our stash of dress up and costumes and it turned out we just needed one accessory - I made a vest that she wanted to lace up with hot pink ribbon. Caroline was really torn. Her new Tinkerbell dress? A black kitty costume we already had? She had two chances to dress up - for preschool this morning and tonight to trick or treat. She decided to be Belle for preschool. Not Tinkerbell. Just Belle. She was lovely, actually. There is a girl in there afterall! Tonight though, she was a darling cat. And now for Kate. I had a couple of options. One, an adorable penguin costume I made when Lindsay was a baby, is in Colorado where it was used by Meghan's Audrey last year. Forgot to have her send it back. Molly offerred a chicken that Brynley used. Then I remembered I had a turtle I made for Caroline when she was 10 months old. Bingo! It was so cute! Steve and I donned orange T-shirts and I topped it off with a witch hat. Totally creative, I know.

A great time was had by everyone - the food was fantastic at the party the girls loved being in the big group of kids trick or treating and saying thank you (usually after the parents escorting from the street shouted "say thank you!") and admiring tons of spooky decor. We all had fun showing off our little turtle. Our friend Glen ended the night with golf cart rides and sparklers for the kids. Afterward we went to see Grandpa and Debbie and show off the cutie girlies.

Our Block Party crew. At the home of Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, (Kim) on the left.

Click collage to enlarge. Simpson family Halloween Shenanigans
Trick or Treating, pumpkin carving, cookie baking, food eating, camera posing

Princess Belle for preschool. Totally from left field this morning, she wanted to be Belle for preschool. And a darling Belle at that!

Our little Turtle, Kate! We loved showing her off - she was quite the little Halloween trooper. And what happened to the brim of my witch hat??

Our Girl Pirate. Lindsay was so excited to put together this costume. And I hardly made anything - just a thrown together vest. She got to wear one very large hoop earring. I think that was the most exciting part for her. I was actually a pirate in 2nd grade too!

Our black kitty. She was so sweet - this was actually a costume I put together for Lindsay when she was 2 years old. I had shortened the arms and legs of a size 4/5 unitard. I didn't adjust anything, just let out the length in the arms and legs. I left the fur where it was sewn on 4 years ago. It worked - especially since she decided to wear her black boots. Makes her look a little Cat Woman!

Our big girl darlings together!

Four goofy faces.

Here's a tag while I am gone to Disneyland!

Support your local lemonade stand. This past saturday the girls had a lemonade stand and made about $14 bucks. They were trying to earn more spending money for Disneyland. We leave tomorrow bright and early and come back Monday or possibly Tuesday. We may need an additional day. Daddy really needs a vacation. He has not slowed down a moment since July working crazy man hours. We never see him. So, here is a tag to get to know me a bit better. These are so goofy but kinda fun.

Four jobs I have had:

1. Soccer Referee
2. Dairy Queen
3. Kinko's for like 100 years
4. Site's USA Sales Rep (demographic software)

Four movies I have watched more than once:
1. Steel Magnolias
2. Dead Poet's Society
3. The Parent Trap (the original, of course)
4. Top Gun

Four places I have lived:
1. Aloha, OR
2. Provo, UT
3. Springville, UT
4. Chandler, AZ

Four TV show I watch:
1. House
2. ER
3. The View
4. Project Runway

Four places I have been:
1. Hawaii
2. South Korea
3. Mexico (for only a day...and I live 3 hours from there!)
4. I went on a student exchange to an all-girls boarding school in Upstate NY. Does that count?

Four Celebrity's you have met:
1. Donny Osmond (at Kinko's - I helped him make his son's baptism program)
2. Marie Osmond (at Kinko's - I helped her with visuals for a YW lesson)
3. I don't know anyone famous. I can't even think of a brush with the great or near great right now and I used to play that game with a girl I worked with at Kinko's! Which by the way is not even called Kinko's anymore. I went their today and it is called FedEx Office. An era has come and gone.
4. Still got nothin'

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Dairy, almost anything, especially ice cream
2. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
3. Breakfast foods
4. Mexican Food

Four places I would like to visit:
1. England
2. Bali
3. France
4. Italy

Four things I am looking forward to in the coming year:
1. Simplifying and continuing to make my home more livable since moving isn't likely right now
2. Losing the last 12 pounds
3. Lindsay turning 8 - it is after all, her favorite number because she gets baptized.
4. Kate's foot correction completed

Four friends I am tagging:
1. Alison R.
2. Katrina C.
3. Molly A.
4. Jeannie S.

Baby Kate got some Bionic Booties!

Some photos of the babes and her new pink braces. They are tiny! I mean, I know she is small but they are just less invasive than I imagined. Thank you, modern medicine! She is adjusting as well as could be expected. I think the first 24 hours they were quite the novelty but now she gets kind of anxious when it is time to put them on again! We give her an 1-2 hour breaks twice a day. Today we go for a re-fit because I think there are a couple of pressure points that need to be tweaked and the bottom velcro keeps coming off when she kicks her feet together so that may need to be changed as well.

Her sleeping feet. They don't look that different from normal but it is enough to warrant intervention since it has not improved and only gotten worse. She is normal from the heel to the middle of her foot than everything turns in to the center. her big toe should be more of a straight line from her heel and the outside of her foot should go out like a V. They are not just bent because she is scrunched up. They are always like that.

On Monday for FHE, we stamped her feet to scrapbook and frame.

Fitting with Alan. He is great! A dad of 4 girls so he understands the need to be girly with the pink braces.

Chillin' at the park.

Playin' in the jungle.

Getting a hold of one and playing with it. No, she didn't take it off - I had just removed them for free time.

Sleeping. She still slept all night, her usual 9-6ish sleeping pattern. We said lots of prayers that she would be comfortable her first night. Second went just as well.

In her saucer - they make a little noise when they hit the bottom - maybe we have a tap dancer in our future?

Up close and personal. After today's re-fit and another fit follow up next week, then we will Bling those Braces! (You know, in the spirit of Pimp My Ride and Trick My Truck!)

"Now do you understand...

...why mommy keeps telling you to stop putting stuff in your mouth?" I said to Lindsay as we cuddled on the couch late last night.

I was curled up on the couch enjoying some quiet alone time with the TV when all of the sudden I heard screams coming from the girl's room (who had gone to bed 45 minutes earlier) and then Lindsay came running out of her room. She was screaming and shrieking "Oh no!!! Owww!!! I can't get it! Ouch! Aaaaaaa!!!" I couldn't get her to calm down enough to tell me what was wrong and it was dark and I couldn't see. I finally calmed her down and she was sort of able to talk. "I was in bed and some how I accidentally got this button in my mouth and now it is stuck!" I turned on the light and saw a silver thing about the size of a nickel and it was stuck under her tongue. What the heck? (I have load of buttons that I bought in bulk by the pound. We use them for crafts and projects and there are occasional weird snaps and button parts mixed in the assortment of fun and colorful random buttons.) Lindsay decided this piece of a button that is used to make fabric covered buttons belonged in her mouth - it is the piece that has all the sharp metal teeth that grip the fabric! She had managed to get 3 or so of these little teeth fish-hooked into the underside her tongue. It was the weirdest sadest thing! She screamed and kept scrunching up her tongue as I attempted to un-hook this button from the underside of her tongue. I finally got it. I gave her a soothing popsicle and she cuddled on the couch with me and watched Project Runway. The end.

Aack! Can you imagine this thing hooked into your tougue? Molly asked if I took a picture. A good blogging mom would have taken a picture of the button while still stuck in her mouth. I didn't. But here is the offending button.

Edited to add: My Uncle Joe sent me the following in an email:
"Mer, maybe you can remind her of this 10 years from now when she wants to get her tongue pierced." That's our Uncle Joe!

Sew Much Fun!!!!

Lindsay had been begging me to learn how to sew. Maddy is openly "bitter" that my early sewing was coached by her mom and her mom never taught her how to sew. (All in good fun!) So, I decided to have a little Sewing Camp for Lindsay and Ellie. I was 7 when Maddy's mom helped me make some gifts for my new baby sister Meghan and I figured now was the perfect time to start with the girls. (In exchange for sewing day at my house, Maddy had a scrapbook day at her house and the girls made a darling scrapbook album. ) Caroline got to go and play at Zoe and Lucy's house while the bigger girls would sew.

I decided we would make some fun and funky skirts and would add a little embellishment with yo-yo's - an old quilting decorative technique that is making a comeback in crafting.

First, we took a fun trip to downtown Mesa and picked out some amazingly fun fabrics at Blissful Living Studio - they carry some of the best boutique lines of fabric like Heather Baily and Grand Revival . Not the usual (yawn) selection at Joann's.

The girls and I talked about why it is important to learn how to sew and why we need these skills and how pioneers made their own clothes and often their own fabrics and had to fix their torn clothes because they couldn't just go to Target and buy new ones!

I got yo-yo template makers for each girl and we learned how to thread a needle, sew in and out thru the template, and sew on a button as the finishing touch. I LOVE their looks of concentration!

We took a break, had waffles and Crystal-Lite for lunch, and found a tiny lizard in the backyard.

Ellie's yo-yo's on the left, Lindsay's yo-yo's on the right.
Oh, how cute!

I did the cutting and measuring. That lesson will come later! I kind of made up the pattern as we went along. (This would come back to haunt me as I had to re-make the tops of the skirts because they were too big but that is OK because in the end the pattern I created was perfect.)

We learned how to line up right sides together and carefully pin.

First, we practiced sewing a straight line on paper with a piece of duct tape as our easy to see guide. Then they graduated to side seams of their skirt.

We had to figure out a way for the girls to reach the foot pedal!

Skirts in pieces. I made and attached the ruffles and and did the waistbands. The girls did all the straight seams.

Close up of finished skirt with cluster of hand made yo-yo's.
How cute is that?

Lindsay is in heaven and adores her finished skirt! Ellie loves hers too - I still need to get a picture of them together - they are so darling. We even put a yo-yo on a hair clip and that is dang cute too! Lindsay is a yo-yo making machine and has since assembled a bin of scraps and continues to make yo-yo's in her free time. We will be thinking of a project to use her yo-yo creations.

THE NEXT DAY...

We even got Caroline and our neighbor Dylan in on the action! He came over to play and we told him we were making yo-yo's and he was welcome to join us! (I am going to assume he thought we were making something different.) Dylan's dad called to check up on him and I literally think I heard his jaw hit the floor when I told him that Dylan was hanging out with us...sewing! Dylan ended up making 5 yo-yo's that day - one for himself, his mom, his dad, and one for each of his dogs!

It has been a while since I have sewn for my kids. Well, I did make Kate's blessing gown, but it has been a while for the big girls. I was again bitten by the sewing bug and am going to start whipping out these triple tiered ruffle skirts. They are so darling and fun and feminine yet can be funky enough for my spunky Caroline. Oh, I can't wait! I am so thrilled that my girls want to learn about sewing and are interested in it - it is a dying skill and I am happy to keep it alive in our home. There are so many fun projects we can do together.

Baby Kate is 5 months old!

Can you just eat this up? How cute is she?

Yesterday our little Kate reached 5 months. We just adore this little lady and can't get enough of her. Someone is always doting on her and she is usually happy to oblige. But, she is also quite good at chillin' by herself when needed. She spends a lot of time going to soccer and gymnastics and wherever else the big girls have to go but she usually takes it all in stride and keeps a reasonable schedule through it all. Our formerly big baby girl is now 25th percentile for weight, 13 lbs 2 oz last week, so she is on the small side. Fine with us! We love our little girls - all 3 of them!

Hangin' out at her first Diamond Backs game. She liked it.

At the pool today. She loved me dipping her little feeties into the water. I think she was getting tired though...

The cooperative patient.

Speaking of feeties, this is how she spent this morning - getting casts of her legs for braces. Some of you know, some don't, that Kate was born with Metatarsus Adductus, a birth defect of the feet where her feet unnaturally curve in - normal from the heel to mid point then all joints and bones turn inward. Her feet and ankles all roll in. We call them her "curly feet." We have been on a "watch and see what happens" plan because current medical theory is that most babies with this condition correct on their own. Hers has not corrected and, in fact, it has tightened up. So we were referred to a Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon and was diagnosed with a "moderate" bilateral case, meaning both feet. At this point we are doing physical therapy/stretching and will be bracing her feet and legs from the knee down. So, tiny casts were made to make molds to create her custom braces. She will wear them for the next several months, if not longer. I am keeping it in perspective and know that she is in good hands and the reccommended course of treatment should eventually lead to a full correction. It is not the worst problem in the world and is easily fixed so we are glad about that. This week I will be making imprints of her tiny "curly" feet so we can always remember them and their squishy curvy cuteness. By next Tuesday we will have her pink braces and you can know for sure we will cute those things up with some bling!

Preschool Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

My darling and her perfect pumpkin!

Last Thursday I was able to chaperone Caroline's Pumpkin Patch field trip. It as a lovely, yet hot, day but the kiddos had loads of fun selecting and decorating pumpkins, a tractor pulled hay ride, feeding farm animals, running the hay maze multiple times, yummy snacks and jumping in the bounce castle. I know - a key activity for every visit to the pumpkin patch! Our little group included Caroline and two friends Madison and Morgan. We were the Ghost group by the way! I am so glad I was able to go - for all of Lindsay's years of preschool I never had a big enough car. Then, last year I had a big enough car but was too big and preggo to want to go on a field trip so this was the year. I might do it again too! These little ones adore their teacher and she makes for so many great experiences for them. I am so glad to continue preschool with Mrs. P!

All sorts of pumpkin patch antics.

Decorating our pumpkins with seasonal foam stickers - they love doing this!

Feeding the goats. We also fed pigs.

We are the Ghosties!

Daddy's another year older ...and keeps getting more and more handsome!

On Tuesday, Steve celebrated his 35th birthday! We have a tradition of going to visit Daddy at work and taking him to lunch. Since Lindsay started kindergarten, she has not been able to join us for the work birthday field trip but since Fall Break fell a little earlier this year, she was able to join us.

In Daddy's office. He just moved into this office space and had not yet unpacked or "decorated." The girls brought some new artwork to hang on the walls.

We also made these delicious cupcakes. We took 2 dozen of the most amazing double chocolate with cream cheese frosting cupcakes. It is part of the tradition - everyone there seems to remember and look forward to the cupcake visit!

Steve's request for dinner - tacos. He could have said anything he wanted. He asked for Tacos! So, that is what we made. And his favorite strawberry lemonade and homemade salsa and guacamole. Not a great picture, nothing fancy, but it was what he wanted.

The girls put on the dinner entertainment with a medley of birthday songs.

A couple weeks ago we went to TGI Friday's for dinner and Steve ordered a peanut butter pie for dessert. He loved it and asked if I could some time figure out how to make it. Well, I decided for his birthday to figure it out and after lots of searching online and tinkering with various recipes, I came up with this yummy peanut butter mousse pie. When I am not so sleepy I will post the recipe I created!

I think he liked it! He finished this piece and then some. Daddy was treated to a new baseball cap, a polo shirt, t-shirt, socks, and a portable mini-tool set. He is also supposed to be getting a new cell phone or i-phone or blackberry or ipod or something. I am leaving that up to him.

"One year older and wiser too, Happy Birthday, to you!"