Boys and Girls

It's very funny to see Noah play with his cousins (all girls). Watching them together really highlights the differences between girls and boys. Noah is VERY "boy" and my sister's girls are each VERY "girl". For example, the other day we all went on a walk on the trail behind my parents' house. It's a favorite activity around here because along the trail there are several horses that the kids like to visit. My nieces have named the horses such things as Pocahontas, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Jasmine, and Mary. Noah has named all the horses "Bulls-eye."

Speaking of naming things, I have to share this story about another niece (my brother's daughter) because I can't stop laughing about it. My brother (whose name is Dave) was listening to his 4-year-old daughter Emma play wtih her toy dinosaurs the other day. She had created a little dinosaur family. She held one up and said, "This is the mommy dinosaur. Her name is Laurel [my sister-in-law's name, naturally]." Then she held up another one and said, "This is the daddy dinosaur. His name is Steve."

Out in Cali

I'm writing from California right now. On my last trip out I didn't blog the whole time and then wrote about 27 catch-up posts afterward. Yeah, I'm not doing that again. So I think I'll just post and add pictures later. Anyway, we've had a great time so far. I came out with the boys last week - or the week before that maybe? Who knows. It's so nice to have a portable job. Sure, I get no vacation days but I can do my job from anywhere, which is a real perk. Ben's joining us here on Wednesday and then we'll all stay one more week after that.

My first order of business this trip was attending my friend Mary's wedding. Mary is a good friend of mine from high school. I went with my best gal Katie and we saw a couple of other high school friends there. It was fun to catch up and see people I haven't seen in a long time! The wedding was beautiful - as was the bride - and the reception was elegant and fun all at the same time.

Update: Here are some pictures from Mary's wedding:

The happy couple entering the reception

Me and the bride

Ani, Brooke and Dana

Me and Katie

Ani, Brooke, Mary, me and Kates

My favorite part of the wedding was the candle part of the ceremony where the mom of the bride and the mom of the groom each lit a candle and then the bride and groom used them to light one candle together. I didn't do that at my wedding and I'd really like to. Maybe on our 20th wedding anniversary (or our 10th since that's much closer!) Ben and I can have another ceremony so we can do the candle thing. And maybe it can be on a beach in Hawaii. And I can wear another wedding dress, because that's just fun. Are you reading this, honey??

More Birthday Wishes

Phew! I think this is the last (but definitely not least!) catch-up blog post for today.

Yesterday was Ben's birthday - the big three-two. I like to remind him that he is well in his thirties now while his young wife is still in her twenties. He likes to remind me that we both have to check the same box on forms so I guess I shouldn't get too snotty about it. :)

Here is the birthday boy on his big day yesterday (he's doing some church work - it was a very exciting birthday).

We did part of the celebrating Saturday night. We went on a date to see Dan in Real Life (very good movie) and then got some ice cream. The actual birthday was pretty low-key but we did have a yummy birthday dinner (although the dessert was gross - Ben requested rice krispie treats instead of cake, but apparantly I used stale Rice Krispies - yuck! I'll be making another batch later with fresh cereal...). We had stimulating dinner conversation, during which we tried to tell Noah how old Ben was. It didn't really sink in though, as you can see from this video:




After dinner Ben opened presents with a little help from Noah (Noah basically took over):



After presents the boys (minus Sam, who was in bed already) played a fun game of try-to-swipe-daddy's-glasses, which lasted for quite awhile (I started recording it well into the fun):

And that concluded the birthday celebration.
Happy Birthday, Hubby!! I love you!!

P.S. Is it just me or does it take everyone forever to put videos in a post?

Belated Birthday Wishes

Last Thursday was my big brother Dave's birthday. My poor brother - I am very rarely on time with his birthday (I put his card in the mail today). The problem is that it's on November 1st so not only is it the day after a holiday, but it's also the first day of a new month and my calendar has not been turned yet. Oh well, he knows I love him anyway! Seriously, he's the best big brother in the world and one of the smartest, kindest, funniest people I have ever known. And he does a really great impersonation of Grover from Sesame Street.

I honestly don't think I have a single picture of me and Dave (ridiculous - I will be fixing that at my first opportunity - which may not be for awhile since, sadly, he lives far away from me). So here's one of Dave (on the left) with our brother Tom and Dave's kids Ethan and Emma (baby Adam is not pictured).

Happy Birthday, Big Brother! I love you!!

Trick-or-Treating

On Halloween I took the boys out trick-or-treating with my friend Natalee while Ben stayed home to pass candy out to the other neighborhood kids. It was fun to trick-or-treat around a neighborhood this year (last year was a total flop around the apartments, remember?). Someone had told me I should dress up like a tree so that Sam could be a monkey-in-a-tree. I thought it was an awesome idea so Natalee helped me tape leaves all over myself. The costume only lasted for 3 houses. At that point, I realized that a) nobody got it (I took an informal poll and was 0 for 3) and b) it was definitely not puffy-hooded-vest weather so I was quite uncomfortable. On our way out of the cul-de-sac I ran back home to ditch the costume. We trick-or-treated on a couple of streets and then Noah announced, "Okay, that's enough candy." So we came home and ate some pumpkin pie. Yum, yum.

Monkey in a tree (get it??)

Family picture (Ben, again, dressed as himself)
Sam ready to ditch his costume
The boys examining their spoils
Our friends, the Stephens trick-or-treating at our house

Pumpkin Carving

Noah and I carved our first pumpkin together (I use the term "together" very loosely as I did 100% of the work while Noah stood by the table and looked on; he wasn't even interested when I offered to let him dig the insides out with his hands). We named him Bob. Noah felt it was important to give Bob his own cowboy hat.




I learned a couple of important lessons about pumpkins this year.

1) Jack o' lanterns should be thrown away the morning of November 1st. If you wait 5 days, it will have become d-i-s-g-u-s-t-i-n-g. It will be soft and mushy and smelly and the inside will be covered with unidentifiable growth (visible through the carved out face because there was no way I was going to take the top off to investigate any further). Oh, and gnats will be flying all around it.

2) Mini pumpkins are cute but one is best off decorating one's mantle with fake pumpkins from Hobby Lobby. Otherwise, one risks having a real mini pumpkin rot and explode, thus staining the mantle and requiring a new paint job.

Live and learn.

Halloween Party

This is quite late, I realize, but I've decided that today will be blog-catch-up day (it's also doubling as laundry day). First up is Halloween. On the Saturday before, we went to a trunk-or-treat party at church. I went as a witch and my main job was decorating our trunk and passing out candy.


I got a little help from Noah toward the end of the night.

As you can see, Noah went as cowboy Woody. He was so so so adorable in his costume. Ever since I gave him his cowboy boots (I'd been hiding them in the closet for the last couple of weeks), he's been wearing them everywhere.


Sam went as a monkey. Such a little cute-stuff!


Ben (who went as himself) took the boys around the parking lot while I passed out candy at the car. Both boys had so much fun. Sam mostly just liked to hang onto his bucket and take candy in and out. Although, when we got home we saw that he had eaten a mini tootsie roll - without unwrapping it first. Such a little monkey.


Here are a couple of my favorite costumes from the night. My friend Suzy, who is 7 months pregnant, dressed her fetus and herself up as a bun-in-the-oven.

My friend Jenn dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West. Her baby was one of the flying monkeys (her daughters were Glinda and Dorothy).