Dance Party USA

I have a bunch of old light strings in the Christmas decorations so the girls decided to put some up in their rooms. They each picked colored lights with a little box that controls how fast they blink.

After we put Olivia's up in her room she turned off her light, set the Christmas lights to a fast twinkle and turned on her Pink CD. She was dancing around and having a party all by herself. A little later she asked me to come in and open her blinds, but first she said, "It's ok right? Because the police will know it's just Christmas lights?"

Deck the Halls.... FAIL!!!

I'm feeling very happy and proud because the whole family pitched in on Sunday and decorated the tree and put up most of the Christmas decorations.

We even managed to do this with only 2 reprimands and one "If you bug her again you will NOT be getting back on that computer today!" .... All the while I'm thinking to myself, 'You are going to sit here and join in with the family and you are GOING to enjoy it OR ELSE!' Luckily I realized that actually voicing that sentiment might be counter productive... but I was thinking it.

So these are now some of the sights in our house...

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why the post title?" Well, because we had a huge snowfall last night that covered everything.. well almost everything. It did however highlight some things that I'd kind of missed before.

As I pulled into the driveway this morning after running the carpool I noticed six of these little babies popping out of the snow in the front flower bed.

Happy Halloween!

Well the day came and went... and I got the costumes finished. Just barely.

Sammi's actually didn't require much, she found a costume to buy. We just had to spray her hair orange and curl it, then Riley did her fabulous Mad Hatter make-up. I only got a couple pictures of Sammi because it was kind of a hectic day and she spent most of it at her friend's house. So she missed a lot of the picture taking. Which if you know Sammi... is fine by her. She's usually avoiding the cameras.
I only got a couple of shots before she started pulling the "that's enough mom" face.
For Olivia we pulled out the old Lara Croft cosutme. It only needed a few tweaks. AND... she has enough hair that we didn't need to use extensions! She had a great time posing and doing action poses on the trampoline. Most of those action poses ended up with her tongue poked in her cheek.
Cute little stinker.

Riley was Alice from Resident Evil. If you don't know who that is... she basically kills zombies that are infected with the T-virus that was engineered by the evil Umbrella Corporation. Duh!
Her vest and holsters were a lot of work, but it was kind of fun to see if I could do it. We even temp dyed her hair for the occasion.

For my sake you've got to click the picture below so you can see a close-up of all the work I did on something that only got worn twice! I'm thinking Zombie killing might be a recurring costume around here just so I can feel like all the work was worth it.
Matt modified the 2 nerf shotguns for her. He had to saw off the stocks and the barrels. He also found a way to make them shoot farther on a youtube video. Then he had to paint the shotguns and pistols.

In a previous post I included a picture of the real Alice. So I couldn't help trying to re-create the movie poster with Riley in it. Not too bad if I don't say so myself. I think we got the costume pretty darn close!

M&M's ruined Halloween

A couple of years ago my parents got me a clear candy dish on a pedestal. It looks really pretty when you fill it up.

So this year I went to the store in search of the usual Halloween fillers... Candy Corn, Candy Corn flavored Salt Water Taffy.. and the peice de resistance... Purple, Green, Orange & Black colored M&Ms.

And.... THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE M&Ms! For some crazy reason M&Ms made FALL colors! Orange and Browns... YUCK! Those colors are NOT as happy as the purple and green!

I'm going to sit here and pout with my ugly yellow, orange & brown candy dish.

Halloween again..

Well... it's that time again and I'm presented with yet another challenge by my creative daughter Riley.

She first wanted to be Alice from Alice In Wonderland, but when we got the costume it was evident that they made it with very weird proportions. The waist was TINY and everything else was HUGE.

So... she decided to have a different costume. She still wanted to be Alice... just not the same Alice. She wanted to be Alice the chick who kicks zombie butt in the Resident Evil movies. (She's seen the TBS edited versions.)

The costume shouldn't be too hard... I hope. Mainly it's black pants, black t-shirt, combat boots (which I have and she's borrowing.. yesssss), and a killer vest and holster get up. Oh yeah.. and ... 2 six shooters, 2 pistol grip sawed-off shotguns, and 1 ninja sword. Of course.



So, I will be working on the construction of said vest and holsters over the next few weeks, as well as trying to locate the appropriate weaponry. Can't hunt zombies without fire-power!

Olivia and Sammi are giving me an easy time. Sammi chose a girlie Mad Hatter costume, and Olivia is going to reprise the Lara Croft costume. Luckily Livie already has the hair!

Trees for Sale!

On Monday I decided to finally use my Mother's Day and Birthday gift certificates for our local nursery. (If you wait until fall the roses go on sale for half-price) When I got there I thought, "Oh what the hey, I'll look at the trees too". And guess what?! Their great big trees were on sale for 50% off! And with my gift certificate that's practically free... right? Well not actually... but for the sake of argument I'm saying it is. hehe.

So we had this lovely tree (that is already bigger than the Maple we planted 4 years ago) delivered and planted it in the front yard. It'll take a few more years but it should be fabulous shade for Olivia's room and my office! (the hottest rooms in the house) I'm excited, it's a London Planetree... or sycamore if you like, and they're supposed to get anywhere from 50' to 80' tall! Sweeeeet. And, they're supposed to like crappy sandy soil, which is so lucky.. because that's what we've got! hehe.

The only bummer was that I bought it on a day that was 90 degrees and then Matt and I had to dig a 5' wide by 2' deep hole before the delivery truck arrived. Uhh.. not fun. I'm all sunburned now too. But I still like my new tree!

Frandsen Piercing Studio...

Sammi got her ears pierced... at our house!

I was talking to her 4th grade teacher Parys about finding a piercing studio closer to our house and she mentioned that her husband was a trained piercer and had trained many of the piercers in the valley. She said she'd ask him where would be a good place for us to go. Then she told me that Russ said he'd be happy to do it for us and we could even do it at our house. Cool!

So they came over yesterday, and he brought his little sterile kit and gloves. He told Sammi all about what he was doing and what she needed to know to take care of her ears.

Marking the spot with a blue pen. (I didn't get a shot of him cleaning her ears)

Setting the clamp on her ear

A good shot of her with the clamp on the second ear

Big breath in through the nose and out through the mouth... I took this right as he pushed the needle through. She didn't flinch or anything.. she DID say that it was more than a "little pinch" though.

Once he puts the needle though he sticks a cork on the pointy part then attaches the hoop to the other end and pulls it through.

Sammi had no idea there was a big needle sticking through her ear until she saw the pictures!

Both ears done! Can you tell she's trying not to smile?

Extreme close-up.

Sammi posing with Mrs. Lightel.. her favorite teacher in her new earrings!

Soggy...

Ahhh... I love a good rainstorm. Don't you? The lightening, the thunder, all that rain pounding down.... the raingutters overflowing... the water pouring down into the back stairwell... the flooding of my laundry room and family room. Awesome.

We had quite a fabulous storm today. It started at about 12:00, and at about 12:05 I realized that it was coming down so hard that it was over-flowing the rain gutter in back and pouring down into our stairwell. Unfortunately I was supposed to leave at 12:15 to take Sammi to Primary Children's for her follow up doctor appointment. Hmmm... what shall I do?

I'll tell you what I did.... I ran into the house screaming at Riley and Sammi to grab every towel they could find and run downstairs to jam them up against the back door. They took every single towel in the entire house including dishtowels and dishcloths. We even ended up using a couple blankets too. The big bummer is that I had just washed, folded, and put away most of those towels the day before!

And why is it that when you are screaming your kid's names in an I've-lost-my-mind sort of way... they don't hear you? And you're in such a state of freaking out that all you can think to do is scream their names louder until you get their attention.

Ok, so towels in place... I send Riley out to begin bailing out while I call Matt. "Matt the basement is flooding and I've got to leave in 10 minutes to take Sammi to the doctor! Come home!"

Now Riley and I are running around with giant pots to do the bucket brigade and bail out the stairwell. By this time the water level is above the bottom step. We're running up and down the stairs filling buckets as icy cold water dumps down on ours heads about twice as fast as we can bail.

It starts hailing.

Fill bucket... run upstairs... throw onto lawn... run back down. Meanwhile, Riley has her shirt pulled up over her head and is yelling, "mom, this hurts!". Yep, hail does not feel nice... but it's not like we can stop bailing... we're losing the battle. She runs and grabs her bike helmet.

We FINALLY get the water level down to about the bottom of the door so I leave Riley to continue until Matt get's home (it seems like it's already been an hour... what did he do? Stop for a cheeseburger?) and I go in to change clothes. Mind you I was soaked to the skin within about .2 seconds of going outside.

I change my clothes... the hair is a TOTAL loss, and forget any make up. I look like I just got out of a freezing cold shower and my mascara is smeared down my face.

Meanwhile Matt has arrived and Livie is bawling. All Matt can see (now that the downpour has abated) is that for some stupid reason we let all this water run into the basement.

Now.. I'm REALLY not hoping to have this experience again.... but it would be nice if he were actually at home some time when it does! He only ever sees the aftermath and not the raging battle. Do you get the impression that this is not our first stairwell flood? Well it's NOT.. it's our THIRD. How do you think I knew to check the stairwell in the first place?

So Sammi & I take off and leave Matt to the shop-vac. We show up at her appointment and I look like a drowned rat with my hair still completely wet. Thank goodness for baseball hats. Here's the silver lining.. Sammi's ultrasounds look good and her kidneys look good so as long as she doesn't get any more kidney infections.. that chapter is done!

I come home to piles of towels & carpet pad outside, and all our Christmas decorations piled up in the spare bedroom. The door is off the hinges in the under-the-stairs storage spot and there are 5 fans blowing like a hurricane.

After a lot more cleaning... guess what I'm doing tonight? Washing all those towels again.

The water came in through the laundry room on the right, came into the family room, the storage and the furnace room on the left.

Looking out fromt the laundry room.. the carpet is soaked all down the left wall to the bookcase.

Nice.

I'm wierd, but isn't the lighting in this picture good?

The Pit of Despair

Riley showing how high the water got. We should have let it fill up! Didn't you always dream of doing that with the shower as a kid and having a swimming pool?

Hanging all the towels out to dry. Look at that stupid sunshine.

More towels and the two lovely bailing pots.

More towels and some blankets. You can't see it but there are more on the other side.

The various hand towels and dishtowels. You can't see it, but there are more strung over the top of the netting.

The Christmas tree box was all wet so we set up the tree in the garage to dry off.


And a nice pile of carpet pad. This pile got bigger as the clean up continued.

I just counted and we used a total of 23 towels, 2 blankets and who knows how many hand towels, dishtowels & dishcloths.

So.... What did you do today?

Just one reason why Matt is awesome...

The past few Christmases Matt's family has had a White Elephant gift exchange. Last Christmas I came up with the idea to give a photo album.... full of pictures of Matt.

Here are a few of the faaaabulous poses he did for us.

The Innocent Eskimo

Grown Man in Little Hat

The Bro

The Sweetie Pie

Gay Paris (pronounced Gay Paree)

He's thinking of changing his name to Matt Zoolander.

Water Commercial

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago and it cracks me up. It looks like it could be an ad for Arrowhead water.... except for the funny face she's pulling and her tongue sticking out.

I should clarify that she did the weird face on purpose!

The Big Day...

How did this happen? When did my little girl go from this:

To this?

Well, today was the day. Riley finally got her braces off. And she told me on the way home while looking in the mirror, "I hate to say this mom, but I'm kinda sexy now".

So, of course I immediately grounded her for the next 10 years.

Surgery Day

The surgery is over and everything went well. Sammi has been just as sweet as ever, no crying, no complaining. She's in on the couch right now reading a book.

The doctors were all very nice. They thought "New Kitty" was a pretty funny name for Sammi's old well loved kitty cat. I, of course, forgot my camera so Matt snapped a couple of pictures on his cell phone.

Pre-Op. Happy and smiling and ready to go.

Post-Op. So sleepy, she downed a cup of slushie and went right back to sleep.

At home in the bed we made on the couch. The slushie you see on the left soon ended up in the pink bucket. Apparently Maverick's slushies are NOT the same as the hospital's slushies.

Looking to see what that beeping noise is... uh.. sorry honey.. it's the auto-focus.