Halloween '09

Happy Nevada Day. Sort of. Nevada day is the 31st, but they want to give us plenty of time to celebrate, so there's no school today or Monday. Kind of like two snow days that extend our weekend, but without the snow and with perfect weather.

The kids had their school Halloween parties yesterday. Gus was a mummy:

I tore strips in this stretchy white fabric I had laying around and hot-glued it directly to his PJs that morning. Then I made this head piece that he could wrap around his head. He kept putting it over his mouth. I didn't ask him to do that. He's already a quiet kid.



Here he is at his class party.



I tried to get a picture of this kid who dressed up like Michael Jackson, but he turned (yes, he) right when I snapped the picture. He was the spittin' image of Blanket Jackson, no lie.



Homer was a viking.



It's a Legoland costume he pulled from his toy box. He wears it on a regular basis. Those Legoland costumes have gone a long way. I swear, Lego makes the best dress up clothes. Super durable material, and quite inexpensive. We have lots of them. Love 'em.

Here's a pic from his preschool party:



Cord's school Halloween party was an informal dance. I wish I could have seen that/snapped a few pictures so you could have seen it too. He dressed up in one of his Lego knights costumes that used to fit him when he was about 6 years old. I wish I could have seen that/snapped a few pictures so you could have seen it too. The kid has no shame.

In other news, who wants a duct tape wallet? Quick, while I'm in the mood, place your orders...

Trouble

Are you watching So You Think You Can Dance this season? Anyone else feel sorry for the trio of tap dancers? It was painful to watch them flail their little arms and legs across the stage last night. I was halfway closing my eyes, and trying not to notice every time they fell out of sync. Very uncomfortable. Tap doesn't translate to the small screen I think. It's one of those dance styles you have to see in an elementary school multipurpose room.

Yeah, those tappers might be in trouble.

I might be in trouble too. See, I decided it would be fun to make duck tape wallets with my cub scouts tomorrow. I bought a bunch of tape today, and made a couple practice wallets. Turns out, I'm brilliant with duct tape and exact-o knives.

These are 100% duct tape. Did you know it comes in all those colors? Even this purple plaid color, which I used to line this wallet, all professional-like:



I added little pockets for credit cards etc, cuz what if the eight year old who's going to use this has a credit card?






The checkered pattern is woven pieces of folded tape:

About halfway through my first wallet, I started to worry that duct tape might be too hard to handle for the 8-year-old's in my scout group. To test my theory, I did a dry run with Gus. He's exceptionally good with crafty-type projects, so I was expecting him to do all right.

Yeah, the duct tape kicked his butt.

I had to jump in and help before his wallet turned into a giant tape wad. So I guess that means I'll have 1 hour to make 12 duct tape wallets for 12 impatient boys tomorrow. Trouble, indeed.

Gus's finished wallet turned out pretty sweet...

...but it's non-functioning, as I had to cut off about an inch of bunched up tape on the ends.

Good thing he doesn't have any credit cards to not-fit in there.

Costumes...

We decided to go as total gay wads. We waited until the last minute,
so we had to just pull something from the back of our closet. Good
thing we keep gay wad clothes in the back of our closet just in case.
You should see the costumes our kids came up with. They were on their
own.

Backwards

We've had wide-spread illness at our house for about a week. And when I say wide-spread, I mean Cord, me, and Homer became feverishly ill, in that order. Tony and Gus never catch anything, as per their freakish immune systems. I am very glad they never get sick. Yes, I'm 99% happy for them.

Here's Homer in his sick cocoon, compared to his earlier self-portrait:

He nailed the eyebrows.

He's been drawing people a lot lately. He has his own signature style, that includes Brillo-pad hair. I like this picture he drew of himself with his favorite person:




For some reason, he wrote his name backwards at the bottom of this one:

Creepsville.

But he out-creeped himself when he wrote his name backwards and upside down across his stomach:

Speaking of backwards names, there is someone in Las Vegas named Sexxy Lewis.
This is not an old lies tale. Proof:

He's the second cousin of a victim. Sadly, I think his name is the real tragedy here. Sexxy, spelled with two x-es? That kreatif spelling is gonna give him grief for life! "No, it's Sexxy with TWO x-es."

Seasons

Why are there so many songs about rainbows? Let's count them.

1) Somewhere Over the Rainbow

2) Rainbow Connection

Two.

And why are there two songs about rainbows? Because of awesome pictures like this:

Yes, I spotted a tiny rainbow over Gus's school this morning and snapped a picture with my phone. It must have rained in them there mountains.

It looks more like spring in my backyard than fall. We haven't had any rain in the city, but we've had lots of hose water and drip systems. My un-manicured planter is in bloom like it has never been before.



And see how my ground-cover cascades?



When I planted that stuff, I pictured "Disneyland landscape." Getting there, no?

Here's a pic I took at the park the other day with Homer and his friend, which I enhanced to look more like fall:

What do you think? It was about 85 when I took it, but it could pass for 65 after photoshop.

Ah, photoshop-fall is in the air. Good enough!

Monday morning

I woke up to little scratching noises, and found Homer sitting beside me with a note pad, sketching a self-portrait.

He's like a sad little clown whose mommy won't wake up.

What's going on...

We took Cord to the eye doctor last week.



We knew this day would come. Not only are both of his parents legally blind, but also, he had been failing school eye exams for years. Even so, we decided not to bother with glasses until his vision started bothering him... and it finally has. This is the first year that he's had problems seeing the board. But only in his science class, so that particular teacher must write like an ant.

Ironically, his prescription is exactly the same as mine was when I got my first pair of glasses. If only I knew where the H I put those glasses. It would have saved me $59.

It was not easy finding the perfect pair of glasses for Cord's tiny face. Not many styles to choose from for boys at Eyeglass World, either. Luckily, we found these inexpensive vintage glasses. Are these perfect for sciencing or what?

The good news is, he's nearsighted so it's best if he only wears his glasses for distance seeing stuff, and otherwise leave those bad-boys off his face.

Change subject.

We had company come stay with us last weekend, so I spent a lot of time making my house shine like the top of the Chrysler building. I got rid off all those papers that I was emotionally attached to, so I'm cured of my hoarding disease.

Before: After:



(Note to self: Do not open the blue tote.)

Here's Homer, vacuuming his bedroom like a mad man:

And here are our esteemed guests, the Hineys (aka the Landersons).

We went out to the Hoover Dam one day, and that's the only day I pulled out my camera, otherwise I would have gotten some pictures of me and Landee at Cafe Rio and playing Bananagrams, and lots of pictures of Gty playing Homer's DSi.

Cord went with us to Hoover Dam, because his school called right as we were leaving for the H-dam and said I had to pick him up. He had a vicious fever of 99 point something degrees that went away before the Tylenol touched his tongue. And the school nurse said he couldn't go back to school for 24 hours so he had to miss two days.

Check out this adorable picture of Landee:

^^Piper McCloud.

Gty: "I didn't realize Hoover Dam was named after the president."
Tony: "Did you think it was named after the vacuum?"

Here's Cord standing in two states at once, Nevada and Arizona.

The Landersons left on Wednesday (frown), and then I sat on the couch and caught up on my intense TiVo schedule.

Change topic.

I still haven't decided on a Halloween costume for me and Tony, and I only have a little over a week to come up with something. AV (aka Carol) sent me this picture, and suggested I be the octomom:

I love it. The only problem is, what would Tony be? Her nameless, faceless baby daddy? Dr Phil? I dunno.

I was kind of considering something Alice and Wonderlandish, or maybe dress up as my two favorite internet people:

Hoover Dammin' It

I'm a hoarder

Shhhhhh

Help me out, K?

Hey, I need some ideas for Halloween costumes for me and Tony this year.

Yes, we're dressing up. We don't usually, on account of being too cool, etc. (Except for last year, when I wore my Fork's hoodie and told everyone I was Bella.)

See, I'm helping with this big, practically famous, Halloween party, and I gotta dress up, or else be shunned. Not only will everyone be dressed up, but also, there's this costume contest, with above-average prizes. I don't necessarily need to win, I just need my costume to be freaking incredible so people will come up to me afterward and say things like, "You should have won, cuz you had one of the best costumes of all time!"

Here are the results of my brainstorming session:

iPhones
An Amish couple
Lady Gaga and a bird's nest
Taylor Swift, looking forlorn, and Kanye West, holding her mic
iCarly and Spencer
Mary Murphy and Nigel
Blogspot and Facebook

What do you think? Give me some more ideas, K? This is important. We can do this!!

Yes. We. Can.

Speaking of Trees and Hair...

Brrrr. It suddenly turned freezing cold here in the blustery city of Las Vegas. Highs have been in the 70s-80s. Worst part is, we have to deal with this kind of comfortable weather for about 5 months out of the year. Ah well. <--whole paragraph, riddled with sarcasm.

My Forks hoodie finally came out of hibernation from the back of my closet, which is similar to a groundhog coming out of his hole and seeing his own shadow. Fall has officially arrived! Any day now, the leaves are going to start falling off my schizophrenic tree. Or maybe it's a Siamese twin tree? Check it out:



I was thinking schizo because it seems to be two entirely different breeds of trees stuck together.

Meh. I say schizo.

Onto the unrelated subject of hair...

Cord has had the same hair style since he was about two, unlike Gus, who insists on changing things up about twice a year.

The hair style works for him. It's a nice clean-cut side part, that goes great with a polo shirt or an argyle sweater. But it's also kind-of boring. He's looked the same in all of his awkward school pictures since kindergarten, and I think it's the hair. I struggle to even place his pictures in order.

Cord in 1st grade

Cord in 5th grade

So, recently, Cord decided to change his hair.

It actually happened because I was too lazy to cut it. I kept putting it off until, one morning, his hair was too long to comb to the side in its usual fashion. It just wouldn't stay, no matter how much gel I put in it. So he went to school that day with these side-swept bangs, a la Zac Efron, and I told him I would cut it when he got home.

Well, the plan changed when I picked him up from school, because the girls went goo-goo-ga-ga for his new hair. And even some of the boys, he said.* Ahem. Anyway, I don't know what to think. He does this head flip every so often to fling his bangs out of his eyes, a la Zac Efron.

*That reminds me of this funny story from when Cord was in 1st grade. I picked him up from school one day and said, "Cord, you look extremely handsome today." And he goes, "I know." And I said, "You do? How did you know that?" And he goes, "Keith told me."

Enjoying the view from our hotel...

View from our hotel room...

At the St. George Marathon...

...go emat!!!!

The Tear

When I picked up Cord from school the other day, he goes, "Guess what, mom, I almost got a citation for dress code violation today, but my teacher told me she'd let it slide this time."

I was like, "Huh?" because he was wearing his clean little white polo shirt (check) with his dark blue jeans (check). That's correct student attire.

And he goes, "No, no. She was gonna give me a citation for torn pants."

A tear in his brand new pants that he's only worn about three times?? I was just about to go "angry mom" on his hiney, when I noticed that he didn't have any noticeable tears in his jeans.

These are the jeans in question:

Can you see the tear? Of course not. Because it's invisible to the naked eye.

Here it is:

Yes, that little bit of fray on the bottom edge, on the back of his left pant leg.

How the H did she even spot that tiny bit of fray? Cord said it's because he had his foot up, resting on his knee when his teacher passed by to do her little inspection.

Fuming mad.

No way am I replacing every pair of pants that gets a tiny fray on the bottom.

Cord was like, "Don't worry, mom, I'll just keep my foot down next time she walks by." And I was like, "No, you put your foot up. I dare your teacher to give you a citation for that."

I've always wanted to go "angry mom" on one my kids's teachers' hineys. Things have been way too peaceful for the last 6 grades. And for the sake of irony, I'm gonna wear these jeans when I do it: