The rest of 2011

I'm not going to bore you with a witty introduction. We've got a LOT of ground to cover here, people. Ready?

September:
#1. The boys started school...and by boys I mean Dan, Jake, and Ty. Dan's still teaching middle school math for which he will receive many crowns in heaven. Ty's in half-day kindergarten, and loves it with all his heart. He has a new BFF and a wonderful teacher and teacher assistant (the same ones Jake had last year.) Jake started 1st grade, and he's actually in a 1st/2nd grade split which makes me proud. He's reading up a storm and has Dan's ridiculous math abilities.

#2. School starting meant the start of a glorious stage of life for me that includes a quiet house from the hours of 8am-11am. I've used this time in a variety of ways, my favorite of which is grocery shopping without needing to apologize to the check-out clerk for the 20 fruit roll-ups she'll need to put back because I didn't authorize their presence in this monstrosity that is the "car cart." Oh, and yes she certainly can ring up those ones that are mangled beyond recognition after a vicious light saber duel, and sorry bout that.

October:

#1. The boys played flag football for the first time. I keep thinking that someday I won't make a fool of myself when my boys score a goal or make a basket or catch a pass. Not gonna be anytime soon. I think Jake scored at least one touchdown in every game they played and I hooted and hollered through every last one of them. And when Ty got to run the ball or pulled a flag off an opponent, I just about burst with pride. I'm really not an emotional girl, but when one of my boys looks over at the sidelines and grins once they know I've seen their accomplishment, I have to fight back tears. Can NOT wait for all the games they'll play in the years to come! Jake and Ty, win or lose your mama will always be your biggest fan.

November:
#1. Thanksgiving was great, thanks for asking. My parents came over to my in-laws house with us for dinner and it was such a great time having both sides together! My sister and family moved to California in October so we were missing them a ton, but dry your eyes...wait til we get to December. Oh, we might be to December. Was November really this boring? Apparently.

December:
#1. NOT BORING. Jake stepped off the school bus on the last day of school before Christmas break and buckled himself into my parents van. I fed Ty some Dramamine and my mom headed the van towards Dan's school to pick him up. The 6 of us had an uneventful (this means good) drive all the way to down 1-5 to Redding before we stopped for the night. Then the next day we made it to good old Rancho Cucamonga. Yep. Rancho Cucamonga. Please read it out loud. Cucamonga. You couldn't help but shout it out, could you? I'm having flashbacks to Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles..."cowabunga, dude." Not that I watched TMNT. But just saying "Rancho Cucamonga" makes me feel young again. Because I'm so old. Hobbling to the bathroom with my cane to put in my dentures. But...I digress. Back to Cucamonga, dude.
#2. We were able to stay with the Franklins in their new Rancho Cucamongan house. They have a nice big Cucamongan orange tree in their Cucamongan front yard, so we were able to have fresh squeezed Cucamongan orange juice for breakfast each Cucamongan morning. We were able to go to their Cucamongan church (alright, I'll stop...the church is officially in Upland anyway) and listen to my bro-in-law preach a great sermon. It was so wonderful to see them all settled in, because as much as we miss them, Rancho Cucamonga seems like the perfect fit for them. Those Cucamongan's really know how to make people feel at home. I'm done, I swear. (Photos courtesy of my sister...whose permission I didn't receive, but I'm sure she would have said yes had I asked.)

#3. Two words. Disney. Land. Wait, that's not even two words. Well, those are occasionally used as two separate words, but not on this trip. Disneyland was epic. My parents couldn't have picked a better Christmas present for us! One day at California Adventure sandwiched between two days at the happiest place on earth. Ty got over his fear from last time we went (mostly) and rode Thunder Mountain 3 times and even put his hands up the last time. Jake's fearlessness was on display once again as he rode California Screamin' approximately 39 times. Here's a great video my dad took of he and Jake on that ride. Because you obviously have time to kill if you're still reading this post:

#4. We made such great memories with the grandparents and cousins and even just with our own family. One pretty chilly night we went on Grizzly Rapids right before we went back to the hotel and got SOAKED. We were so cold it was ridiculous but the 4 of us laughed so hard we cried. The boys were seriously shrieking with delight. Watching the Christmas fireworks show and having it snow on us on Main Street was unforgettable. Christmas in Disneyland is truly magical.

#5. We made it back to Gresham on the 23rd, so we spent Christmas Eve with the Stump family and it was fabulous as always. Great food and the best company. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I'm honestly amazed at how blessed I am to have married into that family. The only thing that could have been better is to have had Jane and her sweet family with us too!
#6. Christmas day was superb. We've always reserved the day just for our family, even when we were first married. I love that tradition! We had "Christmas breakfast" which includes caramel/pecan monkey bread, bacon, sausage, OJ, coffee, and a lot of love and laughter. Then we went to church and watched the kids perform a few songs and memory verses. Our dinner plans were originally going to be another tradition of Chinese take-out, but we were invited to spend dinner with some great friends and totally took them up on it. Thanks, Scott and Amber, we love you guys!
#7. All of December was a great celebration of the life we are able to live because of our Creator. All these wonderful things are just a tiny taste of the future we will have because of what happened on Christmas day. We're overwhelmed with thankfulness to God for sending his Son to this earth to live and to die and to rise from the dead so that we can spend eternity with Him!

And that, my friends, wraps up 2011. Don't look at your calendar. Just realize the fact that I, Angela Stump, have climbed the mountain called Months of Silence and have finished another year of blogging.

As for 2012. It's coming, I promise. Until next time...Cucamonga, dude.

Summer 2011 part 2

Some of you doubted me, I know it. I told you it wouldn't take me 6 months to give you Summer 2011 part two. It's only been 5 1/2 months, HA! So there. I do have a few more things to update you on besides summer. Like fall and most of winter. But better late than never, right? Where were we? Oh yes, August:

Oh Geez, August, sorry folks:
#1. "Take me out to the ball game!" What a PERFECT day we had up in Seattle at a Mariners game! Hot dogs, garlic fries, sunshine, happy children. Hmm, the order of my list might imply that I valued the food and sunshine more than the children...not the case, I can assure you. But seriously, have you had those garlic fries?

#2. Jake turned 7 and now I have to physically restrain myself from squeezing him to death when I think about him growing up so quickly. He is funny, he is smart, and 9 times out of 10 he passionately wants to do the right thing. He's independent but still loves to sit next to me and link his arm in mine. Oh sweet boy, never stop cuddling with your mother!

For his birthday party we went to Blue Lake Park and barbecued and played in the lake and in the Kids' Splash Zone. It was a great day, filled with great food and great people celebrating with us. A quick side note: Jake got the movie Newsies for his birthday and for the next few weeks went around belting out the song, "Carrying the Banner." Pretty stinking hilarious to listen to a 7-year-old sing at the top of his lungs in a bad New York accent, "That's my cigah/You'll steal anotha/Hey bumma's we got woik tah do/Since when did you become me muddah/Aw stop yah bawlin'/Hey...who ast you?" (How many of you are humming to yourself right now? Only me?)

#3. We packed up again and headed to the Oregon Coast to spend time with Dan's extended family. We'd been looking forward to this yearly trip to SeaKrest for such a long time; it's always a blast. Unfortunately the 5 day vacation was cut short when Jake woke up puking at midnight our second night in. All 4 of us were in one room with bunk beds and he sat up on the top bunk and announced he was about to blow. I went from a dead sleep to a sheer panic when I realized he was about to barf off the side of his bed and directly onto me and my blanket below. He barely missed my head as I sprung out of bed and grabbed the first thing I could find in the pitch darkness for him to finish barfing on...a pair of Dan's pants. Not ideal. It took me quite a while to tidy up the nursery after that episode, but I placed a sponge-bathed Jake and a designated barf bowl in bed next to me (after wiping off the vomit on my sheet and covering the wet spot with a towel.) Needless to say I didn't get a lot of shut-eye after that. As soon as the sun rose I knew we had to pack it up so we didn't spread the love around to the rest of the family.

The boys were devastated that we had to leave all the cousins and the fun. I quarantined Jake in the bedroom as we were packing up and brought him some dry cereal to get something in his empty stomach. A few minutes later he looked up in all his pathetic-ness in and said in a quiet sweet voice, "Mom I want a little more Cinnamon Toast Crunch." Then Ty speaks up, belting out angrily, "I want a little more stay here." And that's my second born, folks. Humor stemming from a need for some serious anger management.

Another great quote from The Tragedy That Was Our Vacation happened on the drive home. Jake was sitting in the back seat sipping on some orange Powerade. Then he suddenly stops mid gulp and says, "OH!" and starts frantically screwing the lid on. "What is it?" I ask, frantically looking for something other than Dan's pants to stop Spew Fest #2. "That sign..." he said, "I can't drink in here. The sign said 'please don't drink and drive.'"

As long as we're talking about funny quotes I believe I might have a few from the last 5 1/2 months that will amuse you. Or at least will amuse Jake and Ty as they look back on this blog 10 years from now. Cause heaven knows they're not going to be amused by their non-existent baby books. Sorry guys.

*Ty burped loudly and I waited, then said, "What do you say?" He responded, "Burp." I gave him a stern look and he assured me, "burp means excuse me...in Spanish."\

*Ty was being really whiny and Dan asked him, "Are you a big kid or are you a little kid, cause you sound like a little kid." Ty smiled and said, "I'm not a little kid, you're a little kid. You're a one-year-old...no you're...you're a not-even-born-year-old."

These ones I'm stealing from facebook (is it called stealing if you take it from yourself? Hm.)
*Ty picked out a pair of x-small yoga pants for me today while shopping at Old Navy. I said, "Oh no, honey, those are for super skinny mommies," to which he replied, "but you're a skinny mommy." I now have a favorite child.

*The boys were fighting in the other room and I went in to referee. Me: "What is going on?" Jake, in a very whiny voice: "I'm just trying to rule the galaxy and Ty's not letting me."

*I sprung for the "Deluxe" Kraft mac and cheese at Winco the other day. Today for lunch I started to boil a pot of water and Ty yelled, "YES!! Are you making the mac-'n'-splendid-cheese?"

*We were house sitting for my parents and Jake was looking the display of my senior pictures. "Mom, I think I would love you more if you looked like that (he pointed at 17-year-old me) instead of looking...like this." And then pointed directly at my current makeup-less face. Wow, thanks honey.

*Ty: "Hey Jake, you know one thing we will never EVER do?" Jake: "Play with Barbie toys?" Ty: "Well, yeah that too, but..."

Because I realize that I must be losing readers with each long-winded sentence, I'll cut it here. We'll continue September-January in the next installment. Which is actually WRITTEN already. I just have to edit it. Which shouldn't take me more than 5 1/2 months, I promise :)

Summer 2011

A warm aloha to my blogging friends! It's that time again. The twice yearly update. Let's see, I need to cover most of June, all of July and most of August in one post. Simple, really. Easy as pie. A no brainer. Piece of cake. A slam dunk. Easy peesy mac'n'cheesy.

Trying to recount 3 months worth of life will be easy? Heck yes. This from the girl who takes 30 paragraphs for one single story on one single day. But seriously now. How could writing about this summer NOT be easy? I mean, this post started out with the words "warm" and "aloha." So without further ado (or cliches), I'm proud to give you:

Summer 2011
June:
#1: Ty graduated from preschool and Jake graduated from Kindergarten. This means that I'll have graduated to a mother of 2 kids in school EVERY day come September. Are they really that old? Am I really that old?
Which brings me to:
#2: I turned 30. And I liked it.
#3: I had a grand birthday party with my fantastic husband and my fabulous friends.
#4: We continued our "Biggest Loser" competition with some friends that we started in February, and continued to see pounds come off because the dream of delicious empty carbs was not as big as the dream of not feeling mortified in swimsuits for our quickly approaching anniversary trip to Hawaii.
#5: Dan and I (mostly Dan) planned, and day-dreamed of, every waking moment we'd spend in Maui starting on the 4th of July.
Which brings me to:

July:
#1. I finished packing myself for Hawaii, the kids for 5 nights with G&G Stump and 5 with G&G Alcorn, and Felix for Doggy Heaven on Earth (AKA the Alcorn house...where my mom actually refers to Feel as her "granddog" and has Felix address her dalmatian as "Uncle Moses.")
#2. I stepped on the scale and mentally flogged myself for being 1 pound over my goal weight I'd set in January, and then I realized I had lost 29lbs. Not the 30 I was hoping for, but 29 pounds felt pretty gosh darn great!
#3. After giving Alaska airlines the deed to our house in order to check our luggage, we boarded the plane and I started the first of 9 books I read on the trip. Yep, nine. I'm pretty literate. And yep, I bought a Kindle before we left in order to save some of our retirement money that we'd have spent on checking the extra suitcase full of books. Literate and frugal. I'm quite the catch.
Which brings me to:
#4. My catch. The one I caught 10 years ago. The one that after 10 years of marriage I love even more than on our wedding day. Holy smokes did we have a great anniversary trip! We laughed and reminisced through the longest uninterrupted conversations we've had in 7 years (love you Jake and Ty), and then we had hours of comfortable uninterrupted silence. We had adventures like a helicopter tour and parasailing and almost dying on our boat ride back from snorkeling Molokini and spending a day circling and snorkeling Lana'i. And oh yes, we had food.
Which brings me to:
#5: Quite possibly the best meal I've ever eaten. In the most amazing location I've ever eaten at. Our victory dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse seated right by the ocean as the sun set. It was there that our friends Paul and Natalie (who were also celebrating their 10th) officially crowned us "Biggest Losers" as we inhaled our butter-drenched steaks and mac'n'cheese with caramelized onions and our fried potatoes...If there was a "Biggest Gainer" competition after eating just one meal, let's just say we would have owned that crown as well.
#6: Our completely wonderful relaxing and renewing vacation was the perfect amount of time away. The last night we were there, falling asleep to the sounds of the ocean, we looked at each other and agreed it was time to reenter reality. I absolutely love regaining the perspective that when it comes right down to it, I wouldn't truly want to live any other place but home or live any other life than mine, with any other people than the friends and family God has blessed me with.
Which brings me to: (am I not just nailing these segues by the way?)


August:
#1 Jake's birthday.

Ah, shoot. I'm actually thinking I should break this up a bit. I'm getting exhausted just thinking about rereading this to edit my mistakes. Not that I ever make a mistake...okay, spell check is my BFF. I've already written half of August, so you won't need to wait another 5 months for me to finish it. At least I'm pretty sure I'll finish it soon. O ye of little faith! Return soon for Jake's birthday, the 2 day vacay that was supposed to be a 5 day vacay, and some great one liners from Jake and Ty.


So until then, I'll leave you with these. Just a taste of our amazing vacation:

Could it be?

Well helloooooo there, blog! Feeling a bit neglected lately? You know what, I'm not even going to apologize. Okay, maybe I'll apologize for breaking cardinal blogging rule #1: not blogging about Christmas. And shoot, maybe I really should say I'm sorry for not blogging on Ty's 5th birthday. But honestly...not really very sorry.

I know it will come as a bit of a surprise to you all, er, to the both of you who still even remember that I once was a semi-regular blogger at one point in my life, BUT I'm fairly certain that I'm not going to be blogging very often anymore. I told you. Shocker. Why, you two ask? Because, my friends. Well...just because. I really don't have a great reason besides the fact that at a certain point I realized I was stressing myself out feeling like I had to record every funny/important/meaningful moment in our lives or I was destined to forget it all. I decided I really enjoy living it more than I enjoy writing about it. It's like when I realized I was missing just having a blast watching my boys' basketball games because I was so nervous I wouldn't get one of their baskets recorded on our video camera. I know it's sad, but I truly found myself thinking at certain times in the past "now how am I going to word this best when I write about it on the blog?" rather than just appreciating the moment.

There are times when I have really loved writing, but I'm not super passionate about it right now. Know what I am passionate about? My family. My husband and my boys are just about the coolest things ever. I just love being with them. Life is really good for us right now, and I'm pretty gosh darn excited to keep living it without as many distractions.

OH stop it, I'm not saying I'm quitting the blog all together, simmer down. I'll still post some memorable stories every now and then. Half the reason I'm not posting as much is because I told myself I wanted a record of my kids' childhood. Because heaven knows I'm not keeping up with any baby books. But my kids are growing up. They don't have as many crazy things happening to them (or because of them) anymore. They're kinda boring. And after experiencing the first 4 years of Ty's life, I'd like to take this moment to raise the roof for the word "boring." NO, boring is the wrong word. Really it is. They continue to crack me up on a daily basis. For example:

Ty recently stated on his way to swimming lessons, "I hope Carrot is going to be there." Carrot? "Yeah, my new friend Carrot." Um Ty, I think you mean Garrett. "Oh, yeah. Garrett."

When asked what he wanted for breakfast the other day, Ty replied, "Could you make some Sherman waffles? Sherman waffles are my favorite." Sherman waffles? I have no idea what you're talking about. He described the "Sherman waffles" in great detail and I burst out laughing. German pancakes...the child meant German pancakes.

Jake continues to grow like a weed on steriods. He and Ty have the same size waist but Jake's legs are approximately 9 feet longer which makes buying pants for him a little difficult. Whoever thought of the adjustable waistband for kids is a genius. Rock star brilliant. I mean I know there are people out there coming up with cures for horrific diseases, but my hat is off to the guy who made it his life's mission to make certain my child wouldn't go pantsless. Can I get an amen?

So anywayssss, Christmas was great. Watching the boys play basketball together on the same team was the highlight of my winter. Ty's Star Wars birthday was a little chaotic with almost 20 kids in my house, but he loved every light-saber-bearing-Darth-Vader-defeating-Jedi moment of it. Swimming lessons was one of the highlights of my children's lives. Ty graduated from preschool and Jake will graduate soon from Kindergarten which means I will have both kids in school every day next year (Ty will still have half days) and I'm a teensy bit world-rocked with what that will mean for my every day life.

Oh there's tons more, but I've spent too much time at the computer already today and so I'll sign off. With a promise there will be more blogging in the future. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon. And for the rest of our lives...

Here's looking at you, blog readers.

July in Christmas!

No, you didn't read it wrong. I said "July in Christmas." I know, the phrase is supposed to be "Christmas in July," but it's not July. It's Christmas. And I'm going to talk about July. When everybody else is talking Christmas, I'm talking July, baby. Wrap your mind around that one.

Down to business. And by business I mean the Happiest Place on Earth. It's Disneyland story time, folks. Only 5 months overdue. I actually wrote most of this post about 2 weeks after returning from Disneyland, but then there was Jake's birthday and then there was Dan's birthday and then there was soccer and school and Halloween. And I recall promising you this post sometime before 2011. Since it's against Blogger law to not post about Christmas and it's also against my own personal law to post a blog any earlier than 1 week after the event, I knew that I'd break my promise to tell you about our Disneyland trip before January 1...if I didn't do it tonight. There's no time like the present, right? That's my motto. Oh wait.

Just crank up the heat and put on some flip flops and sunblock and pretend I'm not the worst procrastinator you've ever known.

July in Christmas:

On July 11th we packed up my parents' swagger wagon (not the official Toyota Sienna, but still a wagon with some swagger to be certain) and picked up Dan's parents and headed south. And by the way if you haven't seen the "swagger wagon" video, you're seriously missing out and need click this link immediately. So...official start time was 8:24pm and Dan's goal had been set to drive through the night as the kids slept and reach Anaheim in 16 hours. I, being the encouraging wife that I am, laughed in his face when he told me that goal. Two small children with two small bladders, and two small attention spans that were going to be stuck in two small carseats did not equal 16 hours in my humble opinion.

Who knew that after picking up Dan's sister Jane, Curtis and little Bekah in northern CA, we were actually on pace. And then we decided to stop for lunch at In&Out (my mouth just started to water as I typed those words) before crossing the Grapevine. Ah, the Grapevine. You know, that windy stretch of I-5 in SoCal with no exits that takes you up into the mountains, and then out into the valley. We were pumped to pass this milestone and not stop til we high-fived Mickey himself. And then we went around a corner. And abruptly stopped.  For the next 3 hours. Seriously, we drove 4 miles in 3 hours. It sorta makes me exhausted all over again just thinking about it. God bless the Swagger Wagon and its DVD player. The kids did awesome. I, on the other hand, probably lost a few years off my life due to my blood pressure reaching limits it had not seen before. I'm not exactly the most patient of drivers. Although it was great to get to catch up with Jane sitting next to me in the front seat. In fact, she probably lowered my stress meter down to non-lethal levels. Here's to you, Jane.

We found out 3 hours later as we passed a charred semi-truck what the problem had been. Well, like I said, we had been on pace to completely miss LA traffic, but of course now we were stuck right in the middle of it as we exited the Grapevine. Our 16 hour trip turned into a 22 hour trip. But long story (not even remotely) short, we made it!

Oh, Disneyland. The Happiest Place on Earth. My boys were in awe. We had 5 day hopper passes between Disneyland and California Adventure. The first ride we went on was Thunder Mountain Railroad. We assumed that Ty would be the daredevil (this in keeping with his typical fearless behavior) and that Jake might be a little more cautious. So we decided not to tell the boys how fast Thunder Mountain would be. Jake rode next to me and Ty next to Dan. Jake was whooping it up, screaming for it to go faster and grinning from ear to ear. And evidently Ty was clinging to Dan for dear life and asking him "are there any more fast parts?" after the first turn. Who'da thought?

After that Jake was giddy about the thought of more fast rides and Ty was a little unsure about what we'd gotten into. Dumbo was his highlight because he was able to control how high and low the flying elephant went. When he's in control there's no stopping his fearlessness. When he's not...well let's just say he had a death grip on Dan's arm during Pirates of the Carribean and there was no reasoning with him after Star Tours. Dumbo and Peter Pan and the carousel were better options. He still had a complete blast.

Jake, on the other hand, insisted on getting in line for California Screamin' when we went over to California Adventure. You had to be 48 inches to ride, and low and behold he was exactly 48 inches. 0-60mph in 5 seconds, upside down loop, crazy drops. And Jake couldn't get enough. He had the need...the need for speed. Wow, thanks writers of Top Gun for coming up with that catchy phrase to cleverly end this paragraph.

We had a great hotel that was super close so we were able to walk to the park each day. The only downside to the trip was that tiny detail of it being the hottest week in the history of mankind. It was close to 750 degrees (give or take) every day we were there. The kids were champions and barely complained. But that's probably partly because I made them drink 4 times their body weight in water. Dan and I are bigger so we only drank 3 times our body weight, and probably lost approximately that much fluid through our pores as we stood in line after line.

But in all honesty, looking back I don't remember the heat as much as I remember the sheer joy on my kids' faces when they met each character, or the shrieks of delight while riding their favorite rides. What awesome memories! So glad we got to share it with my incredible in-laws. Thanks Gram and Pops for making it even more special.

The trip home was much less eventful. I don't recall at this moment if we did make Dan's goal of 16 hours but it sure didn't feel like it when we pulled into our driveway.

We felt like we could have and should have slept for days, but alas, life goes on.

Aaaand, 5 months later...Disneyland blog done. Promise kept. You can turn the heat down now. I'm done with July. That's right, it's December. Put your Snuggie back on and go back to the fireplace and turn on some Christmas carols.

See you in 2011.

Happy Halloween

Oh, Halloween. What a love/hate relationship we have. The love part started, of course, when I was little. Wearing makeup and getting buckets of candy pretty much sums up my life's goals as young girl. I mean seriously...when a 7-year-old sporting a homemade Mary the mother of Jesus frock with a baby Jesus doll (wrapped in swaddling clothes) under one arm gets to slather on some red lipstick and blue eyeshadow, go to a "harvest party" and get a pillowcase full of cinnamon bears and tootsie rolls...how could it not be love?

The hate came when I realized that I was no longer young enough to pull out one of my mom's old prom dresses again and be willing to walk around the neighborhood in the rain. I guess driving myself around the neighborhood would have been an option. But I was also not young enough to appreciate smarties and sweet tarts anymore. Seriously folks, is the chocolate that much more expensive? Yes, (the adult in me has to interject at this point) it is that much more expensive. But oh so worth it.   

The love came back when I had tiny kids and got to dress them up in a-stinking-dorable little costumes and walk them around town nodding at the exclamations of just how cute they were. It also didn't hurt that I got to eat all their candy because they couldn't chew on a Cheerio yet without risk of imminent death.

And that hate part came in again when, for really the first time, the kids wouldn't let me talk them into (or out of) certain costumes. Of course I drew the line at a certain point, like no devil-children or Scream masks. Thankfully Jake picked out a Darth Vader mask at Goodwill that I was able to work with and thanks to my seamstress mother-in-law and her cape making abilities, he actually turned out to have one of the best costumes yet.

Oh, and then there's Ty. He changed his mind about every 2.3 seconds and I ended up insisting he wear the Ninja costume I bought for him, again at Goodwill. I'm pretty passionate about second hand Halloween costumes, especially for boys who will inevitably rip them to pieces minutes after consuming ungodly amounts of Halloween candy. I was fully happy with the Ninja costume. Wow was he awesome in his full get-up. 

Except for the fact that after he got in his full get-up, he decided it wasn't to be. The knight's helmet and breastplate we'd gotten at the dollar store 8 months ago was just too much to ignore. Except he didn't have an outfit to go underneath it. He became so passionate about the knight idea that I was certain he'd agree when I told him he'd have to just wear underwear beneath it because we didn't have time to go get another outfit. So...long story long, he decided to be a ninja knight. That child. At least I'm not worried about him ever giving in to peer pressure. When he's made up his mind, there will be no stopping him thank you very much.  

We went to downtown Gresham, as is our tradition, and trick-or-treated with the six billion other children, and even got to meet up with the cousins.

Another tradition we have is not getting a good picture of the 4 of them together. Or even one where they're all even remotely looking at the camera.

We also tricked and treated around our neighborhood and had a few "brave" moments at scary houses, and filled those pumpkin baskets to the brim with candy. Love/hate that candy.

That about wraps it up. No rambling paragraphs from me tonight. Jake's been asking me to play the game Aggravation with him and I told him I'd be done 15 minutes ago. So if you'll excuse me, I've got a date with a 6-year-old Darth Vader and some marbles.

These are the alliterations of our lives...

Goodbye summer and sunshine. Hello school and soccer! Goodbye trips and time. Hello teachers and teammates! Goodbye California and chillaxin' (I know I'm not cool enough to use that word, but I'm trying to alliterate here.) Hello cold and classrooms! Goodbye organized chaos and once-a-month-blogging. Hello order and o...o...ONLY-going-to-ignore blogger-every-once in-a-while! Dang, alliteration is harder than I thought. Shoulda left the O's alone.

Okee dokee. So just a few things have happened since Dan turned 30 on September 1. The most monumental and shockingly absent on the blog (til now!) was the fact that Jake had his first day of kindergarten and Ty had his first day of school EVER. They're both loving school, and I'm loving the fact that on Thursday and Friday mornings from 8:25-10:55 I'm childless. Well, I guess Jake and Ty are still my children, I just don't have to watch them like a hawk in the grocery store so they don't stealthfully slip 300 fruit rollups in the cracks of the cart, or throw in 9 packages of Danimals Crush Cups that inevitably end up directly on top of the fluffy bread.

Here's some first day of school pictures:

And I'll give a shout out to my friend Faith who was a better mom than I and actually brought her camera to the first day of kindergarten. Faith's daughter Peyton is in Jake's class. And will hopefully go on at least one date with him someday.

 

Speaking of children dating, I have a funny story. Actually it's not at all funny to me now, but will hopefully someday be funny. Maybe. The first week of school I asked Jake (aka Most Social Kid of All Time) if he had made any friends. "Yep." Shocker. What are their names? "Well, there's Emma, she sits by me." Ooooh. Emma. Okay. So who did you play with at recess today? "Emma." Um, who else did you play with at recess? "Wellllll, Emma doesn't really like me to play with other people." Oh my good gracious. Does it really start this early? Needless to say, I was quite insistent about the fact that he needed to tell Emma to find some other friends, hopefully some GIRL friends to possess, I mean to play with. Case closed. He's now playing with the boys at recess and has made a great friend in our neighborhood by riding the bus (which by the way, comes at 7:12 to get him to school by 8am). So he spends 45 minutes on the bus when it would take me approximately 45 seconds to drive him down the street to the school's front door. But he insists on riding that bus and has a grand old time every morning. His teacher is wonderful and I get to go volunteer in his class once a month.

And Ty is loving preschool on Thursday and Friday mornings. His teacher is also wonderful, and he just skips right into that classroom. This from the kid who screamed when I tried to leave him in the nursery until he got old enough to go in the same class as Jake. My baby's growing up. He's no longer little brother following big brother around. He's a true blue bonafide school goer who has his own friends and his own homework that he works diligently on. Such a little man, I just am so happy he's grown out of a lot of his craziness. Not that he doesn't still get into mischief now and then. I posted this on my facebook wall the other day, "Ty cleaned the bathtub for me last night. Don't be too impressed. "Mom, I used Jake's Spiderman washcloth to clean the bathtub. I just put it in the toilet to get it wet..." Oh man, that kid. How boring would my life be without him?

Alright moving on to soccer. It's so awesome that both our boys can be on the same team this year! Jake has improved approximately 900% since last year, and is one of the best on the team, and Ty is one of the youngest kids out there, but has got himself some serious skills as well. I'll give most of the credit to Jurgi who played more hours of soccer with my boys when he lived here than he probably slept. We miss you, Jurgi! We think of you every time Jake scores a goal. Which is quite often, as you'll see (oh, and we got a new digital video recorder that is Dan's favorite toy at the moment, so kudos to him for creating this masterpiece): **OKAY, I've tried for 2 hours now to get this video to upload and can't do it. Stay tuned, I'll figure it out. No, Dan will figure it out and post it. Until now, just enjoy the pictures, courtesy of Auntie Jen who braved the rain last Saturday.**

Okay, enough of the updating? Thank you and goodnight.

Yep, I'm still not forgetting the fact that I have yet to post about our Disneyland trip. You've all probably forgotten, but that was really my plan. Now I can creep it up on you and you'll be shocked and amazed. So don't be checking every day. Just chillax. Spontaneous...that's the way I roll.