Thursday, October 22, 2015

Tis the Season


I am a crafty person. I dream of making all the things, and I love a good project. With all the kids and the jobs and the adulting though, I don't often get a chance to really go to town. Also, I have found that my desire to really make a mess and create is negatively correlated with my responsibility and obligation to clean up after myself.

All that goes to pot for Halloween. I love to make costumes. I have fond memories of my own homemade costumes. It's not financially reasonable to make all my kids clothes, but gosh darn it, I can make them a costume! Which of course means that my kids love the store bought. I still manage to make something every year though. Last year I hit the jackpot with my Pizza Box and my Cowgirl Princess. This year I have two store-bought mermaids and a homemade (meaning I bought boots and cargo pants) Roman Reigns (shocker, right?) (Also. Pretty sure everyone will assume he's a stripper)

BUT. Today alone I have made:

Four mermaid crowns with real seashells

Nine minion t-shirts

A tactical chest protector
Creamy chicken soup from scratch
A huge ass of myself at work (again) (I think I may be just a *teensy* bit more stressed than I allowed myself to believe.) But moving on

My fingers are covered in paint and my playroom is covered in projects and I kind of really love it :)
There's totally a 1970s kitchen in my playroom. Long story.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

It's still 100 degrees

Firstly, thank you to everyone who publicly and privately rallied behind Syd. I talked to the teacher and a few other parents, and it sounds like my student had a very one-sided perspective. I also wrote her an email about my feelings about how the information was brought up and labeled, and she replied with a genuine, authentic apology. Grown-ups, FTW!

In other news, it's mid-October here on the bright side of the sun. I'm convinced that it will never, ever be below 90 again. My cords mock me. I make things in the crock pot because it's too hot to stand over the stove. I crave chili like nobody's business. I wore boots and a tank top to the apple orchard just to spite  Mother Nature. My kids wore shorts and sundresses.
Sun flare on my Fall shot


We went hiking last weekend and, surprise! It was hot. And dry. This hike was hyped up in the local "mommy community" as being a great one for kids, but very very crowded. Lucky for us, they found a body burned at the trailhead a few weeks ago. I figured this was a perfect opportunity for us to beat the crowds. (Reasons I can't be around normal people for 1000, Alex) I was right and there weren't a ton of people there. But the hike was definitively not awesome. It was essentially a dirt road and then a steep climb down to a puddle. With a 40 pound weight strapped to my back. My legs are still sore. Syd was a trooper though. She hiked the mile and a half back with no water, no energy, and near tears but refused to be carried and didn't whine once. So proud of this girl. Avery slept on the hike back, which made it even more comfortable because we were basically the two headed woman.
Before we ran out of water and energy and optimism.

My dad and stepmom came to visit over the weekend. He's very health/body conscious and he's in awe of the fact that I've been consistently going to the gym at the buttcrack of dawn. He does BeachBody videos (as does my brother) and he's been bragging about doing them more often lately. So there were a lot of "so...what do you do at the gym? Do you do _____?"  I have no idea where I got my competitiveness, but he made us retake this twice because he didn't like that my hand was "blocking out" his bicep. :)

And we have a fence!! Or at least fence posts! It's 6+ feet of beautiful, redwood, privacy goodness. I cannot wait to get the backyard enclosed and start working on making that an awesome area for us to hang out (especially if it's going to be perpetual summer in the desert here.) I'm thinking lots of color in the furniture and some whimsical yard art. I keep bringing up the yard art because it makes C crazy. I'm totally getting whirly gigs.