Halloween Costume Party

Ok, I went a little overboard with the parties this year. I'm in charge of three Halloween parties. Party number one was for the kids' friends. Yesterday they were out of school for some obscure, teachers-only holiday, so we had a costume party. My mom helped me with the festivities, thank goodness. I always forget how chaotic it is to have 10 kids running around.

We bobbed for apples and played a bunch of other games. They had lunch and went home with some really cool treat bags. The apple bobbing was interesting, given that we had a mix of boys and girls. Only two of the five girls chose to participate. The boys were all over it. Everyone except Tristan used the grab-the-stem-with-your-teeth-trick. Tristan submerged himself up to his shoulders to get his apple by the skin. I think everyone had a good time.

Pumpkins: The Deed is Done!

I've been holding the kids off on carving the pumpkins for weeks. I have to admit that although I love Autumn and Halloween, I don't look forward to cutting up the pumpkins. They look so much better when they're in their natural form. Since last night was Halloween Eve, we had to do the deed. I put Dan in charge. He and Tristan carved an elaborate face into the big guy and the other kids sketched simple designs on the smaller ones. We even grew one of the pumpkins ourselves! The pumpkin that Dan is holding in front of his face came from our garden. Next year we're going to give our plant more water in hopes that we get more than one pumpkin.

An Epitaph to a Murdered Spider

My neighbor just came by to show me an interesting item she found in her flowerbed. It's the headstone Tristan and Collins erected in honor of the murdered black widow spider and it's comrades. She had it hidden under her jacket because she didn't want the boys to think we were laughing at them. Her nineteen-year-old son found the epitaph. He said this was just the thing HE would have done at 7 years old.

It reads:

Spider (black widow, bees, box elder bug)
They died.
Died on: Date October 11, 2006
We killed them.

San Diego

We spent last weekend in San Diego with Nana and Papa. It was SO much fun. They had a lot of fun activities planned for us, including a tour of San Diego on the "Amphibeous Bus", riding the carousel in Seaport Village, a picnic at the grassy knoll, hanging out at the beach, a beach barbeque and bonfire with the Dog, Burger and S'mores families, a fun birthday party for me, watching the Blue Angels who were in town for an air show at Miramar Marine Station, and more time at the beach.

The weather wasn't very good by San Diego standards, but it was fine by us. We almost cancelled our beach plans on Friday but the kids insisted that "we promised" (gets ya every time), so we went ahead. Dan and I figured we'd go for a little while until the kids decided it was too cold. Tristan was waist-deep in the ocean within 10 minutes of us arriving. It was raining pretty hard when we first got there but it eventually cleared up and it turned out to be a beautiful day.

The other highlight of our trip was the airplane. We've done enough road trips lately that we appreciated the shorter travel time. Jolie was stoked to fly because she doesn't remember ever being on a plane, very strange since she's flown probably 10 times. Gavin loves everything about transportation (planes, trains, construction equipment, etc.) so the whole experience was right up his alley. Tristan was really helpful and more importantly, he helped carry stuff! It was the first time I've been through airport security with my ICD, so I was a little nervous about that. It would have been difficult to travel alone with the kids since I have to be taken to a separate area to receive a pleasant full-body pat-down whereas the kids and all our stuff have to go through the X-ray equipment.

I'm posting a few of the 300-and-something photos I took over the course of four days. Geez... what's wrong with me? Truth is, we did so many fun things that I couldn't put my camera down!

Boys Will Be Boys

Today is the first day in a long time that we've been home without a man in the house. Dan's covering a shift for a co-worker who had to go to a funeral. That being the case, it would have to be the day that I found a black widow spider outside our back door. I was casually sweeping off the steps outside our kitchen and I thought I saw a beetle. It got caught in my broom and was rolled over on its back. Tristan immediately identified it as a black widow. I didn't believe him at first because it looked too big and meaty to be a spider. He showed me the hourglass on the stomach and insisted that it was a black widow. I still wouldn't have believed him but my mom and dad happened to stop by and my dad confirmed that it was a black widow. He and Tristan coaxed it into a jar so that Tristan could show it off to the boys in the neighborhood. There's nothing more prestigious to a seven year old boy than the capture of a potentially deadly insect, you know.

If that were the end of the story about the spider it wouldn't have made it to my blog. It would simply have been an ordinary day at our house.

Tristan got half way up the stairs with the spider before I told him that he couldn't keep the black widow in his bedroom. With my permission, he took his bug jar to Collins's house because he knew this particular friend would be equally fascinated with the spider. He was gone about 45 minutes and came home with an empty bug jar and mud all over his hands and clothes. Again, just another ordinary day.

During the past hour I've come to find out that while at Collins's house, the boys captured two bees and a box elder bug (they had to injure the bees in order to capture them) and they placed them in the jar with the spider. They watched the insects fight it out (Tristan reported that one of the bees bit off a spider leg and the black widow injected venom into the bee). Then they shook the jar violently and buried all of the bugs. To top it all off, they found a piece of paper and made a headstone for the grave.

This probably isn't surprising to anyone who's raised boys or to anyone who's been a boy himself. Dan wasn't nearly as shocked as I thought he'd be when I called to tell him the events of the afternoon. He just said that the boys went to more effort than he would have. I guess this is all standard boy behavior. In other words, BOYS WILL BE BOYS.

If I were my sister Robin (Queen of the Blog), I'd have photos of the black widow, the boys, and the headstone. Unfortunately, I didn't find any of this blog-worthy until Tristan let me in on the events at Collins's house. By that time the spider was no longer with us and I'm afraid it's too dark and I'm too exhausted to trapse down to Collins's house to take post-mortem photographs. So you'll have to settle for these photos of Tristan with his bug jar (I told him to give me a mischievous look) and a close-up of what's left of the black widow, the amputated leg. Yikes, now I know Tristan wasn't exaggerating.

Play-Doh is fascinating!

I had to catch Gavin on camera today. He and Jolie were experimenting with Play-Doh while I was doing some domestic tasks. The next thing I knew, he was sitting in the middle of the kitchen table with a toy drill, surrounded by a mess of Play-Doh. You can see that he's rather fascinated with the whole affair.

Oh, and if you're wondering what those markings on his arm are... it's Sharpie (i.e. permanent marker). He and Jolie had been coloring before the Play-Doh came on the scene. Somehow we ended up with a very meticulous coloring page by Jolie and permanent marker all over Gavin and my kitchen table.

When was the last time YOU slept in on a Sunday morning?

Yesterday was the day we COULD have slept in because we had a break from our 8:30 a.m. church schedule. It was General Conference weekend, so we got to watch church on TV in our pajamas. Well, it wasn't to be. Not only were the kids up bright and early (surprise, surprise!) but I stumbled out of bed to find them in Tristan's room building a humongous tower out of every cusion and pillow in the house. I mean every single one: the sofa cusions and pillows from two couches, bed pillows from all five bedrooms, even the decorative throw pillows from my bed. Ofcourse the goal of this endeavor was to climb to the top of the tower and proclaim themselves master of the universe. Once they lost their interest in the tower they slid down the staircase in their sleeping bags.

I guess some people have quiet, leisurely Sunday mornings. I've heard that some even sleep late, eat a leisurely breakfast and read the newspaper...