Chit Chat

Ben: Ma, you wanna come play puppies with us?

Me: Puppies?

Ben: Ya, it's a fun game where we pretend to be puppies and be puppies.

(while Ben was using the potty and Sam and I were right outside the door)

Ben: Ma, I need some privacy.

Me: Oh, I just love you to pieces!

Sam: No, I don't want to be in pieces.

Me: Oh, okay, well I'll just love you then.

Sam: Someone can't love their child when they're broken into pieces!

(I only caught the end of this, but they were interviewing each other with their little microphones.)

Ben: And what's your other favorite food?

Sam: Cereal!

Ben: You already said cereal.

Sam: Ya, I know.

(And here is a continuation of the above several minutes later. For the record, I don't think Ben has ever knowingly eaten cabbage.)

Sam: What's your other favorite food?

Ben: Cabbage.

Sam: What's cabbage?

Ben: it's a favorite food I like.

Tales from all Hallow's Eve!

I haven't gotten into Halloween for many a year. It's just never really been my holiday. I like the candy and the dressing up part, but that's about it. I'm not into scary. Or being scared. Or ugly things. I do like pumpkins and their seeds, but not their guts. I will say this though, Halloween is infinitely more fun with kids who care about it. Ben and Sam really got into Halloween this year. In the days and weeks leading up to it, the boys kept closing all the doors and turning off all the lights upstairs so that they could play Halloween. They would come downstairs and say, "Ma, come and play Halloween with us. Let's go upstairs to Halloween!" There are often spooky voices involved. It's been fun.

Ben and Sam showing off their muscles in a small portion of their costumes

The boys decided quite a while ago that they wanted to be space robots. I made them felt armbands with '"controls on them and jet packs out of plastic water bottles and paper mache. The jet packs were, if I do say so myself, pretty spectacular. I took a series of pictures if anyone is interested. We combined those with their letter shirts (from their super hero costume last year). Total cost = $0. And the boys loved them, which was the whole point.

Ben working on carving his pumpkin

Ben and his Jack-o-Lantern. If I called it a pumpkin after it was carved I got into trouble. "It's a Jack-o-Lantern, Ma!"

I mentioned to the boys that I could dress up as well and they jumped right on that. So, I went as a fairy queen. My neighbor let me borrow the wings and the wand and I used my old prom dress for the... dress. And yes, if I held my breath when Zach zipped me up I could still fit into it. Except I had a bunch of little bruises at the tops of my arms. I think the sleeves were too tight.

Sam, Me, and Ben after leaving a trick-or-treat.

They did pretty well about saying "trick-or-treat" and thank you. If anyone asked what they were they said, "space robots with masks."

Zach went as a bummer.

Sam, Zach and Ben

Ben, Zach and Sam. Too adorable.

It was very much fun. We let the boys stay up with us past their bedtime eating candy. They are doing a very good job sharing. I asked Sam if I could have a piece of candy and he said, "Yes, but just one!" The magic is in the inflection. They're also sharing with each other, which of course does a mother's heart glad. The only problem is that I should have snuck the package of Runts last night, because they wouldn't let me have any of them today. But, despite an almost total lack of banana Runts, a good Halloween was still had by all.

A Work in Progress

The Dresser as it was

As you may recall, I've been wanting to paint the boys dresser. For those of you who didn't want me to paint it, sorry, but if I was wavering at all, it all got pushed over the edge because Ben and Sam kept making me cover the dresser with a blanket at night because the squiggles scared them. Seems like good enough reason to paint to me. So, I finally got around to it. But it's not done. Why isn't it done? Well for a list of reasons. You'll hear about them shortly, first off, here is the dresser as it is now.

The Dresser as it is (in sunlight)

The Dresser as it is (with flash)

The actual color is somewhere between these two shots. So, the reason it is not completely finished is because:

1. I accidentally picked the wrong color (I originally wanted a shade darker than this, but I didn't bring the paint chip with me, so I picked the wrong one).
2. We got the cheapest roller we could find and it left little hairs all over the front of the drawers.
3. We didn't use a primer and, though you can't really see it in these pictures, a lot of the squiggles are showing through the green paint.

So, I'm going to need to sand down the drawer fronts again to get rid of the hairs, prime them, and paint them again. Now, the question is, do I stick with the same color? Or do I paint the drawers in the shade darker that I was planning? I'm going back and forth.

I'm also going to do some little tweeking to the inside of the drawers and the cupboard. I think it will be awesome. So, give me your two cents. Unless you don't like the color, then keep your comments to yourself.

Strawberry Jam Forever

A while ago I decided to try and make some freezer jam because I found some of the pectin stuff on sale at Target. The first batch I made was amazing and we went through four containers in about two weeks. Maybe less. So, I decided to make some more. And this time, because I'm a little bit crazy, I decided to add figs. It's delicious, by the way.

A word on figs. A good fig is amazing. But there aren't too many out there. At least there haven't been for me. So, you should always try them, because you may be in luck. Oh, and you eat them by just biting right into the skin or cutting it into quarters and biting out the flesh. That is all.

Cutting the strawberries

(How do you like my can shelf?)

Cutting the Figs (a messy and juicy process)

Two filled jam containers

Freezer jam is ridiculously silly. It's just cutting and mixing basically. And yet, I found, as I jiggled the jam jar, that this jam was not setting up. Hmmm... How could I have messed this up? I asked myself. I kept checking the back of the package to make sure that I had followed all the instructions. I decided it would set up if I just put them in freezer, but I kept checking. I was staring at the package, willing it to show me my mistake, staring at that unopened package, staring, staring. Oh. I'm a moron. Ya, I hadn't opened the pectin. And I definitely hadn't mixed it in. Just sugar and fruit. Yep, total moron.

Anyway, I added it later and all is well. Luckily, freezer jam is a very forgiving preserve. And tasty.

It's Threeeeee-D!

Another event we participated in whilst Zach's family was visiting was to see the re-release of Toy Story & Toy Story 2 in the theaters. In 3D. I'm not much into movie gimmicks and what not, and I really can't tell the difference between high-def and regular-def television. Nor can I really see the difference between film and digital if you are film-snobbishly inclined. But this was... awesome. Especially the beginning of the sequel, which takes place in space. I would highly recommend the experience.

And to add to the enjoyment, the boys sat completely spellbound the whole time. They absolutely love Toy Story. And they were also wearing hilarious 3-D glasses. It was definitely a great time. Thanks, guys! It was awesome.

P.S. See! I told you they like Toy Story. And they've mostly stopped fighting over who gets to be Buzz. Mostly.

Space Ranger Ben and Sheriff Sam

San Fransisco and Running

Zach's family came in a couple of weeks ago for Scott/Grandpa to run his second marathon in Oakland. It was great to see everyone and we had lots of fun. We went into San Fransisco, got completely stuck in traffic, got Hannah scared to death about earthquakes, walked down by Fisherman's wharf, remembered how there were a ton of sea lions down there, had lunch, forgot about the sea lions, went to see the Ghirardelli chocolate factory, found out that they had moved it to San Leandro, got several hot chocolates anyway, and then got the gitters. It was great.

Sam, sampling the chocolate

Ben, loving life

Shauna, Hannah, Emma, and Scott partaking of the deliciousness

Scott ran a good race and we all were impressed and a little in awe of the endurance and insanity that you must have deep down in your bones to want to do something like this.

Coming towards the finish line

The best part of this race was that they let the friends and families of the runners (that's us) have some food too. And that was awesome. That has always been my main gripe about races is that they are so stingy with their food. I've been sitting around forever waiting for my runner to come in, I think I'm entitled to a bagel. And maybe some juice.

Luckily, these guys had plenty of food and handed it out quite generously. It was great.

Eating and Chillin'

While they were here Shauna was busy making these little crocheted robots for the boys. Aren't they so cute? The boys love them. They are very into robots, astronauts and space right now. They picked a bunch of planet books out at the library.

Sam's Robot

So, we had a great time. And people should come and visit us more often. We like it.

Ben and his tongue

Welcome, Welcome!

So, I managed to get this video to work, but still no pictures. Hopefully I will figure out this problem ASAP. Before Zach's family arrived, I decided to let the boys make a welcome banner for them. (Sorry, I didn't think of this for your visit Gma! I hope you still felt welcome :). So, here are the boys trying their hands (and later feet) at painting.