Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Party Fit for a 2 Year-Old!

We could have had a party with kids of all ages, a bouncy house or trampoline, Halloween costumes and other fun themes.  An end of October birthday provides a canvas of opportunities to celebrate Graham’s special day.

We chose to keep it simple…

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On Saturday morning, cars of all shapes, sizes and sounds awaited Graham along with car-shaped chocolate chip pancakes. 

DSC_0204 We kept our PJ’s on all morning while Graham had fun with his vehicle-centric gifts (thank you family!!).

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After homemade pizza for lunch, more chocolate in the form of a (nut-free) chocolate layer cake from Rae’s Bakery.

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After naps, the boys watched, what else? Cars.  Mike and I cleaned up the “party”, made stuffed peppers* for dinner and let our new 2 year old stay up until 8:00pm!  He deserved it- he’s not a baby anymore (sniff). 

No party is complete without the requisite party hat.  Greyson rocked it well.

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Happy Birthday to our sweet baby Graham. We are madly in love with you and every new day is another chance to watch you grow, learn, love and best of all, laugh.

*Stuffed peppers = healthy, yummy and Greyson’s new “favorite” food. Who woulda thought? 

Monday, October 17, 2011

Halloween Fan? Nah.

GREY*isms*

  • G: “Mom, what is that?”
  • Me: “It’s a cap gun”
  • G: “You can shoot cats with it?”

October is my favorite month.  The mornings are starting to get cold (~45F) but the afternoons are sunny and fall-warm (~60F).  It’s primetime pumpkin patch weather but we haven’t scheduled it yet.  Here’s to hoping the sun/no-rain holds off for one more weekend.

If you know me well, you know I’m not a huge fan of Halloween so it begs the question, why would October be my favorite?  On the one hand, it’s 31 days of spiders, bats, witches and zombies; black and orange (just a hot water rinse-cycle away from Chicago Bears colors), creepy lawn decorations and Styrofoam headstones.  On the other, it’s fall colors, cinnamon candles, sweaters and puffy-vests, Harvest-themed decorations, family time* and football (Ok, baseball too, when the Brewers are in the post-season- alas, not the World Series).

Now I feel I need to clarify because most of my friends, family and readers are massive fans of this “holiday”.  I do not dislike Halloween.  I do not dislike kids in costumes, trick or treating, jack-o-lanterns and scarecrows.  I do dislike ME in costume.  I do not enjoy handing out candy to 17+ year old trick or treaters without costumes holding a pillow case (I prefer not to provoke this set by turning them away so I smile and let them choose what they want- my fear of “crazy” is a blog post for another day).  I recently listened to Rob Lowe’s audio book** Stories I Only Tell My Friends and he recounted a trick or treating night in his neighborhood when Martin Sheen dressed up in camo, painted his face and hid in the bushes. Even Martin Sheen wouldn’t alleviate my lack of appreciation for unexpected scares jumping out of the trees.  ‘Party Pooper’, ‘Boring’, ‘Annoying’- call me what you want.  I LOVE my kids’ excitement over costumes and candy, pumpkin carving and toasting seeds, hot apple cider and a late bedtime.  I embrace Halloween on behalf of my kids and will stimulate the economy with purchases on their behalf (that is, once they’re old enough to choose their own costumes- until then, hand-me-downs it is).

Greyson has chosen the Bumblebee Transformer.  Graham has not chosen, but will be, a soft and cuddly bumblebee.  I will post more pictures and you will ooh and aah.  Just don’t scream from behind the bushes.

3 Reasons to love October

*As opposed to family time in the summer which typically includes more people, more trips and more organization. Aside from a weekend business trip for Mike, we are home together until November 6th when I depart for business in Europe and Mike goes to Costa Rica shortly after I get back.

**I highly recommend “listening” to his autobiography. He could read the dictionary and make it pleasurable

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Orca are family just like us

Carmen, Brian and the kids paid us a visit a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to post some pictures ever since.  Jake, Bria, Greyson and Graham got some great bonding time and I’ll warn you now, you’re going to wish you lived here when you see the beauty that is a whale in its natural habitat.  But first things first…

Mike took the gang to Seattle for a day.  First stop, Space Needle.  I laughed out loud and for a very long time when I saw what at first looked to be a very nice family photo until your eyes pan to the right. I laugh still.

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Bria and Greyson got their fill of Kinect- Dance Central, Boxing and Soccer were big hits and I have enough video of them jabbing the air, kicking imaginary goals and ‘getting down’ to Lady Gaga to make a movie.  They were two peas in a pod all weekend.

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The whales, though, always steal the show…

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The dreaded gum wall (click here for context) received a few more donations and Brian went crazy at the fish market so we feasted like kings on fresh salmon, halibut and Dungeness crab.  We miss you already and are looking forward to the holidays at home this year. Thank you for visiting…come back soon!