Oh Sadie

Chances are if you have a secret crush on just one of my children, it's Sadie. It must be the dimples, but she seems to have the world wrapped around her little finger -- and she knows it. I hate to burst your bubble people, but she can be a real stinker. She's really clever and so grown up that sometimes I can't believe she's only 2!! I already dread the teen age years.

One night she wouldn't go to bed and Dustin walked in to tell her to go to sleep. Her response? "Blah blah blah." Before "Blah blah blah" became her patent sassy reply, it was "La la la." When that got her in trouble it quickly turned into, "La la la looooooove you." Currently it's "AHHHH! Stop bugging me Dad."

Last week she found a leftover Halloween rat which she then decided was her pet named Mambi. She sang to Mambi and fed him and loved him. . . she even taught him tricks.

And she thinks the pantry is her own personal playground. One day while I was feeding Luke I heard her calling my name. She was hanging from a pantry shelf that she had climbed trying to reach marshmallows.

Another time I was feeding Luke (yes, she's figured out the best time for pantry raids is while I'm feeding Luke) I hear her little strained voice: "I'm not tall enough." Tall enough for what? I ask. "For reaching." Reaching WHAT?? "I need to reach some chocolate chips." Well she definitely wasn't tall enough that day, but she must have figured something about because a few days later I found her running around the house with two handfuls of chocolate chips.

Sadie, I love you. Please stop growing up.

A Sister Like That

This is an homage to one of my favorite tear-jerker Christmas stories: A Brother Like That. In fact, my own sister and I were crying over this very story today in the midst of hormonal rages. Can you believe our parents thought we should talk LESS?

It's not Christmas and my sister didn't buy me a car, but she did send me 2 fantastic packages for my birthday and I love them.

Package one contained some of her winter clothes. Since she's 7 months pregnant and won't be needing them this winter, I get to wear them. It works out great since I was pregnant last winter and didn't buy any new clothes, so fun new-to-me clothes for me!

Package two was full of little gifts to open every day until my birthday. Some of them are silly little gifts like medical face masks (a la swine flu), Halloween sprinkles, movies, drink mixes, and snap bracelets (awesomest trend of my childhood), but a lot of them have proven to be more than useful. For instance:

1. Mentos -- perfect for bribing children while taking pictures.

Can you spot the mento? In an attempt to get a picture of the 4 (since I'm pretty sure all 6 of us will not all be together and awake to take a picture any time in the near future) and check "Order Christmas Cards" off my list, I tried to get all of them to sit still for pictures on Saturday. They're not professional, and they certainly didn't sit still, but perfection is over-rated and I love that you can REALLY see their personalities.

2. Measuring Spoons (and cups) -- I don't know where my spoons are disappearing to, but I had 2 sets and both disappeared. Then I bought ANOTHER set last month. Gone. Someone (I'm guessing a BLONDE someone) has been doing who knows what with them, but I certainly threatened them if these new cute blue ones disappeared. Perfect for measuring ingredients for treats for your sister and neighbors. Like Paula Deen's Double Chocolate Gooey Butter Cake.
It was ridiculously delicious. I still have some. Please stop by and eat a piece so it will not all end up on my butt.

3. Bump-Its -- Ellie has been OBSESSED with Bump-Its, so imagine her delight when we opened our "Hollywood Bump-It" in the package. She begs to wear one every.single.day.
Like when taking pictures.
Or for the Primary Program on Sunday (I was so worried Nate would fidget the entire time and instead he fell asleep by the end).

4. Smooth Away -- While Kathleen was in the As Seen on TV aisle of the store, she picked up *my* TV commercial obsession. I had even told Dustin a few weeks before that I hoped those showed up in my stocking.

Now you're probably all jealous and wishing YOU had a sister like that, but remember to take a cue from the story and BE a sister like that. Love you Scuttlebutt!!

And also because my boys are so handsome and to appease the Grandparents:
(Luke's shirt is a gift from my sister too -- why does she spoil me?)

Boo-tiful Halloween

Getting ready -- I can't imagine having to get more than 2 girls ready on any given day.

One of my favorite things about Arizona is the great Halloween weather -- no winter coats here. Some years it's sweltering, but this year was GORGEOUS.

I have better pictures of the 3 of them, but I love Sadie's enthusiasm

Along with the perfect weather, comes our perfect little neighborhood. We started the night off with a neighborhood potluck at the vacant lot across the street (I'm not sure I ever want anyone to build on that because it creates hours of entertainment for my kids). We had lots of neighbors and friends show up with camping chairs. I always love when the older neighbors without kids at home come out and hang too!



After about an hour, we headed out Trick-or-Treating. We only have two streets in our neighborhood, which is the PERFECT amount for little kids. We gets lots of candy, but not obscene amounts, see all our neighbors and don't get exhausted/bored from walking around in uncomfy shoe. Ellie and Nate took off with the Olpins so Sadie and I took our time and chatted with different friends as we walked along.

The end of the street is always the best because all the people who came to the party, but don't live in the neighborhood are lined up in camping chairs so it's just one long row of candy, including Dustin and Luke who stayed out with the crowd to chat and hand out our candy. We had two pieces left at the end of the night -- HOORAY for the perfect amount.

An hour later we were done and out bag were full (our neighbors are too generous with their handfuls of candy bars) so we piled in the car with Casey and her kids and headed over to the Martin's Spook Alley. Sadie *thought* she wanted to go in and then FREAKED out, Ellie loved it, and Nate skipped it this year and chased around a little girl from his Pre-school instead.Bought this costume on 75% off Target sale last year, Sadie's costume is from my friend Beth years ago and Luke's is from when Ellie was a baby. SO proud of my Halloween frugalness. I did buy Nate's despite having TWO other Spiderman costumes.
By a little after 8 we were at home with Bailey and Brady watching a short Halloween movie and sorting and trading candy. Luke was really set on rolling over to get Sadie's candy.

Poor Sadie is not trading savvy. The kids were trying to trade her jolly ranchers for her chocolate candy bars. BAD TRADE! But all Sadie would say is, "Sure!" I finally had to get involved before Ellie got her hands on all of Sadie's kit kats. I don't know why it matters that much since in one more day I'm dumping all the candy into one bowl so I can pack up their Halloween bags.

Happy Birthday Boys (lots of pictures if you hate to read)!

Within 5 days I get to celebrate ( run around like a crazy person) Dustin's birthday, Nate's birthday and Halloween. That is why I am now sitting in the middle of a pile of 6 loads of laundry that didn't get done until today.

To kick off birthday week we had a Cake Off on Sunday. Boys vs. Girls. I won't tell you who won, but I'll give you a huge hint -- I mentioned the fact that there were winners and losers. We tried really hard to let the kids do the decorating, so this is how they turned out.
Nate and Dustin made a red velvet and homemade cream cheese haunted house. The girls and I made stacked brownies with store-bought cream cheese frosting in between covered in chocolate sauce. Then we had the Krassow's over for FHE as our guest judges.

We played Dustin's birthday low-key this year. He worked all day and I had extra kids, so I picked us up some lunch and made dinner. For his present we got him Scotland Yard -- an old school game if anyone actually remembers it. Luckily the new version comes with a super cool hat. Dustin may have had Luke on his team, but Sadie, Nate, Ellie and I caught Mr. X. We also woke up to a lovely toilet papered house and oreo-ed car. If only the treats had been edible!!! Next year boys!

I don't like to go over-board on birthday presents. Probably from watching my poor birthday-obsessed sister be disappointed every year. I figure we should start them off with really low expectations and then anything they get from other people will be fantastic.

Now to Nater-taters. Along with it being his birthday week, Nate got to be Star Student at BOTH pre-schools this week so we got Carmel from Miss Becky, plus all the extra stuff -- treats, poster, pictures, favorite books and toys from Miss Lisa and two Halloween parties. PHEWBlack Spiderman for one and Red for the other. I guess it pays to have a reversible costume.

Nate had his birthday party last night and for the first year EVER, I was actually cold by the time it was over. It was Super Hero themed and if you forgot -- my brother-in-law made capes for everyone. PLUS EXTRAS! He is my hero. They came in an AWESOME package this week (that will have to be it's own blog because the packages have been so much fun) and all the boys looked so cute.

Daven, Joe, Nate, Jackson, Dane, Conner and Trevor
Sorry Brady's not in there, Casey, he wasn't up for a picture.
Then I let them turn around and show me their Super Hero poses.

I had them go through a Super Hero training course (including silly string-ing the bad guy, jumping over Sadie's doll house in a single bound, and lots of cheering and High 5-ing), pop balloon bombs and gather their Super Hero rings.
Ellie and a girlfriend played the part of bad guys. They did such a great job I may hire them out for other parties. You know, make a little extra money on the side. . .

All night long I tied and re-tied capes. "I want to be Batman!" "I want to be Superman." Thank you SO SO much Kyle and Kathleen!!! They loved them. I also loved this picture of all the boys hovering around the birthday presents. Little kids are the BEST! Maybe just Nate's friends, but they are all so much fun. I love those guys.

As soon as we got rid of the last kid, we headed home and Dustin (who was at Mutual during the party) went and picked up Luke from Karen's (THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH KAREN) and we ran over to the Poulson's for their annual Pumpkin Carving Party. Ellie came home with a witch, Nate chose Batman and Sadie came home with handfuls of candy corn.


And so that's what we've been doing this week! One last event: HALLOWEEN. . . like we need more sugar.

Wanda Witch

First off: You probably *were* invited. We hand delivered invites, mailed some and then e-mailed some, so I apologize if you felt slighted, but I promise, you were on the list!!! I'm pretty sure I ended up in a few people's spam filter. I definitely learned a lesson, but it's hard when you're throwing an ANONYMOUS Halloween party to ask people if they got their invite.

Secondly: What the heck is Wanda Witch? My friend Sarah called me about a month ago to see if I would be interested in throwing a Halloween party. It's sort of an Amazing Race style party where you follow rhyming clues all over the place and finally end up at the party. See here for more info: meckmom.com. I'm SO glad she asked me to host it with her because I LOVE this sort of thing and I had way too much fun.
We spent a month coming up with fun locations that are sort of spooky at night, rhyming clues, invites, even set up an anonymous e-mail account for RSVPs and communicating with our guests, setting up teams, trying to accuse other people of throwing the party as to avoid suspicion, running away from friends at Target when we were out buying cauldrons, bats and other such supplies, rhyming my heart out, and finally hiding the clues (thanks Sarah and Steve for doing the hard part all by yourself since Dustin was on a plane home from St. Louis).

Friday night an e-mail went out at 6 pm letting everyone know the starting point for the game: Tumbleweed Park. My team (the blue team) met at Casey and Scott (our team leaders) house before we headed over for some treats. Yes, the team bonding made our team that much awesomer! When we drove down to the park it was so fun to see all the cars starting to arrive and people scoping the other teams out (part of the fun is you don't even know who else is invited). We had 36 people playing and I was impressed with how many teams dressed in their colors even.

The starting clue directed people to meet at a bridge and "look up" meaning the next clues directing everyone to their cauldrons was in the trees. People were climbing trees and taking off -- the competitiveness was evident from the get go. The worst part was that I *knew* exactly where everyone's cauldrons were, but I had to act like I had no clue, so Dustin and I took off in the complete opposite direction.

Some of the stops along the way:
*Barnes and Noble where you had to find a book with your clue. Casey reading our next clue.

*We found this little archway down by the San Marcos Hotel and the clue was in between two palm trees on the other side.
*El Zocolo where Dustin had to take a shot of spicy salsa

* The Janda's backyard -- they had NO clue. I had talked Kyle into hiding the clues floating in their pool. She even called her kids multiple times and I'm so proud that they acted clueless.
* The Train Museum. That place is so spooky and deserted at night plus it had a huge ditch to hide the clues in so people had to climb down. So sorry for the poor team that thought the clue directed them to a port-a-potty.

* The field by our house where we hid pumpkins

* Canyon Oaks park where we ran into 2 other teams all digging for one clue which directed us up along the canal.(Brenda -- I think your camera lens needs some cleaning!)

I think I lost my pants a few times hopping in and out of the back of the van. Also, despite the fact that I knew there would be running and mud, I still wore flip flops.
*And the final clue had the house number for Sarah's house where my team arrived #1!! GO BLUE!
Some of the party-goers. It was so fun to hear about how they figured things out, or where they got lost. . . but a huge bummer for the few clues that were misplaced :( Sorry guys. I definitely learned a few things for next year.
Just realized that there were a lot of shaved-head guys at this party.
The green team was our biggest competition. Unfortunately they smack-talked the witches a little too much before the party so their cauldron and pumpkin were a little bit harder to find than everyone else's.
Susan deserves an award for being pregnant and running around all over Chandler.
Sweet white team. One of the clues talks about "2nd from the end and South ten paces, looking down into wide open spaces. . ." It meant the 2nd parking stall, but they went with the second train and I guess a port-a-potty was ten paces South. Poor Michelle had to go in and look into "wide open spaces."
Orange team was definitely competitive, their book wasn't there and the manager that swore she would get them their clue was missing :(


I had so much fun and I'm already excited to do it again next year. We ARE doing it again, right Sarah?? That gives me 365 days to scope out even less-known places with harder to figure out clues! Of course everyone will know it's us so we'll have to spice it up some. The website has some fun ideas.

I will need a good few months before I can rhyme again! Thanks everyone who played. You made it so fun!

Side note: Today is officially the start of my 30 days till 30. I was stressing out all week about what I was going to do on the first day but instead I decided that the BIG event for today would be: RECOVER! Between Dustin being out of town all week, swine flu, strep throat, 4 kids at home 24 hours a day in quarantine, throwing a Halloween party, prepping my craft for Super Saturday, soccer, two birthday parties plus Dustin and Nate's birthdays and Halloween next week, this almost-30 year old body needed to lay low today.

Pic-tahs for my Sis-tah

Random pictures: See how sweet he is -- he even smiles when he feels icky. If only he would EAT!! And GO PHILLIES! The onesie is one of 3 from my Phillie Phanatic nephews. I thought we'd better put one on for good luck!! I'm so awesome because I knew it was a home game tonight, unlike my sister who insisted it was away.

My kitchen counter. I have a notebook to keep track of what I've given to each kid and when. My brain can't hold all that.

What Ellie did when we were all sick last week. I admit I had an idea of what I wanted her to paint, but I'm so happy with what she did all on her own. That's 100% Ellie there.
Nate's feeling all better and off to school today. HOORAY! We love each other, but I think it's good for everyone to have a little break from each other. His awesome Get-Better gift from my parents and sister. Can you believe he's going to be FIVE next week?

Still sick, but still so cute. I wish I had those dimples!!!

Well, this is fun AKA Why you should get your H1N1 flu shot

Let's start this off by highlighting my own idiocy: About 2 weeks ago I was sitting outside with my neighbors enjoying the gorgeous fall weather (only 90 degrees) and watching the kids play while we enjoyed a relaxing fall break. Somehow Swine Flu came up and I made some MORONIC statement like, "I hope we get it right now since it's break and we're already home and then I don't have to worry about getting the shot." Yep, I'm that much of a glutton for punishment. And because I'm so spoiled rotten and I always get what I wish for. . .

Tuesday Nate came home from Pre-school and when I touched him I realized he was warm. Really warm. Then came the cough. Luckily my sweet Pediatrician called me back at 6 pm at night to have him come in the next morning. They swabbed him and sure enough it came back positive for strain A of the flu -- otherwise known as. . . the swine flu.

Came home with his tamiflu and immediately banished him to his room, however the swine flu is so freakishly contagious that within the next 5 days every single member of our family came down with it. Except for Ellie, because she is superhuman. Her only kryptonite is strep. Ellie could survive the Bubonic Plague with her immune system. I guess that's the not-so-fun part of having a large family -- by the time you all cycle through the germs, you're need another month to recuperate.

The crazy thing is, it has been different for every one of us. I had the cough and a fever for a few days and then Friday I spent the entire day passed out in my bed with a 104 fever, feeling like I was going to freeze to death and alternating between passing out in a sleep coma and agreeing to let the kids do things that I would then take no responsibility for -- like taking a bubble bath. By Saturday afternoon my fever was gone and I decided to spend my new found energy cleaning the bathroom, doing dishes, washing and folding 4 loads of laundry and all the other crap that littered my house from 4 days of doing nothing. Bad idea. I am now WIPED OUT. So today I will spend wasting time on the internet like normal sick people do as I alternate between being cold and sweating through my clothes. And my house has already reverted to disaster status, but I honestly have no energy to move.

Dustin's bad day was yesterday and I swear Nate and Sadie never had a bad day. Nate wanted to lay down for one day. ONE DAY! Now all he has is a little cough but boundless energy and Sadie has a slight cough left over and barely had a fever for more than a day. She has had her typical sickness paranoia though. If you've never seen Sadie sick, be glad because she FREAKS out about everything. I think she slept with me a few times on Friday, but I can't be sure because the only thing I really remember is the few hours that Dustin made me take care of Luke while HE WORKED. I felt like making him do some laundry or something Saturday when he was shivering, but I'm nice. Instead I passive-aggressively decided to just write about it on the internet.

The sad part is that Luke is now sick. I thought he might make it through, but he started coming down with a fever yesterday and it was up to 102 by this morning. My poor baby is so sick and so sad. I'm heart broken for him. I'm just hoping his will pass quickly like Nate and Sadie's and not linger long.