The Weekly Wrap-Up

Peter has been away on business all week (in New Jersey and Manhattan; I'm jealous! We lived there for the first four years of our marriage and I really miss it there sometimes.). He gets back tonight, but then tomorrow he'll be gone all morning at a turkey shootout (not real turkeys! I made sure!) with guys from church, an event for which I was forced to cancel a 90-minute Swedish massage that I had scheduled for myself at noon tomorrow. What the heck? I need a break!

That break is going to come in the form of THIS:

Tomorrow afternoon I'm taking myself out on a date to go see this movie. I don't care what people say; I'm excited for it! And I'm interested in seeing what they do with certain bizarre scenes from the book. It was my least favorite of the books, but I still liked it enough to want to see the movie. The movie reviews I've read said that fans will like it, so that's a good sign.

I'm almost done Christmas shopping for my kids. They make up the bulk of my shopping, so it's a relief to have that taken care of. Now I just have to be careful that I don't pick up more things for them when I'm out in the stores. That's one of the dangers of getting your shopping done early. You find other things that you want to get and can end up spending and getting more in the long run!

Speaking of Christmas shopping, I'm not planning on doing Black Friday next week. I never have, and I probably never will. I will gladly pay the difference to not have to get up early or stay up late and deal with crowds just to get a good price on something. Cyber Monday, however, is a much easier thing to manage. Now that, I like!

The Duggars have announced that they are pregnant with their 20th child.

I am not impressed.

Another thing I'm not impressed with is the Occupy Wall Street movement. At first, I understood their point. I mostly disagreed with it, but I got it. But now it's getting ridiculous. They aren't accomplishing anything except for being a nuisance, and the protesters don't agree with one another on what exactly it is that they want. They can't even decide on whether or not to issue a list of "demands." A friend of mine from college who works on Wall Street said this yesterday on Facebook and posted this picture:

"Occupy Wall Street occupying the lobby where I work...security has told all of us not to leave the building today...what crazy times we live in!!"

The protesters remind me of disobedient, badly behaved children throwing temper tantrums because they're not getting what they want. 

Ready for another one of my catalog rants? I was flipping through the FAO Schwarz catalog and came across this:

This isn't just any Etch-a-Sketch. This is a limited edition Jeweled Classic Etch-a-Sketch, "with over 10,000 dazzling, handset Swarovski crystals" all over it. There are only six available in the world, and it only costs $1,499.99. (But there's a coupon on the back of the catalog for $25 off any total purchase of $150 or more, so then it would be only $1,474.99!)
Those Occupy Wall Streeters would have a field day with this. And I would probably have to agree with them. This is just wrong! And if you're going to bejewel something, why would you bejewel an Etch-a-Sketch, of all things? Why not a cool owl or a set of bookends or something a little more decorative or practical like that?!
For the third time in this post, I will say that I AM NOT IMPRESSED!

Well, in addition to lots of errands and housework and after-school activities, that's been my week. I hope you have a great weekend!

Family Picture Failures!

My preoccupation with getting a good family picture of us have continued this fall, but they've pretty much all been failed attempts. The main reasons for the lack of success with this are:
1) a 2-year-old who is not at all interested in getting his picture taken,
2) wind, which makes my borderline okay hair totally not okay, and
3) overly bright sunshine that makes us look like squinty-eyed ghosts!
In the following pictures I have identified the culprit that ruined the picture. 

 The culprit: Too  much sunshine and a toddler struggling to escape.

The culprit: Uncooperative toddler and a little too much sunshine.

The culprit: The wind making my hair look funny and my squinting. Sam for once is sitting still and even smiling, though! That's progress!

The culprit: Uncooperative toddler. That kid!!

 The culprit: Obviously, bad timing on my part to blink my eyes! The photo is overexposed too.

The culprit: Six-year-old in a daze. This one is cute, but it's not quite "the one."

I guess these pictures aren't complete failures, though, because they capture the reality of our lives, and the reality of our lives is overall a beautiful thing that I'm thankful for.
But I'm still going to keep trying for that ideal shot that I have in my mind!

P.S. Sometime soon I'll post some pictures that were taken of us sitting in a giant rocking chair! They're pretty funny.

Pumpkin Lovin'

The season of pumpkins, gourds, and mums will soon be over, so it's nice to enjoy them while they're in season for the two or three months a year that they're here. I took these pictures last month at Bloomsbury Farm in Atkins, Iowa.

 

I love fall! (And I also love that my favorite holiday of Christmas is right around the corner!)

Lettin' My Kids Get Crafty!

As you may know, I'm not really a "crafty" person. I appreciate other people's arts and crafts, but for me personally, I'm not very artistic and I enjoy making simple things only every now and then. Occasionally, though, I let go of my craft inhibitions and neat-freak tendencies and let my children do a fun crafty art project. So last month I bought a bunch of mini pumpkins for them to paint and decorate.

"What's this and how exactly do you use it?" 

This may have been Sam's first time painting with an actual brush.

I need to get better about exposing my kids to art on a regular basis!

 I didn't even think to put newspaper down under their projects. Oops! 

There will be orange glitter stuck on this table for awhile.

As further evidence of what an amateur I am at this, I let them paint in their church clothes.  

In the end, I think the pumpkins turned out well. Good job, boys!

 That one on the front right-hand side...I did those glitter stripes down the sides. Oh yeah!

 

Now they're all lined up on the windowsill near our kitchen table and they look cute and festive for fall. So I've decided that we'll do this every year. Sometimes it's totally worth it to let your kids get crafty. I'm going to have to do it more often!

Foliage Forever!

The fall foliage is almost gone now, but it lives on in the pictures I took of it. I took these at a nearby park about a month ago. The yellow of the leaves the day that I was there was brilliant!

This little tree isn't quite as big or dramatic as the trees above, but it is pretty nonetheless. I can't decide if I like yellow, orange, or red leaves the best. In any case, whether on their own or blended all together, they are stunning!

This Was Halloween

This was Sam's reaction the first time I put his costume on:

Fortunately he warmed up to it after a bit!

This is us at our church Halloween party. We were an uncreative couple and went as ourselves:

On Saturday night, we carved two pumpkins. Peter carved a graveyard pumpkin and John designed a cute face for the smaller one. I roasted the seeds and they turned out better than last year's did!

The "RIP" on the jack o'lantern is fitting because this is where the big pot of dead chrysanthemums sat until I threw them away on Halloween afternoon so that all the neighbors wouldn't see them when they came by that night. RIP, mums.

There's John in the center of the picture at his school's Halloween parade. You know what's funny about this? The boy behind him has the exact same costume, only his has a mask. John's came with the same mask, but he never knew it because I threw it out before he saw it because I thought it was creepy. But he found me out because of his friend's identical costume! Darn it! Fortunately, though, he wasn't upset about it. He liked that he got to get his face painted like a skeleton instead.

Ready and waiting to go trick-or-treating:

Still waiting!

Finally! Trick-or-treat time! We were the first ones out in the neighborhood. We left at 6:00, which seems like a reasonable time, doesn't it? Especially when you have a 2-year-old. Or is that too early? Peter took the kids and I stayed home to give out candy, which is an arrangement that I'm happy with and is much better than what happened last year!

Here is the happy skeleton, happy with his haul. This candy will keep him powered for the months to come, for better or worse!

And finally, this is my favorite Halloween/fall decoration that I got this year. I think it's the cutest little pumpkin owl. I got it at Pier 1 before they sold out of them! Owls are hoot hot!

I hope you had a happy Halloween!

The Weekly Wrap-Up!

Our DVR and cable problems are finally fixed. Hooray!

The freak snowstorm in New England last weekend that postponed or cancelled Halloween in many communities and caused hundreds of thousands of people to lose power has been a source of fascination for me this week. I've been going on Facebook just to read my friend's updates about their situations. The town in Connecticut that we moved from last year is one of the places experiencing a days-long power outage. I wouldn't have dealt very well with that, so I'm glad to be here and not there!

Peter and I watched the new(ish) Robin Hood movie last Saturday (the one with Russell Crowe), and the whole time I kept thinking how much I liked the other version with Kevin Costner much better. This newer one was too brutal and cold for me. I love the Kevin Costner one (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves); it's the best!

Last week it was the newborn saved from the earthquake in Turkey that brought tears to my eyes. This week it was the news of Steve Jobs' last words. I find this to be amazing, especially since he was a Zen Buddhist and from what I've read, he didn't fully believe in God and an afterlife. The man who wowed the world with his innovations was wowed by something he seemed to see past his loved ones just before he passed away, and as he looked at it, his last words were "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." That's so cool! Of course we don't know what he saw, but it very well could have been the beautiful heavens opening up before him in all their splendor and glory. It's very affirming to those of us who believe that life goes on after death, and that it's even better than life here. To read the details that his sister shared in the eulogy she wrote, click here.

Have you heard that the U.S. Mint wants to get rid of dollar bills and replace them with coins? That would be weird. I don't think I'd like it very much because I don't like to carry a lot of coins in my wallet because it weighs it down. But there are some good reasons to do it (I guess). You can read more about it here.

This article is really neat. A graphic design student in England created pictures of the Disney princesses (and one villain) as if they were actual women. They are beautiful! These are my favorites. And, this is one of the only times I'll post a picture on my blog of a woman in a skimpy top (bikini girl from my birthday cake notwithstanding!).

It won't let me copy any other pictures, but my other favorites are Ariel and Mulan. You can check out the article to see all of the pictures. The one of Ursula is appropriately creepy! (And well-done!)

And last but not least, for a humorous moment from my week...it's that time of year when catalogs are flooding the mailboxes, and mine is no exception. I was leafing through the Pajamagrams one, and as I did so I saw that they have a rather interesting new product called Hoodie-Footies. That sounds like a fun product for children, but these cost $80 and are for for grown women. How would you like to wear one of these to bed or just to lounge around your house in? Do you think your husband would like it? Your kids probably would. What is Pajamagrams thinking?!

I think the panda one is by far the best!

A Fall Tree and a Field of Gold

I've had these pictures in a file labeled "Fall tree and field" on my computer since last fall, and it's finally their turn to be the star of this blog, at least for a day or so! This is a tree in our front yard that I thought was really pretty with its fall color change.

 

 

(Sam was still a crawling baby at this time last year. They grow so much in a year!)

 

I like how the sun shines through the leaves in these shots, especially the darker one below, where the sunlight looks like a perfect little star shining right through the center.

There is a big field next to our house that in the fall is full of wheat grass (that's what I call it anyway) that shines like naturally-spun gold in the sunshine. It's lovely!

 

I hope you've enjoyed my fall tree and field of gold. They've been waiting for awhile to be seen by you. :-)