Trick or Treat Past and Present

I often tell the boyz bedtime stories as they're tucked in snug in their beds. They typically ask (read: beg and plead) for stories from when I was a "yiddle girl".  Depending on my mood, how tired I am and how long past bedtime we are, I sometimes give in and indulge them with stories I can recall from my childhood...

One such story was about when I was a "yiddle" girl and I LOVED Snoopy the Dog.  They giggle and look at each other partly because they, too, have become fond of the four-legged Peanuts character and partly because they've heard this one before and they know how its going to go... but nevertheless, like any good storyteller, I continue and draw them in with waves of enthusiasm, vocal intonations and vivid descriptions...."When I was a "yiddle girl", my mother made me a Halloween costume so I could be Snoopy the dog.  It was a white costume with a hood that cinched around my neck, loooong black velvet ears that were soooo soft and I wore black shoes as my feet and make up on my nose to make it look like I was a real dog."  I continue, "That same Halloween, my sister was a box of chewing gum.  It must have been a water heater box or something like that because it was a really big box!  But my mom wrapped it with paper and lined the top with shiny aluminum foil so it looked like the metallic gum wrappers and she made a cut out for her face and arms so she could wear the box to go Trick-or-Treating.  Except one thing my mother didn't plan on was my sister got reeeeally HOT walking around in that big box so the further away from home we walked, the more holes I remember my dad was carving into the gum package with his pocket knife so my sister didn't pass out on the sidewalk!  We made our rounds around to all our neighbors and returned with heavy Trick or Treat bags and Sarah survived without severe asphyxia. BUT, the whole night I wasn't just dressed up like Snoopy the dog - I WAS Snoopy the Dog!  All because my mother went to all the effort to make my costume."

Here I am as Snoopy the Dog and my sister was the best box of gum  you've ever seen! Thanks, Mom!

Fast forward 30+ years and I had to point out to my mom this year that my sister and I have both carried on her tradition of hand making our children's Halloween costumes. I know now the amount of time it takes to hand sew, glue, and assemble costumes. I literally spent most my spare time the month of October working on costumes! Sure, it would save time to go to the costume shop (but certainly not money, that's for sure!) But I enjoy the challenge of hand making my boyz costumes and using a little creativity, ingenuity and a lot of imagination. (And I had a lot of help from Papa this year who bought every single pretzel jar on the market to help me find "THE ONE" that would work as a space helmet! Thanks, Papa!!) I try to help transform my boyz into who they want to dress up as...  an astronaut, a football player, Charlie Brown and - yep, you guessed it, his four-legged friend, Snoopy!  And Fletcher carried on the tradition and actually wore THE Snoopy hood my mom had made for me.  I've kept it all these years!! Maybe on future Halloweens my boyz will tuck their children in at night and recount their own memories of their Halloween adventures.  I can only hope!

Here's the crew, in the car (spaceship, team bus, dog house) on the way to go over the river and through the woods to go Trick or Treating at Grandmother's houses...

Charlie Brown and his loyal dog, Snoopy

Kiefer - just might get recruited this year! The Colts need him!

Charlie Brown - who continues to refer to himself as "Charlie Brown" in the third person - such as "Charlie Brown wants a cookie" or "Charlie Brown wants to read a book"

Taking the bold first steps to get treats can be scary at first, but then you get the hang of it.

Especially when treats are involved!!

Charlie Brown didn't get a rock like he does in the movie!

Halloween is out of this world!

Even Fletcher enjoyed his snacks!  (He threw up afterwards, but all in the name of fun!)

Counting and Sorting - all an important task of Halloween

That's a bucket full of treats

Great expression on his face!! (maybe it's a mouth full of candy?)

Kiefer's candy line up

Carter sorted his into categories and put each into ziplock bags-  a MILLION ziplock bags

Good thing his helmet is a useful for storing candy too!

Astronaut Jay, pictured here in his serious astronaut face

The Jay Boyz Trick or Treating Gigi & Papa's : Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Colts Player and Astronaut

Waiting for the neighborhood parade to start.... watching the firetrucks

Kiefer was so excited he got to wear his costume to school. Here he is pictured with his teacher, Mrs. Huber, whom he asked "Are you a unicorn?!" when he saw her! She laughed and explained she was a princess! :) 

Carter wore his costume to a class Halloween party. They said he came prepared that the atmosphere was a bit thin in their house.  He won the best costume that was out of this world.

Charlie Brown and Snoopy!!  Charlie Brown wore his costume for TWO Weeks leading up to Halloween. It was SOOOO grimey and sticky but I was afraid to wash it!  He continues to refer to himself in the third person as Charlie Brown.

Finally got Astronaut Jay to smile!!

"But Mom! Astronauts are supposed to be serious!"

Trick or Treat!!

I love you when...

So Griffin turned three.  And about two days later he started acting three.  It's been brutal. Lying prostrate kicking screaming type fits, crying so hard he melts into a puddle fits, walking away from me backwards knocking into ladies in the grocery store fits, throwing groceries out of the cart fits, refusing to potty fits, demanding a diaper while peeing on the bathroom floor fits.... fits, fits and more fits.  It's hands on combat in the war with a three year old.  I'm eagerly waiting for him to outgrow this stage.

The other night while tucking him in, which is one of those moments in the day that redeems the others, he requested an all familiar book to me called "I love you"

It goes something like this:

"I love you when your silly and you're dancing round my knee,
I love you when your brave and from my arms you flee..."


That night, we'd already been reading Dr. Seuss, which always gets me talking in rhyme, so when I was reading this one to him, it kind of morphed into a whole slew of situations from the past few weeks and just kept coming out in rhyme.  Something like this....


I love you when you're crying and you kick and scream and pout,
I love you when you refuse to walk and you want to be carried about.

I love you when you're sweet and you want to snuggle near
I love you when you're crying and you're soaking me with your tears.

I love you when your silly and you're dancing round the house
I love you when your quiet sleeping like a mouse

I love you at the grocery store when you throw everything out of the cart
I love you when you kick and scream because I won't buy you a pop tart

I love you in the bathtub when you play with all your toys
I love you when I wash your hair and you scream and make all that noise

I love you when you push your brothers and make them really mad
I love you when you're being good and even when you're bad....

I love you any way you are, no matter what you do....
I love you just the way you are. I love you because you're you!

When I got to the end, I let out a big laugh and said "Well, that was therapeutic!"

If you can't beat 'em, kill em with poetry! Or something like that!

This was at the park and I actually got out my camera to capture it...  I love him even when he won't walk and wants to be carried about.

Happy Blog-day!

It's hard to believe, but it's been a year since I first started this blogging adventure!  I started with an entry called "The importance of Looking Back" on Oct.21st.  The boyz and I had gone to what we affectionately refer to as the 'tractor park' after a rough day and the moments spent in the setting sun was the turning point for that day and for many to come.  The tool of blogging has helped me to zoom in and focus on what is really happening - that my boyz are growing up daily before my eyes.   It is SO important for me to continue looking back.  I regret that I've not been as disciplined as I seem to have been last fall.  And then I look back on all those initial entries and wonder, "How did I have time to do all that?"

So looking back, it was ironic that I took the boyz back to the Tractor Park almost a year to the day of my first blog and I captured a few sunlight filled moments again.  But mostly, it was a reminder of the importance of looking back and the importance of my continued discipline in writing and trying to capture these fleeting moments.

So in honor of the one year birthday of this blog - I am now going to spend a little time re-designing the look and giving it a fresh face.  With the new look comes a renewed commitment to looking back.

Fletcher enjoying swinging. (Do you know how hard it is to capture pictures while swinging?)

Here comes Griffin!

Farmer Griffin

Checking out the tractor

Worked a smile out of him!

Tiny little fingers getting bigger everyday!

Those hands and finger know just what to do

Kiefer helping me push Fletcher on a swing

He gets such joy from his baby brother!

It's mutual!

Big guy climbed into the spider web

Griffin was hopping while he waited for us

The importance of looking back - they both turned to wait for me 

But not for long....!

Then we amused them by having them roll down the hill and run back up

Kiefer helps Fletcher to see the bright spot in the day

Griffin had a bit of a melt down on the way to the car

I got lots of looks for not picking him up while he was running after me and having a fit. 

R-O-Y-G-B-I-V

Back in my college days, my roommates used to know how to really "get" me.  You see, we would play practical jokes on each other and each of us would take the next gag to the next level.  Anyhow, back then, I was the picture of organization.  I had separate binders for each class, neatly organized on my custom made bookshelf that sat upon my desk.  I had a mug for pencils, a mug for pens, my calendar neatly held my life together and it was always color coded.  But the thing that they thought was hilarious was in my top drawer I kept my scented markers in rainbow order.  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet - or ROYGIBIV.  Doesn't everyone do this?  I guess not!  Anyhow, when they really wanted to mess with me, they would open up that top drawer and mix up a few colors.  I'd always notice, of course!  And that was the fun of it.

Fast forward nearly 20 years and I've lightened up a bit - but I'm still a closet perfectionist (and my closets are the only things I like to keep organized!)  I like to say I'm a laid back perfectionist  or a recovering perfectionist... but that same former roommate and I still get together and lately the boyz have been asking us to tell them stories about our college days.  Well, this one came up and they all got a kick out of it.  Funny the things we remember about people that stay the same over the years!

Well, then a few weeks later, Carter was doing his homework using his crayons in his 96 count crayon box - the one with the built in pencil sharpener in the back.  I bought this one for him because I always coveted this one as a kid.  We had one like this that we kept at my Grandmother's house that we would use for coloring over there.  We always took really good care of it, but I don't really recall having my own large box at home.  So it's just a small way I indulge him (and me!)  So as he's in the middle of coloring his homework, somehow the box tips over and all 96 crayons spill out everywhere!  On the countertop, all over the floor... it was 96 crayon pick up! Except it wasn't really greeted as a game but instead met with a few tears.

So in a moment of motherhood wisdom I turned lemons into lemonade by explaining that this was an opportunity to RE-ORGANIZE his crayon box!  Wouldn't it be nicer to have all the colors together in varying shades of rainbow order?? He saw the light and wiped his tears and was soon shuffling the reds from the pinks from the greens.  Once finished, it was a masterpiece of organization. And I know I was finally able to take a deep breath that the crayons were at last finally in the right place.

A few days later, Carter said to me, "Mom, I really like having my crayons this way! It's so much easier to find the colors instead of looking all around for them!"  Ah-ha!  A ROYGIBIV convert in the making!

Path of Destruction

The other morning, I grabbed my camera to try to capture a glimpse of the carnage that Fletcher leaves in his path of destruction. He's on the move and is into everything.  I keep trying to remind myself, as I clean up the wreckage, that this is how they learn but it might also be the reason I can't get anything done or why I'm never on time.  But in the end, it's all about discovery. He's discovering how to open doors, and I'm discovering how to latch them.

He opened the fridge, was playing with the condiments

Unrolled the paper towels - maybe he was trying to clean up? 

Loves the dishwasher soap door note the bottle of BBQ sauce at his feet

Helped himself to some carrots while in the fridge

Likes the lazy susan and was getting into the ziplock bags. I didn't take a picture of the 100's of bags that were everywhere!

Into the pantry... yes, that's my printer router he knocked over with the broom

Then he moved onto my desk drawers