Sunday, Sunday.....ba da, ba da.... da.... da.... (think Momma's and Pa Pa's)

It's so nice when boys come to call and my boys get to play. This neighborhood is top heavy with girls, and no young boys at all. So, today our good friends Pete and son Alex came over to watch football, and I knew it would be a good day for the boys. Even Rosie gets excited when Uncle Pete and Alex come over. It's just fun to have visitors. The Chargers won by the scrape of their teeth.....21-20 in the very last seconds, but hey....it was a win!

We finally put training wheels on the little BMX bike our friend Desiree gave us from her son Dirk. David took to it like a duck to water. All of a sudden, it seems like Dave has turned into a boy-boy. He has a little engineer's mind, and puts SO much thought into whatever he does, but every once in a while he just acts like a care free boy....like today.


A perfect street for learning how to ride a bike. I LOVE cul-de-sacs!

Happy Sunday

A nice moment this morning when the 3 kids all WANTED to sit with each other without killing each other. Oh Happy Day!!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Wednesday, Nov. 4th, was my birthday. I turned forty-freaking-six. I jipped myself of my 45th year though as about half way through the year I was thinking about being 46 so much, that I forgot that I was only 45. Anyway....here I am at 46. When you were young didn't you think everyone was OLD and such 'grown-ups' when they were this age? I don't feel old....and I certainly don't feel like a grown up. I wonder when that will ever kick in. I still feel sort of weird that I'm a Mom....perhaps that's all part of it. Now, if I could just get rid of the wrinkles, maybe I would look more like I feel. Oh, and thanks for the wrinkle cream, Mom!

I had a great, uneventful day....then that night we had pizza with Karen & fam and my Mom. I was showered with love, presents, entertainment, a beautiful purple flower cupcake cake, oh, and a win by the Yankees to become World Series champs, therefore, a happy husband. The kids performed as a Chinese Dragon with a bedspread (where do they come up with this good stuff?) and it made for a really good birthday.

Andy, in all his sports-minded creativity, gave me a framed, autographed photo of Doug Plank. It says: Ann, From one 46 to Another, Doug Plank. Ok, stay with me here..... Plank played for the Chicago Bears and wore the number 46 and had a defense named for him....the 46 defense by his coach, Buddy Ryan. Plank is now a defensive coach for the JETS under head coach, Rex Ryan, son of his old coach Buddy. Our good friend Mike Roth knows Doug, so Andy was able to coordinate with Mike to get the photo. Leave it to Andy to come up with such a creative gift for good old me, 46! I've decided I might just stay 46 for a few years.

Thanks to everyone for calling, emailing, Face Booking and wishing me a HB in person. I love you all!

Spinners? We Don't Need No Stinking Spinners!!! Ok, Maybe We Do

Ok, so I was sad to take down the Halloween wind spinners. They really were pretty darn cute.... But what am I going to do, leave them up till Easter? How is a skeleton on a bike going to welcome the Easter Bunny into our yard? "Hey, I love the whole idea of spookiness and day of the dead stuff....but please leave some awesome candy treats inside delightfully colored eggs for the kids who dwell in this fantastic abode"...... Or do we leave them up until they come up with some AWESOME Menorah wind spinners? So down they went yesterday when we took down the lights and threw out the carved pumpkins.

I don't usually call much more attention to my supergreatness than is necessary, but today is my birthday. Rose was home sick for the 2nd day in a row with a mild fever and slight cough. (I just don't want this to turn into the full blown swine flu, which apparently is going around San Diego.) ANYWAY...... Rose & Joey and I went to pick up David from preschool. We were driving home when I told them we should stop at the garden shop and look for a super-kick-ass Thanksgiving wind spinner for ME. Well....... $140 later, give or take, please check out our new wind spinners.

We went for super traditional:

Turkey Lurkey: Mine, all MINE!

Ok, so what says Thanksgiving more than Dragons, Cats on Bikes & Fairies?

Halloween 2009

I have never been a huge fan of Halloween. I guess I must have been as a kid, who wouldn't love getting free candy?.....but never really embraced it as an adult. Now that I have kids, I'm trying to channel my inner Halloween Lover's energy and get into the spirit. We decorate our tree out front with orange lights and paper pumpkins lanterns. This year we added an awesome scary vampire bat above the door and the Halloween theme wind spinners. I will hate to take the spinners down, they are pretty fun when it's windy. Maybe they will have some pretty cool turkeys or something....or perhaps a really kick-ass cornucopia? David's class had a Halloween party at school on Friday. Rose did too, but we weren't able to go to that. Joey got to go trick-or-treating with David through the school office and participate in the party. Well, after talking up that Spiderman costume for a week, he was having NO part in putting that thing on. I knew there would be NO WAY he would wear the mask even if I could cram him into the suit. I decided he would go as a cowboy instead. We have an adorable horse loaned to us a few years ago that you put your legs through like you are riding it. Both Rose and David each wore it a few years back and looked great. (Perhaps I should think about returning it to you, Kellie?) I put him in jeans and a plaid shirt..... I had a cowboy hat that he of course wouldn't even entertain the idea of putting on....... "Joey, you are just wearing clothes." NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Imagine that in an ear piercing scream.) I don't want to be a cowboy!!!!!!!!! I don't know why I ever thought I could pull that costume off...... (wearing a big stuffed horse) if I couldn't even get him into Spiderman. In the end, he wore the jeans, was pissed off about the plaid shirt, and shrieked when I had the audacity to try to get him to put that hat on once we were in the class room. I followed him with the horse and his hat through office so they knew he was a bad-ass cowboy. There was a sibling of a classmate the same age as Joey who wore a similar costume, but his was a dinosaur. And that delightful child wore it with pleasure! Truth is, both Rose and David were a little freaked out by the horse when they wore it. I think I had to yell at them to put it on too. Ah, Halloween.... fun times.

Halloween came and the kids were excited for the day. Rose was a witch again....same as last year, but even more cute. David was Bumble Bee, the transformer. Does anyone remember the old jingle from the commercial? Transformers, more than meets the eye......Transformers, Robots in disguise...... Joey went as Derek Jeter. I told him he couldn't go trick-or-treating if he didn't dress up. "No one wants to give candy to a plain old kid...." I told him I wasn't going to have this fight again. He and I were starting to go back and forth over his (damn) costume again when it hit me to have him think he was just wearing normal clothes. He wore a Jeter t-shirt and David's Yankees hat. He didn't even protest, and kept the hat on all night. Score 1 for tricky mommy! We had a pre-trick-or-treating party to attend as well as carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating, then celebrating Aunt Karen's birthday. I carved some great pumpkins, but ran out of time, so there were 2 I never got to. Andy requested the Yankee's NY on one, so I did my best. I did a spider from a pattern which turned out really good, then a bat and a jack-o-lantern face. They all turned out pretty well. We had a good time at the party. It was thrown by the twins in David's class, Kendal and Kayla. (They are the family that it turns out we know a million of the same people.) It was a fun way to get our trick-or-treat motors running. After we got home, Andy stayed home to watch the Yankees in the World Series and hand out candy. The kids and I headed out (cold beverage in hand) to meet up with the neighbor kids, then eventually Owen and Madeline. The house at the very end of our street had a Dippin Dots ice cream stand and gave out free ice cream to all the kids and adults too. They do this every year. By the time we got down there, there had to be at least 75 people milling around eating ice cream. After that we worked our way to Karen's house for her birthday celebration to end the night. A neighbor and I were talking about how many kids there were this year..... how Andy thought this was the busiest since we have been in the neighborhood. She said she counted and there were 186 kids. (or something like that) This is the neighborhood where people come to trick-or-treat, even if they don't live here. Oddly enough, Karen's neighborhood is literally down the same main street.... separated by a short brick wall and their neighborhood wasn't all that busy. Ours is admittedly more fun..... houses decorated, one house had a haunted maze to walk through....just more fun. It was a really great day!

Now, here is the version of the last few days as told by Andy when sending out some pictures.

Andy:

Rosie was a witch. David was Bumblebee a Transformer. As for Joey, he was fired up for a couple of weeks to be Spiderman (because his big brother was the webbed one last year). Friday, when David's class wore costumes, Joey refused to put his costume on. Saturday afternoon we were invited to a party thrown by parents of twins girls David goes to school with. Joey again would not let Ann put the costume. A slightly agitated Ann said "Joey either you go as Spiderman, or you put on David's hat and shirt and go as Derek Jeter, or you can stay home with Daddy, I am done with this battle. My youngest son was faced the most important decision of his life, the same type of decision a young lad named Moses once faced - Uncle Mo chose wisely - hot coals instead of the Pharaoh's crown. As you can see by the pictures, Joey chose wisely.

Ann took the kids trick or treating. I stayed home to give out candy and watch baseball. There were no incidents with parents of trick of treaters like there was in 2005 when 3 month old David was sleeping and I put a sign up that said "please do knock or ring bell baby is sleeping." A family of at least 12 proceeded to ring and pound on door waking up the little guy. I asked them, in pretty high volume, if they knew how to read - they did, I think; but not English. I told them that it might be a good to learn the language - like my Grandparents had to 80+ years ago or they were going to spend their lives "pushing 2" on their phone!

There was a perfect storm moment Saturday night. Ann opened front door - she came home to grab a jacked - just as about 15 kids were walking to front door - which happened to be at the same instant a Yankee 2 run homer was originally called a hit. With the door being open, I would say at least 75 people heard me disagreeing with that call. It was eventually ruled a home run - the ball never lies!

2 kids came to door in the 6th inning - one commented that he liked the NY logo Ann carved. The 2nd kid said "I don't, I hate the Yankees." 2 seconds later Nick Swisher homered. That kid hopefully learned a valuable lesson: don't hate, let it marinate.

Stay thirsty my friends

Andrew

More Pictures from the Halloween festivities:

David & Lana, Bad-Ass Cowboy Joe & Sammy (Yoda)

Joey Z. (Rose's preschool flame) & Emily...David's flame

Bumble Bee Dave, Kendal, Lana - brother Carter & Kayla

Top (L-R) Kyvia, Kai, Kayla, Mrs. Martin, Thomas, Lucas, Joey, Tommy Bottom: Emily, Lana, Ryan, Noelani, Kai Leah, Kendal and David

Ghosts of Halloween past:

David October, 2005

Bates Nut Farm, October 2007

Madeline, Owen & Rose, October 2004

Rose, Oct. 2004

David, Oct. 2005

Rose & David, Oct. 2005

Owen, Madeline, David & Rosie, Oct. 2005

David, Rosie, Madeline & Owen, Oct. 2006

Owen, Joe, Rosie, Madeline & David, Oct. 2007

Rose, Owen, David, Madeline & Joey, Oct. 2007

Joey, Oct. 2007

David, Oct. 2007

Rose's 3 year old preschool class, October 2007 Top: (L-R) Anthony, Laci, Rylie, Gabriel. Kendall, Mrs, Martin, Rosie. Bottom: Willie, Chase, Xander, Jack, Halle, Elie

Block Party

I LOVE living on a cul-de-sac. It's a great place for the kids to run around and play. We have a great neighborhood and street....and great neighbors too. Every year we have a block party in late October. Since we live at the end of the street, the party is right in front of our house. We get a bouncy for the kids, have a potluck and BBQ. Some of the neighbors bring out their fire pits and we sit around the fire once it gets a little later. The kids all dress up in their costumes and a great time is had by all. This year Karen and Mike came over with the kids. Owen and Madeline are around the neighborhood so much, they have been grandfathered in as neighbors. I volunteered to have the jumpy in our driveway this year. At the end of the night there were so many kids in the bouncy, they couldn't even bounce. There had to be a good 25 kids in there, and they weren't even all in. By that time, they sat around and the older kids told ghost stories. I had to remind the little kids that Bloody Mary is a delicious beverage, not a real ghost. It was a great turnout and everyone had a great time. I didn't manage to get many pictures of costumes. Perhaps next year I will put my beer down long enough to do that. Oh, and you won't find Andy in any of these pictures, he wouldn't come out of the house.

This was right at the start as everyone was just getting going.

It was a large crowd at the end of the night.

Bat Woman (Denise) lives next door to us. I always feel safe....