Accidental Tradition: Halloween

Andy and I have decided, we will do family costumes for as long as our kids will let us.  We think that buys us another two years, even with Jordan deciding what he wants to be, we can just secretly adapt our costumes to theme up with his.  HAHA!

Last year, we were a sushi gang inspired by Pinterest, but this year, our idea came completely Pinterest free (although people who saw us would comment about how Pinterest is alive and well... pshh, go see their costume and ours, we win!).  Andy wanted Jordan to be the chubby scout, Russell, from the Disney movie Up, and he would be the old man.  I would be the dog who always said squirrel!  As Halloween got closer, however, we realized that Andy needed an expensive Scout shirt anyway (he works with two other men teaching the 11 year old Scouts every Wednesday), Jordan already had a bow-tie and really grew to like these lenseless black rimmed glasses my brother gave us, so why not make the switch?!

To pull off our costumes, we made a few items.  I made Jordan a grape soda pin (it's all about the details folks!), patches for a sash that was sewn together, and a Wilderness flag just like the one Russell actually sports in the movie for Andy.  The dog idea never came to fruition and I ended up wearing a Huggies box turned house that I drew (markers would have shown up better!) and Andy cut me arms and made sure the house was cut at the top of the box.  Andy also made a little walker out of PVC pipe, duck tape, and tennis balls!

Jordan already had a white shirt and bow-tie, so we got him some sweet slacks from Nordstrom Rack (which will be great for Church too!) and a corduroy blazer (which came with an attached gray hoodie, but we tucked it in for the costume) from Old Navy, and some temporary white hair color spray to pull off his older Carl self.

Items we didn't make included an orange piece of fabric for Andy's Scout scarf, the Scout shirt we ventured to the local Boy Scouts of America Store for, and helium balloons we picked up from a local party store.  And the dog costume never surfaced... though after watching the last episode of The Office, I really wish I could have borrowed Erin's dog costume.  Instead, I became the house from the movie.

Our Inspiration:

Old man Carl

Boy Scout Russell

Both of them together

the house

And here we are!  In all our Up glory:

DIY Starbucks Hot Cider

I'm so thankful my sister-in-law, Tammy, told us this easy and very cheap DIY Starbucks hot cider.  We bought our own cinnamon dolce pump from Starbucks for $7.95 last year (ask them for the pump, actually, demand it!) and now that the cold weather has come, we've made good use of it!

Here are the ingredients:

You heat the apple juice, put in two pumps of the cinnamon dolce and then top it off with whip cream and caramel.  

JUST like Starbucks does it!  

My First Learning Circle

After stumbling on the Power of Moms website a few years ago, I couldn't wait for my own child to be old enough to implement some of the ideas.  I also couldn't wait to participate in a Learning Circle.  After much waiting and anticipation, that time has finally come!

Tonight, I hosted my first Learning Circle with four other moms (all resident wives) in our humble apartment.  It was so awesome!  I got so many ideas from other veteran moms and also got a chance to realize I'm not alone.  This motherhood thing isn't easy and what I sometimes feel is not abnormal.  It was a great sense of support, collaboration, and brainstorming.  Now, I want to go get a sign made that says "Excuse our mess, we are building a family."  We went over two articles from September and October with one about trying to stay sane amidst the mess our children create and how to involve them, and the other about fun traditions to establish in our families.  It helps that the stuff we read was amazing, but the conversation to get us thinking and applying what we read was great too.  All of us have  

I encourage every mom to join the Power of Moms if they haven't already!  There are free articles, webcasts, and tools to help you be a more positive and deliberate mother.  If you have moms around you and want to start a Learning Circle of your own, do it!

New Music Jordan

Jordan loves Gangnam Style.  If you've heard the song, you can understand why it was so crucial for me to get him into something else.

After a lot of coaxing from Jordan for me to play it, I finally gave up and bought it on iTunes for $1.99
Apparently, this is when he no longer cared.  I made a playlist from iCloud (did you know it can pull all the music you've EVER purchased on iTunes?!) on our iPad with these few songs:

Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn and Paul
Impossible - Shout Out Louds (probably one of my all time favorite bands)
Kids - MGMT
Young Blood - The Naked and Famous
Naive - The Kooks
DANCE - Justice
PSY - Gangnam Style

Guess what song Mom can skip over without him even caring?  Of course the one she bought for $1.99.  He'll jam to any of the other songs.  It only took $1.99 to get him there.

It's like when you bought him the Cars toy from Costco for $25.99 that he really loved at his buddy Finn's house... but once you got it for him, he could care less at home.  Things are always cooler at other people's homes.  Songs are always cooler when you don't own them.

Mom is learning.  

Good Perspectives

There are days when I think how easy it'd be to be back at the Firm instead of at home.  Here, I have to be the creative juice, the CEO, COO, executive assistant, administrator, ops manager, disciplinary executor, cook, maid, and housekeeper.  At times like these, it helps to reach out to my old buddies at the Firm who had been through the mom thing.

One wise mom and old co-worker gave me the following advice, and I loved it so much.. I just had to share it.

"As far as being a new mom/working mom/stay-at-home mom, it's all pretty challenging, right? Everyday I'm amazed I made it through, and my children seem to be doing all right. Maybe I have substandard expectations :-) My best advice is to stay confident in your choices, whatever they are. Even if you make a mistake, at least you know you've tried it and you had the best of intentions. I know we can be a bowl full of self-doubt and it sometimes doesn't do us any good! People who have worked at [the Firm] are generally passionate, all or nothing die hards. So it's hard to live a life where you have to start compromising your expectations, time, output, etc. But that's what parenting is about - it mellows you out! Or wears you down...whatever."

I love the part about being a bowl of self-doubt, glad I'm not alone.  And yes, I'm definitely more mellow now than I was a year ago.  I'm confident it has indeed wore me down a bit, and I'm only at one.  

Chick Fl ick Kinda Girl

Some days, I don't have anything important to blog about or I'm too lazy to pull out photos and recount our fun vacation.  Instead, I just want to talk about these three movies I really want to see.

PITCH PERFECT

I have a feeling we should kiss.  

I sometimes have a feeling I should do crystal meth, but then I think hmmm better not.  

HAHAHA.  

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Be aggressive, passive aggressive!!

I didn't think anyone noticed me.  

I cry everytime I watch the trailer!

POST-GRAD

Everyone say, "Overpriced Education!"

This one is from 2009 I'm not sure how I'll get it.  We don't Netflix.

Big Boy Bed = Parent's Bed

Jordan learned how to climb out of his crib the other day which prompted us to remove the front of his crib, catapulting Jordan into toddler bed status at 17 months.  This basically means he fights when we put him to bed and then sleeps for about 4-5 hours before walking over to mom and dad's room to spend the rest of the night in our comfortable and large adult bed.  But some cute things have happened from his fights.

Yesterday, he would scream and fight and then cross his arms, as if to motion it's time to pray.  After I would say a short prayer, he would resume kicking and yelling, pleading to be released.  After about three prayers, I refused to say another prayer.  At this point in time, Jordan began to say the prayer in his broken jibberish of a language.

Last night, I patted his stomach until he fell asleep.  As I began to get up, thinking he was asleep now, his eyes stayed closed, but his hands searched around for mine, grabbed hold of them, and put them back on his stomach as if to communicate he needed that stomach caressing just a bit longer please.

Today, we returned from a fun play date from his favorite little buddy's house (Finn who is two) and exhausted and completely full of grapes, muffins, and chips as well as pooping right before we left, he zonked out in the car, still clutching onto his pretzel stick, and then transferred perfectly to his big boy bed.