Halloween: Return of the Wax Hands

Another cheesy B movie title!

It's the story of a young woman who goes to a carnival and makes two wax hands at a booth. Unbeknownst to her, the wax hands were made from cursed wax. Her parents wake one morning to find her strangled in her bed.  Her distraught boyfriend realizes the wax hands are gone. He hunts them down and melts them with the very last match in his pocket that he'd been saving for a special bonfire date with his girl. Then he dies when a bear eats him.

Think I can pitch it to Hollywood?

Anyway, Jake asked for pictures of the wax hands mentioned in the last post.

Here ya go:

Just stick a battery-operated tea light inside a wax hand for a pretty neat Halloween decoration!

Here's a movie of my wax hands:

I like the flickering effect.

Happy Halloween! Enjoy the last day of Octobery goodness!

Adventure Time with a couple of swashbucklers

Just got home from the ward chili cook-off and costume party.

Hayley worked hard all morning and afternoon to finish up the costumes in time. Matt helped for about 5 seconds. I refused to do any of the real work of the costumery, except for the hoods. I did those. But the eyes and nose on the dog costume were mostly by Hayley.

Princess Bubblegum, Finn holding Peppermint Butler, and Jake the dog

Lots of people of all ages at the party recognized the characters.

During the fashion show portion of the party, when Gabby, Hayley and Matt came out, they got a huge round of applause. Then the three yelled out, "What time is it?" and everyone yelled "Adventure Time!"

EJ asked me to make him a costume for the ward party. This is what he wanted me to sew for him:

pirate EJ

Then there was Paul. He came up with his idea five (5!!!) minutes before he had to leave. He originally wanted to sew a vest, but we convinced him to let us cut up an old shirt of Jim's instead.

Flynn Rider (from "Tangled")

Two of my no-so-little-anymore boys

Jim refused to dress up.

I had a black dress and a witch's hat and some green makeup:

I had lots of fun passing out candy for the trick-or-treat event at the party, but I am ashamed to admit that I did not take any pictures of the room I decorated, especially my wax hands, which I had placed over flickering electric candles. They looked very spooky.

Time for bed.  Happy almost-Halloween!

Hayley's musical idea

Hayley came home from school today with the news that there is a viola in her band class. She said, "I wish we had orchestra in our school. Then we could combine the two groups into a big group and call it bandestra."

I tried to tell her that there already exists a combination of band and string instruments and it is called orchestra.  And then I laughed.  And then things just got silly.

Parent-child conferences

This has nothing to do with school. I don't go to parent/teacher conferences anymore because (at least at the middle school) the teachers are not part of the process. Seriously. In fact, there was an email recently from the principal at the middle school that read:

"To best accommodate the greatest number of parents with concerns, we suggest that you consider only visiting teachers in whose class your child is struggling or those with whom you as a parent have a question that needs to be discussed in person."

So I didn't even go. Why bother when all I do as a parent is sit across a lunch table from my own son who I see every day after school and talk about his grades for 2 minutes? Instead, I logged onto the gradebook (which is available online), looked at Matt's grades, decided they were good, searched for missing assignments (none), and asked him how he thought he was doing in school. He said fine. I did that all without leaving my house. I wasted neither gas nor time. 

ANYWAY. 

Let me start again. This has nothing to do with school.

I have been missing my Paulie. He is rarely home, and when he is, he hardly talks. I tried to engage him in meaningful conversation about his life this morning on the way to seminary. I realize that 5:45 a.m. is a difficult time for anyone to say anything meaningful, but I had him captive in the van. He rebuffed all my efforts with a grunt.


After seminary, I jokingly said, "You're so close to getting a failing grade in family life.  In order for you to pass this semester in the Shoebox household, you will need to report to me after school and tell me in at least five sentences per class about your day. And you will have to include everything funny that someone did." This elicited a small smile out of Paul, who replied, "Nothing happens at school."


Now, I know that is not true. I went to high school once (or twice) and every day there was some sort of DRAMA!!!!!  


So I said, "OK then, if you refuse to talk, you will need to write an essay on each class." 


He laughed. 


I continued, "I just really haven't talked to you lately. We haven't conversed lately."


He argued that we have too had conversations, so I said, "I need proof. Five examples of conversation with a date and time of the conversation.  And points off for any incident that involves teasing a sibling." 


Hayley, who was also in the car, launched into a complaint about Paul tormenting Matt yesterday, which resulted in Matt yelling really loudly, "PAUL STOP IT." 


Then Hayley wanted to know what her family grade was, and I told her A. Then I amended it to A- because she still hasn't finished her Halloween costumes. She asked what Matt's family grade.  A, of course, I can't get through at day without several lengthy conversations with him (some actually do make sense even). She asked what EJ's grade was.  I gave him an A because he's preparing to serve a mission and even if he didn't call to get an appointment for immunizations, he did clean the bathroom yesterday.


Katie gets an A too because she is going to college and has a job. 


Hopefully Paul can bring his grade up. Maybe we'll get something out of him when Cross Country is over. Last race tomorrow.  I will be keeping my family grade up by going to watch him run.

Halloween preview

Hayley has been bugging me to put pictures of her Halloween costume on the blog. She finished it last week and we got a wig to go with it. This is the cartoon character she is trying to look like:

Princess Bubblegum from "Adventure Time"

And here is the dress:

She's trying to be pretty

Here is Princess Bubblegum Hayley with the wig and crown and the stuffed Peppermint Butler she made a while ago:

And one last picture because we found it funny. See if you can guess why:

Do you see why we found it amusing?  Here's a hint mixed in with some labeling requested by Hayley:

Did you guess Paul's face on the computer is what made us laugh? Cuz that's what it was. I'm still chuckling.

Word

I have plenty of words in my life. I like most of them ("moist" is one I do not like. My children know this and like to use it whenever they can to annoy me. Matt's friend, Colton, even likes to use it around me just to see my pained reaction). I like to say them, write them with a nice pen on nice paper, type them on a keyboard that makes little clickity sounds. I like to turn them inside out, use them in unconventional ways, and add suffixes and prefixes that don't really match just to keep things interesting.

Matt and Hayley share my enjoyment of words, and a few days ago, Hayley and I had a usage discussion about three words (actually one is a phrase) and the various situations in which they should be used.  She had asked about the difference in "dawdling" and "fiddling."

I explained that when I say "dawdling," I mean someone is purposely making us late to church (or another outside-of-the-home activity) by moving very slowly, not doing anything.

When I say "fiddling," I mean that someone is sitting on the couch poking and manipulating or otherwise fingering a small object (like a little rubber toy bat), possibly with moving parts (like a Rubix cube), or taking those small objects and playing with them in a noncommittal and nonstandard way just to while away the hours and avoid doing something constructive.

I added that "piddling around" is a combination of these two words/ideas; it what someone is doing when they are making us late to an event by playing around with small objects and not paying attention to my efforts to move them along.

"So," said Hayley, "Paul dawdles, but he doesn't usually fiddle, or piddle around. Whereas (she might not have actually said "whereas") I fiddle but don't dawdle. And Matt does all three."

I told her that's she's right, she generally doesn't dawdle, but I have known her to piddle around when I've been trying to get her into the van for piano lessons. She grudgingly admitted to the occasionally piddling around and readily agreed that she fiddles. But she adamantly refused to admit that she had ever dawdled.

We spent the rest of the car trip analyzing the dawdlers, piddlers, and fiddlers that we know.  It was a fun discussion.

Sew Awful

One of the perks of my job is that I have a sewing machine in my office. If I'm facing my desk and I want to get a bit of sewing done, all I have to do is swivel in my wonderful office chair and say the magic word and my office chair turns into a sewing chair and I am seated at my machine.

I haven't done much sewing until Monday, when I began on EJ's Halloween costume. He had gone to the local Renaissance Festival twice this season and wanted his costume to be like the clothes he saw at the Ren Fest. (Honestly, I don't know what he needs a costume for; he certainly isn't going trick-or-treating. But I actually kind of wanted to sew and this seemed like a perfectly legitimate excuse to exercise my sewing muscles).

I got some muslin and a peasant shirt pattern and got to it.

Unfortunately, on Monday, my ring finger on my left hand was in a tetchy mood and picked a fight with the sewing machine needle. The machine chunk-chunk-chunked to a halt and I had to extract my finger from a mess of fabric and machine. I really didn't know what had happened until I saw blood seeping from a hole in my fingernail, and from the top of my finger. Had I seriously just sewed my finger? I've been sewing for 38 years and have never even come close to doing that before. I was more shocked than hurt. I didn't even swear (actually, I don't ever swear--one of my strange habits). Nor did I cry. Nor did I hop around on one foot shouting "ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH ARGH" with tears leaking out of eyelids squinched shut like I do when I stub my toe on my metal bedstead. I just stood there thinking, "Did I just sew my finger?"

I looked at the needle and saw only a metal stump. My thoughts then changed to "Where is the rest of the needle? Hopefully not still in my finger."

I wanted to look for the rest of the needle, but figured I'd better stanch the flow of blood. I found some gauze and some medical tape in a bathroom drawer and fashioned a little casing for my fingertip.

Then I went on a needle hunt. Think needle in a haystack, only the haystack is composed of carpet fibers. After ages combing the floor, I found four pieces of needle, including the tip.

My finger broke that needle into FIVE pieces. My finger picked a fight with the machine, and I have to say that I think my finger won. Metal needle: five pieces, finger: small hole (which should heal itself in a few days). Yep, I declare my finger the winner.

I called my sister during the needle hunt, to make sure I was proceeding correctly after a machine/finger altercation because I remembered that she did the same thing a while back. She was a great comfort to me in my time of need. Thanks, Jenni.

No I'm not going to post a picture of it.

Hall of Ween

I can't let October get away from me without posting something related to my favorite holiday.

Matt was home by himself for a little while on his birthday while I was at Paul's cross country meet. Matt saw that I had forgotten to take my camera with me (I felt naked without my camera during the whole race. I had to tell myself that I have LOTS of pictures of Paul running and I should just enjoy watching him and his team run without having to get a good shot of him legging it down the chute at the finish line).

So Matt had some fun with my camera while I was gone. This is what I found on my camera when I got back:

Matt likes little plastic animals, especially bats. Several of the photos show this bat in front of the camera.

Here's another one of the bat. I think this looks oddly realistic.

I kind of like the picture. I might have to use it for a banner or a background or something.

And I really like this picture. The triple images give it kind of a distorted feel and distorted is a good Halloweeny theme.

One last picture that I took. I haven't had much time to do my own Halloween crafting, but yesterday when I took Hayley out to get her pink wig and a few more items for her Halloween costume and a costume for EJ (who made a request that maybe I will tell you about later), I saw this:

And I knew I needed it. I had noticed recently that I have been suffering under a marked lack of Halloween napkins (Oh THE HORROR!) and this fabric will fill that need wonderfully. The fabric was on sale too--40% off.  How could I pass that up? And if a certain daughter is good and does well in her college classes, she might find one or two of these in a package to go with her skull plates that I know she has.

Happy preparing for Halloween to all of you!

Birthday fever

Poor Mattie is still suffering from a fever (four days and counting). He was ok yesterday, but he didn't have much of an appetite--he was not in the mood for eating cake, but he did enjoy blowing the candles out and making faces.

Jim took Matt to see the pediatrician today and all she said was that he has a viral infection and that it should go away in a couple of days. He had blood drawn and the nurse tested him for strep, but the strep test was negative. He hasn't been too keen on being sick for his birthday, but I told him it happens.

It happened to me once. I was diagnosed with mono on my 17th birthday. I came home from the dr with my mom, blew out the candles on my cake while wrapped in a blanket, then I went to bed without eating any of the cake. My siblings then ate all of it while I slept for a week. I eventually forgave them.

Hayley has been busy preparing for Halloween. She's sewing three different costumes (one for her, one for Matt, and one for her friend Gabby). She and I went out searching for a wig for her own costume and we found the perfect one!

She looks so different with pink hair!

I can no longer in good conscience call him Lovey

I don't even know how I got to calling him Lovey; maybe it was a bastardization (yes I can say that. And type it) of Lurvy. Or maybe Lurvy was the bastardization of Lovey. I can't remember. In any case, no respectable teenage boy should be called Lovey.

I can still call him many other things: Smack, Smacky, Squibb, Squibber, Smatt, Batt, The Budgie, Scrufty, L'il Man, Boy Wonder (although Boy is starting to mean less too), and other words or vocalizations that come to mind, including Lurvy.

But not Lovey.

He's 13, for crying out loud.

Matt is 13 today.

This little thing that was really too small for a car seat is now GROWING A MUSTACHE.

And his voice went south.

Happy birthday Matt. Cake pictures will come later.

Ten things not about EJ or Tijuana

(Although I could post a lot about EJ's preparations)

1. Matt is home sick for the second day in a row, although he doesn't have a fever anymore. I'm keeping him home because last night at 10 p.m. his fever was 102, and I want to make sure it's gone for good. He's still looking a little peaky and he says he has a sore throat.
2. Jim took the day off work yesterday
3. so he could drive me to South Dakota
4. probably because he doesn't trust me to drive by myself
5. or maybe he was jealous that I get to do all kinds of driving when I have to go into the office.
6. While in South Dakota, I got to show off what little I know about my job to some people who have several years experience doing what I do.
7. But they brought cookies, so I was at ease.
8. Mike and I talked a lot during the visit from the other dental office (not to each other, mostly to the visitors) and the two PRE assistants didn't get a chance to get a word in.
9. One of the visitors commented that she could tell we were brother and sister.
10. Jim and I drove back last night. It was just a day trip. And now we are back to normal routine.

What's new with you?

Mining EJ's heritage to help with the future

EJ is excited to start preparing for his mission. He has started listening to some Spanish lessons on his iPod. He let me listen to what he has chosen to familiarize himself with the language....and I had to do a little forehead slap.

He found a radio program from SCOTLAND that supposedly teaches Spanish to listeners. Yes, there is a thick layer of Scottish brogue mixed in with the Spanish.

Oh dear. I hope EJ doesn't totally mix himself up.

(Regarding the title of this post, yes, we have ancestors heralding from Scotland, namely my wonderful grandmother, who was born in Scotland)

The wait is over

I have been too busy waiting with Other Jim for his letter that I haven't blogged (plus not much has happened round these parts).

Well, we don't have to wait anymore. The letter came when Jim and I and Hayley and Matt were at my mother's house for piano lessons, and OJ--although perhaps I should start referring to him as EJ (as in Elder Jim)--and Paul were home by themselves.

OJ said he was a little nervous opening the letter, so he took it to his room to open it up by himself. He didn't even know we were gone. Anyway, he opened it, then called us when he decided to read it.

He had to spell it to me on the phone, because he wasn't sure how it was pronounced: Tijuana, Mexico!

We are very excited! He really wanted to go Spanish-speaking.

He checks into the Missionary Training Center on February 8th. And he has a ton of stuff to do to prepare.

Wish him luck!

I'd write a longer, more Mexican-detailed post, but I'm tired and I really don't know a whole lot about Mexico in general and Tijuana specifically. I do know, however, that his mission area extends from the border three quarters of the way down the Baja California peninsula. It doesn't go all the way down (wonder why).

And now I'm off to bed. All this excitement has worn me out! 

Hasta la pasta

I had a good time hosting the pasta dinner on Wednesday. Too bad this was my last time, because I think I have this pasta-dinner-hosting down to a science. We had plenty of food and the cross country kids are good kids with good manners and a lively presence. The parents are friendly too.  

Thomas and Paul. Yes, Thomas is wearing swim goggles and a kerchief. Thomas, as a rule, makes interesting fashion choices. Paul purposely smiled like a goof for this picture.

Table for 11. I would like to point out that there is a plate already in the spot where Paul is sitting down. That is Paul's second plate. He ate lots. 

The day after the pasta dinner was the cross country home meet. The team has gone to a lot of big races that draw 15 to 30 teams. The home meet is very small, with only 5 teams on the field.

This is the entire cc varsity race lineup. Can you find Paul?

No need to caption this picture because I labeled things for you. Although, I will give 8 points to the first person to correctly guess the number of smiley faces I drew on the picture. You might have to click on the picture to embiggen it so you can see all of them. Wow, for not captioning the picture, I sure wrote a long caption.

As part of Paul's job as a CC captain, he got to hand out medals for the varsity girls race

And as sixth place finisher, Paul got his own medal! 

That's my boy!

I will miss the next race because I am going to work in the office for the next two days. If anyone would like to go see Paulie run, the meet will be at the Chaska golf course and he estimates that his race will begin at 5:30.