Direct Marketing

I've recently discovered that my children are highly susceptible to direct marketing. Once last summer they all had to come with me to Costco.  After steering me toward every sample table in the store, they ended up a completely captive audience to the demonstrator for whatever power blender company happened to be there that day.  So I left them standing there slack jawed while I circled about shopping in the nearby aisles.  When I finally forced them away from the table I had a full 10 minutes with each child's overlapping conversation parroting the many virtues of this incredibly fabulous product because, Mom, did I know how healthy it was....And, Mom, it makes hot soup....and cold smoothies! And we have to get this today, Mom! Because today it would be only $300 but if we wait until next week it would cost like $800!  Mom, it's on a super sale!  MOM!!  (Well, at least they know how I love to shop a good sale.) 

Then, in the last couple of months, our DVR hasn't been fully operational and so they have discovered that there are other tv channels outside of PBS kids.  They are now begging me to buy some amazingly fantastic program that teaches infants to read. Yes, you heard it: infants.  And they're not just memorizing the pictures.  No, they really know how to read!  Saul could do this! 

I must want Saul to be the dumbest baby on the block since I keep ignoring their urgent and well-placed advice.

Now with Christmas just around the corner, the number of catalogs arriving in the mail is on an upswing. Each new educational toy magazine that comes is instantly dissected into a comprehensive directory that lists out which toy should go to which child.  And the American Girl Doll catalogs are arriving at like two a week.  It's like they know I have two girls in the house.

The other day Isabel tells me that she really, really wants a popcorn machine for Christmas. I was confused, seeing as how she has been talking about wanting the little stuffed toy cat from the American Girl Doll catalog.  I was completely ignoring this request seeing as how it's got to be the most ridiculously overpriced plush toy ever. Then I saw the most recent circular that had come from Bed Bath and Beyond.  Check out what's smack in the middle of the front cover.

And, by the way, she also tells me that Olivia wants the cotton candy machine.  Suddenly, the little "Ginger" cat seems like it might must be a good idea after all.

Insulating

This is the first house that Adam and I have ever owned.  In fact, it's really more like the first actual house that Adam has ever lived in.  Let's just say, even with all of the things that are really great about the house, there are plenty of times where we feel like jumped into the deep end/ bit off more than we could chew/got in over our heads, etc., etc..  I should admit that I have an imaginary blog in my head that I can never actually publish because every other entry would be some ridiculous lament about the hardships of home ownership and house maintenance.  Blah, blah, blah.  I act like I'm the only person who's ever owned a house and hated having to spend several Saturdays raking leaves or seeding the lawn or spending more money than I ever thought possible on boring stuff like new gutters.  But sometimes it's the pits.

Well, with that in mind, today we crossed another major project off of the list and insulated the attic.  And only after five years of thinking about it as a necessary project, and 26 days before the tax credit for doing it expires!

Despite my whining just now, I do have to give Adam a ton of props for stepping up to the whole home-ownership plate, especially when he doesn't get any utils over doing house projects.  He always comes through and is completely thorough and exact in whatever it involves.

So, for the attic project, the goal was to take the existing insulation that was only about 6 inches thick (at best) and bring it to 18 inches thick.  But this meant that there was way more than just blowing in the new insulation.  He had to seal off the gaps around any electrical and prep for soffit vents, but the biggest task was that he had to construct new walkways that would be above the new insulation so that we could still have access to the electrical, etc., that was up there. He also had to build a little "crib" like structure around the access steps to keep the insulation from falling on the doorway.  It was a lot of work, most of it done by headlamp late at night after kids were in bed.

Before:

Note the markers sticking up from the joists that will be guides for

reaching 18" mark when blowing in the new insulation. 

We used 67 bales of insulation for the project. 

While I fed the bales of insulation into the blower, the hoses extended

 up to the atticand Adam spread it throughout. 

After:

 He came out a bit dusty.

No, he's not wearing a white hat.

   All done! 

And if we only save $10 a month in our heating bills, then it will only take something like 9 years for the investment to pay off.  But I'll sure be happy knowing how pretty it looks up there now. 

Catching Up: Olivia's Birthday Party

Not so very long ago Olivia turned 7yrs old. 

She was due for a "friend" birthday party, so we planned one straight out of my personal parenting philosophy of not-exerting-too-much-effort-and-still-getting-by.  We had a pizza and movie party and the whole thing turned out super duper.  The girls each got to make their own pizzas, we had cute little clip to make as a craft, there was a fabulously delicous cake (big and pink, by request), we managed to find a movie that none of the girls had seen before, and then the movie was scheduled to be shown until 9pm, which is really like staying up 2am in seven-year-old-girl-universe (so that made it even extra awesome!). 

What we didn't know is that we had actually completely overplanned considering that we could have just played the song Party in the USA on two hours of repeat while they were yelling/dancing/singing along into pretend microphones and the whole thing would have been a smashing success.  Next time!



Making the pizzas.

I thought that the clips were pretty darn cute. 
Mostly I was just proud of myself for doing something crafty.



We watched The Gnome Mobile, which not only had none of the girls seen, but apparently I am the only adult that has ever heard of or seen this movie either.  It held up pretty well from my memory as being fun and yet not too annoying, despite its now completely outdated graphics/special effects.  And it has got enough "magic" to keep a room full of girls interested, but also enough physical comedy/car chases to make it absolutely hysterical!  However, if you're tempted to get this movie, be warned that there is that oh-so-1960s psycho-analysis part of the plot making the whole thing kind of absurd.  Otherwise, those Mary Poppins kids are just as adorable and charming as ever! 

And so far, Olivia has made one fantastic seven year old.  We love her mucho.

Well, now that I've finally blogged about it, the only thing left is to get around to finishing the Thank You notes. 

Thanksgiving 2010

 This year, Thanksgiving was with the Hastings at their new place in Virginia.  And, while it appears that Rob and Anna are now living a real-life episode of Sister Wives, it was only the Aunties--Anna's sister Katy visiting from Houston, and Rob's sister Courtney who now lives in Virginia too.  The whole thing was awesome.  If there's anything good about living far from family, it's that we get to celebrate with good friends instead. 

Adam did the turkey (with much use of scientific method).  It was as delish as always.

Katy did the centerpiece.  (When did Katy grow up?)

 I'm hoping that she wants to come visit us for a week next year.

I don't know about everyone else, but I always have to take a picture of the food at basically any event.  This year we had two different dressings (because you can never have enough dressing, and everyone has their "traditional" recipe), the classic Taylor cabbage dish with some Russian name I can't remember, roasted veggies, rolls, and a sweet potato dish that sure tasted like the recipe was basically one part sweet potato/one part butter and sugar.   It's probably all Saul ate for dinner, and who can blame him.

Pre-dinner activities

Silly little feasters.

Little Feasters with post-dinner sillies.

Good times. 

Merry Christmas

This is just a random picture of Mr. Saul since he's been severely underdocumented in the last 6 months.  And it's also to record that he's actually eating something (that's not a bottle of milk or a cheesestick...or candy) without being coerced.  Oh, and to show that he finally got a "big boy" haircut too. 

So, it's now the first day of December and I am realizing that I haven't written a blog post in over a month. 

Recently I participated in a fitness challenge that a friend organized.  It meant that for eight weeks I had to give up eating sugar, soda, etc., and then exercise a certain amount during the week, among other things.  It made me work hard--and in the end, I did it, and it felt really great.  100%.  Honestly, I didn't feel more healthy or fit or I didn't lose a certain amount of weight, but none of those were my goals.  My goal was to see if I could make time for exercise when I am constantly sure that I am too busy.  My goal was to see if I could pass up the lousy storebought cookies that are being passed out and the end of Pack Meeting or the canned frosting on the cupcakes at Olivia's class party.  And I learned a few things about myself--like that I can say no to an open bulk-sized bag of peanut MnMs in the cupboard and all of those other desserts, and that I can actually run more than 400 feet without deciding to take a break.

Yes, thank you, thank you....I am really happy about getting through the whole thing. So, armed with all this new-found empowerment (is that a word?), I thought that I'd take a break for Thanksgiving pie and such, but then I would go back to skipping the sweets.  But, so far, not so much.  I would list off the amount of sugar/fat I've eaten today, but it would be embarrassing.  Instead, I've learned something else about myself:  that I don't have much discipline unless it's my reputation and/or money on the line.   

Which, after I finished a second piece of lemon cake that a friend brought me tonight, made me decide my newest challenge.  And unless I make it public, I won't feel any obligation.  So, for December I'm going to try and do a post a day. Well, maybe this will all end up like my announcement that I was potty training Isabel...

If anything, it might get me to stop feeling like I have to "catch up" before I can actually post anything that I'm currently doing.  Or it might get me to stop thinking that I have to mop the floor first so that I feel like I did something that was actually useful.  But more than anything, I'm sick of not having a record of what our family is doing, or what funny things my kids are saying (i.e. Isabel: "Frick-or-Freat!").  And, in the long run, this blog is for me.  And, well, maybe for my mom too, since she's been dilligently checking the blog everyday hoping more more pictures of Saul and the promised announcement that after 21 months, he finally is walking!  So, if it means I have to make it into a challenge for myself, then it's about time I embraced who I am. 

Oh, shoot....It's 11:59.....PUBLISH POST!

Post Edit...Well, dangit, I was two seconds too late, and according to Blogger, it's now December 2nd.  Why didn't I think of this at 9:30 instead of 11:50! Well, I'm still counting this for December 1st post.  And, then perhaps next month's challenge: time management. 

Halloween 2010: Lion and Miner and Bunny (with a Picnic)....Oh My!

Every year it's the same story.  I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween and it goes something like this.  For the weeks leading up to Halloween I spend a lot of mental energy stressing about what seems like an obligation to come up with a spectacular costume for each child in the non-store-bought-clever-and-unique-variety, but (equally importantly) that is also a costume that doesn't require any actual sewing or that will keep me up late at night or cost me more than $3 to put together (oh, and one that Max and his serious aversion to all costume-wearing activities might actually be willing to wear).  To make matters worse, the kids' school doesn't allow actual Halloween costumes at the parade, but instead they have a silly "StoryBook" character parade, which is really just code for making parents now come up with another creative costume.  Fantastic.

So I deal with all of it the way that I deal with lots of stress-causing activities:  I ignore it.  Then, suddenly, it's the last minute and then--wait-a-second-- now it's REALLY stressful.  You think that I'd learn, but so far, no.

So this year, while I abandoned Adam and the kids on the night before the school parade and ward party to go see Bobby McFerrin as the guest on  Wait Wait Don't Tell Me in Philadelphia (thanks to my very lovely and generous neighbor), SuperAdam saved the day. 

And, it all came off smashing!  See how I got to have my cake and eat it too!

Olivia's class was doing the book Where the Wild Things Are, so she's got a mask like a "wild thing." Max's class had to choose a vocabulary word and dress like it, so he and Adam chose onomatopoeia and the corresponding descriptive words for decoration. Clever, eh! 

As for the costumes for the other events....

The "Chilly" Miner

The Lion

 (A costume now sucessfully worn by all four kids at this age....

best $5 I ever spent at Sweet Potatoes)

The Bunny Rabbit

(A costume she has now worn for two years in a row....and just about constantly for the last two weeks....pretty much everywhere we go. Best $5 I ever spent at Old Navy.)

The Picnic

(Adam came up with this costume a few years ago for me to wear.  It was fun to revive it.)

And by the end of it all, I love Halloween.  The ward party and games, the neighborly-ness of Halloween night, the chili dinner, the pumpkin carving, the super happy kids, homemade doughnuts at our friends' house, the excuse to have candy in the house and eat larger-then-usual quantities of it, etc.  Maybe next year.....well, I won't even pretend that I'll be better next year, but I can dare to dream. 

Daddy weekends

With a trip to Utah and a girls weekend in D.C. Jennette has missed out on some beautiful fall weekends with the kids. Unfortunately the good camera went on her trips so the photos were sporadic and don't really do the halcyon moments the justice they deserve.

A few weekends back the kids and I went to one of the local orchards. The weather was perfect and we took part in all the activities. Corn mazes, hay mazes, hay rides, spooky barns, apple picking, apple donuts, we did it all. The only thing we lacked were cider spigots. Growing up we used to stop by a farm in northern New Jersey which while it lacked all the amenities of the orchard we went to it did have an all you can drink cider spigot. Yup for 10¢ we could get a plastic cup which allowed you to have all the cider you could physically handle. Eventually this price increased to 25¢, but even then I think it was a losing proposition.

Last weekend we decided to make the trip downstate (yes Delaware is large enough that we can actually drive an hour and still be in the state) to the Bombay Hook National wildlife refuge. This is a salt marsh that is on the flyway for the migratory birds. As we were getting close I was worried that we wouldn't see any birds. The sky was clear and not a bird was seen. We were definitely too early for the snow geese which should be coming next month, but there were still plenty of birds to be seen and the salt marsh was surprisingly beautiful. The kids enjoyed the board walk trails, climbing the deer stands and observation towers, and looking for birds with their binoculars (oh and blowing bubbles from their birthday party souvenirs from the previous night). We topped the day off with dinner at one of the kids favorite restaurants and a movie party in Mom's bed where the kids went to sleep to wait for Mom to return later that night.