"Mirror, Mirror on the wall.."

After the first night, I decided SOMETHING had to be done for the 2nd day of parties.


Something must be done to correct the lameness of my costume.


Perhaps The Queen of Hearts needed:
Some sparkle.
Some bling.
A new look, if you will.


I began the transformation while Gwen was asleep


Step 1: Tape costume 4 inches so it actually fits around my waist....give up trying to make myself look bustier on the top....WASTE.OF.TIME.


Step 2: Add some gold glitter eye shadow,red lipstick, red and white heart on cheek, and dig WAY WAY deep in my cosmetic bag for some semblance of mascara and apply heavily (easy to do since the last time I actually wore mascara was a year ago and the thing is really dried out)


Step 3: Discovered to my surprise, the red wig that I wore at my bachelorette party in downtown Santa Barbara 5 years ago and determine it is the PERFECT accessory for my costume


Inner monologue upon looking in the mirror: "Not bad, Not bad if I DO say so myself"


Feeling confident (a bit overconfident perhaps?) in my re-working of the Queen of Hearts, I get Gwen ready for our neighbor Kerry's party and await The King's arrival with Bumblebee from Saturday's 1st party.


Meanwhile our neighbor Jack came over to show us his costume...he was a morph guy...hot costume this year, apparently all other colors were sold out except this white one.  Here's a photo of he and my little Elmo:

Me to Jack: "What do you think of my costume?"


Jack to Me: "Mrs. Gaylord, are you the Wendy's girl from that restaurant?"


Blank Stare. Nothing to say.


ALL.CONFIDENCE.CRUSHED


Inner monologue: "What?? The Wendy's girl!??!  No way!"


I run down the hallway to Jackie's room, which has the only full length mirror in the house and what I expected to see was this:

But the reality was, I saw this:

Sigh. 

No longer feeling confident of the re-vamping of the costume, I decided to put on my best smile and take a photo with my little Elmo.  She told me she "liked my shiny hair" and in reality, that's all that mattered

What did Brent think? 


Brent and said it  did perhaps resemble the "Queen of French-Fries"


As I looked into the mirror again I'm sure Brent could sense that I was becoming insecure about my costume......He stood next to me and looked into the mirror and said, "don't worry, I look more like: 

.....than a king"

Belly.Laugh.Together.

What could I say to that?

Me to Brent: "Mirrors never lie, I guess!! "

..and off we went to the party across the street: Bumblebee, Elmo, Wendy and The Pope.

Pumpkin carving "Fun"

I started writing our Halloween blog, but then realized I didn't publish what happened AFTER what has come to be known as "The Pizza Incident".

We carved pumpkins.
Always a good time...sort of.

Here's how it went:  After we enjoyed the pizza and I explained "The Pizza Incident" to Brent when he came home from work...we pulled out a tarp on the sunroom floor to prepare our pumpkins for their magnificant transformation into jack-o-lanterns.

The problem is, not only do the kids  not carve the pumpkins (obviously), but BOTH of my kids get grossed out by, what  they call, "the goo-ey goo" (aka the inside of the pumpkin). So, after about 5 minutes into our carving and 5 trips to the bathroom to wash Gwen's hands because she's crying because they are "dirty with the "goo-ey goo")..... we end up doing ALL of the work.
Here's a couple of pictures during the initial process---like the first 2 minutes

And Brent is a perfectionist when it comes to having a completely"guts-free" pumpkin.  He cuts, scrapes, pulls out and fine tunes the pumpkin until the thing is BEYOND hollow.

While he's fine tuning the gut-less pumpkins,  I tell the kids to decide if they want a happy or scary pumpkin.
Gwen says she wants a "happy guy".
GREAT.EASY.DONE.

Grant, however, picks out the haunted house (which Gwen proceeds to call "her castle") stencil that comes with the pumpkin carving tools
TOTALLY.NOT.CARVING.

Me, knowing that I'm going to be the one carving the damn thing, tells Grant: "This is kind of hard for mommy...why don't you choose this scary one...he's COOL"

Grant: Whines.Cries. Over-reacts   "Nooooooo....I want the Haunted House"
Gwen: "Yeah, Grant wants myyyyy castle on his pumpkin-guy"

Inner monologue: Sigh. How hard could it be? My hand is only 1/2 burnt and sore from The Pizza Incident...
So I begin tracing with the "tool" the kit provides...
..and I carve...and carve...and carve....

Grant to Brent: "Mommy isn't good at carving pumpkins..she takes a long, long time"
Brent laughs
I glare...and continue carving....

..Now, Jackie begins carving my pumpkin (she only admidittly likes pumpkin carving to harvest the seeds and make yummy pumpkin-roasted goodness at the end of the night)..but she sees that since I'm carving two pumpkins, she'll help out with the one I bought for "my pumpkin".

Brent had gotten a migraine during this process and decided to make a "sad-guy" pumpkin.

And at the end of the night...there we have it..our 4 family pumpkins.
The Ghosts. The Sad-Guy. The "Castle"-Haunted House. The Happy-Guy.

Me to the kids: "Don't you just LOVE our family of pumpkins?"
Grant: "Mom, you don't have a pumpkin." That's Jackie's, Dad's, Mine, and Gwen's pumpkins
Me: "What??  I carved BOTH of your pumpkins! Doesn't that count for anything? Can't I SHARE your two pumpkins with both of you"
Grant: "No, mom, we don't SHARE pumpkins".
Sigh.Moms never get any credit.
Pour wine.

Meet the family

Thank you Jennifer Hall for suggesting that I start a blog!!!  I don't know when I'll find the time to update this, but it sounds like a fun idea, so here it goes.  Maybe I should start by introducing my family:

This is Grant--3.5 years old and full of energy!! A very smart little boy who attends Carmel Mountain Preschool in San Diego full time as I work at UC San Diego as a Molecular Biologist.

Gwen: 20 months, and just the sweetest little girl you will ever meet. She's wearing a traditional outfit in this photo that her day care provider's husband brought back from Afghanistan when he was back visiting.

And, this is our family, sans our dog, Kayla.  We were at my niece's baptism in Ohio in this photo.

Gwen in Ohio

Well, that's it for my first post.  You may find a few posts with pictures from Grant's lunches as I'm currently into "bento-ing" for his packed school lunches..