A Late, Late, Late, Late Birthday

Lutece really wanted a birthday party this year. She started asking me about it in August and I kept putting her off. I was fairly honest about it . . . "I just don't know if I can manage that this year, Lutece," but I never really said "no," so she kept asking about it.

By mid September (a couple of weeks AFTER her birthday), it was clear that a birthday party was probably not going to happen, and I assumed she would stop asking about it. Silly me! Lutece can be persistent when she wants to be, and to be fair, I never really said "no."

So when October finally rolled around, I thought, "Ok, maybe I handle this now," and I attempted to lower Lutece's expectations as I proposed a extremely simple "party" idea. As it turns out, there was no need. Apparently, after having her mother put her off for two months, she had already completely lowered her expectations. "Can't I just have a fun play-date with my friends from kids' book club?" TOTALLY!

So that's what we did. On October 19, nearly a month and a half after her birthday, we had three of Lutece's good friends over for a fall-themed "party" play-date. The girls painted wooden boxes . . . and then they played upstairs while I cleaned up a huge paint mess :).

I love that each girl's box was so different.

Lutece's is the one with the little birdhouse.

Then the girls came downstairs and beaded necklaces, bracelets, and headbands with fall-themed beads. You name it, they beaded it.

Afterwards, the girls iced and decorated large pumpkin sugar cookies (no pictures of this) and drank lemonade. I think they all had fun. Frankly, they seem to just have fun being around each other, so it wasn't hard.

Next year, it's Phoenix's turn for a party . . . hopefully, I'll get it done before Halloween!

Random Halloween Roundup

Aside from the fiasco that was pumpkin carving this year, we had some good Halloween-y times. The day after OUR Halloween, on November 2, we took the kids to the ballet at the Lexington Opera House. Stayc had procured free tickets, which were available to UK professors (in his college?) since the production was sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences.

We toyed with the idea of getting a baby-sitter and just going by ourselves, but in the end, since it was put on by the Lexington Youth Ballet, we felt like it would be geared toward younger audiences and we made it a family event.

It was a good choice. There were lots of families with children at the event, and despite the loooong introduction, it was a great performance that held the kids' attention nearly the entire time. Really good Day of the Dead activity, you know, if you're into that kind of thing :) . . .

. . . which, apparently, we are. I found these cool Day of the Dead skull beads in Boulder while I was visiting Courtney and Aaron in Colorado, and I couldn't resist. The day before Halloween, while Phoenix was at Scouts, Lutece and I got to making some jewelry. She designed and beaded this bracelet for herself, which she wore to school on Halloween.

I didn't want to leave Phoenix out completely, so I tried to make him the most manly piece of jewelry I could. He thought it was cool, but he still didn't wear it. Ah well.

And then earrings for myself. So Goth (or Emo) of us.

Also the day after OUR Halloween, I made my usual deal with the kids . . . trade the majority of your Halloween candy for a brand new book of your choice. It was a tough decision for the kids this year, but in the end, they acquiesced. We strolled down to the Morris Book Shop and the kids browsed the children's section. Lutece chose this book, but Phoenix was undecided, and I convinced him to wait until we could look at Amazon for something that he really wanted. As it turned out, he knew exactly what he wanted, and he wanted it in Kindle format ("That's the way I like to read the Warriors series, Mom. I just do.") I like a kid who knows what he wants.

There were numerous benefits to having Halloween postponed one day, not the least of which was that all Halloween-related items in the stores were 50% off BEFORE Halloween actually occurred. Since we had friends over for dinner and trick-or-treating on Halloween (November 1), I was able to buy a spooky tablecloth and paper supplies for cheap. Bring it on Target!

Last, and yes, least, you never know what kind of crazy candy you'll get when you trick or treat in our neighborhood (one year the kids got packs of candy cigarettes . . . I didn't even know they still made those!). Lutece picked up this creepy specimen that not one of us was willing to try. The lid claimed it was a cherry-flavored gummy spider soaked in lime syrup. Hard to want to eat it, but cool to look at.

Happy Halloween!

The Carving of the Pumpkins

 . . . was kind-of a disaster this year . . . on so many levels.

1. We had a hard time finding decent pumpkins for a decent price.

We first went to a nearby pumpkin patch, which we have done in years past, to pick our own pumpkin. This particular pumpkin patch/orchard was crazy crowded, and when we finally walked over to the actual pumpkin patch (after the kids played in the huge Fall-themed playground for two hours . . . and $5 each), it was clear that NONE of the sad, old, ugly pumpkins had actually come from this state, let alone this patch. Needless to say, we left without pumpkins. I finally purchased two large, lovely, fresh pumpkins at the Kroger two blocks away.

2. Things got way more complicated this year.

Lutece informed me that she was "done" with just carving faces on pumpkins this year. She wanted something "more interesting." She had been eying this pumpkin-carving kit for weeks before Halloween. It looked like junk to me and I told her I didn't want to buy it. Undeterred, Lutece purchased it with her own money while I was away in Colorado. It came with about five pumpkin-carving tools, all of which broke within 10 minutes of using them, and a book of patterns. Oh, the patterns!!! So difficult to carve with crummy plastic tools! Even harder with kitchen knives once said plastic tools have broken.

3. We waited until the last minute.

Sigh. This was really the clincher. Since I was in Colorado the weekend before Halloween, the carving of the pumpkins got put on hold until, you guessed it, two hours before trick-or-treating, and one hour before the other family who we invited over for dinner and trick-or-treating arrived. Too much stress! I finally had to step away from the situation to get dinner ready and leave Stayc to pull out his hand drill.

Needless to say, we learned a lot about how NOT to carve pumpkins. Next year, we will go back to the happier, simpler ways of pumpkin-carving . . . or we will prepare much better for the challenges to come.

Because Poseable Mummies Are the Coolest

A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of October, nearly all of the fifth graders at Lutece's elementary school took a 3-4 day bus trip to Washington D.C. Lutece, as you may have ascertained from the complete lack of pictures of Lutece in Washington D.C., did not.*

Only five of the 30 students in the 5th grade gifted classes didn't go on the trip, and although I know Lutece's teacher tried hard to make it a fun three days at school, I felt a little guilty and hence kept Lutece out of school on the last day.

The two of us had a fun mommy/daughter day at home doing Halloween-related activities. In the morning we went to a fantastic performance of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at the Lexington Children's Theater. In the afternoon, we worked on this cool craft that I found online. I got the wire at the Dollar Tree and tore the muslin into long strips the night before.

Mummy saying a prayer . . . maybe for you.

Although we followed the tutorial as faithfully as possible, our poor mummies were left with extremely short arms, which drove Lutece and me a little crazy. I'm not sure where the discrepancy lies (maybe because the wire in the tutorial is thicker, it requires less muslin, which leads to less bulk?), but next time we would make the arms MUCH longer.

Mummy just hangin' out next to Meditation Mummy.

The mummies' arms ended up so short that they almost look like they've been amputated at the elbow. Poor mummies. It's a hard mummy life.

Even the mummies got depressed. "I can barely move my arms. People look at me like I'm all wrong, like I don't fit in. I just don't belong."

Don't jump into the sink mummy. It's a long way down. Don't do it mummy! Don't do it!!!!!!!

Ok, maybe I need a new hobby. Seriously, though, we enjoyed our short-armed mummies a lot this season.

* We may be overly-protective parents, but Stayc and I feel like 10 years old is simply too young to go off on a 4-day trip with a bunch of other 5th-graders who we don't know. Nor do we know their parents or their parents' standards. I could have gone with Lutece as a chaperone, but that would have cost us another $700. $1400 for a trip to a place that Lutece has been visiting twice a year for her entire life. Yes, we are party-poopers. Oh well. 

A Very Harry Potter Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year, despite all of the glitches and setbacks. First of all, Halloween was postponed in Lexington and the surrounding counties to Friday, November 1. There was a huge storm forecast for October 31, so the city officially changed the date of Halloween. I love it!

The other major difficulty was that I spent the week before Halloween in Colorado, so the week prior to my departure I frantically sewed costumes to order. Lutece wanted to be a dementor (from the Harry Potter series), so we devised a dementor-style cloak for her. I ripped pieces of cloth to hang down from the cloak, but I didn't want to sew them onto the cloak permanently, so I attached them with velcro. This cloak can be used again!

The weekend before Halloween, at our ward's Trunk or Treat party (which I missed!), Lutece had her entire face painted with purple, gray, and black paint. She looked creepy and dementoresque, but she didn't want to go through the trouble for the actual night of Halloween.

She also sported the dementor's trademark scabby hands. I didn't have time to make them before I left for Colorado, so I left the gloves for Lutece and she created the scabs and sewed them onto the gloves. It's so neat that she is willing and able to help out with her costumes now!

Naturally, if Lutece was going to be a dementor, Phoenix wanted to be a patronus, and not just any patronus. A phoenix bird patronus (natch). I didn't quite know how to make it work, but I knew he needed to be silvery/white and that he needed to have wings.

It may not be the best costume in the world, but I am proud of those wings . . . and Phoenix wore them well.

If you have a dementor and a phoenix patronus to chase it away, then you NEED to have the wizard whose patronus is the phoenix bird. Right? RIGHT? So Lutece created a beard so that Stayc could be Albus Dumbledore.

 I get a kick out of looking at her detailed stitching. She did a great job.

The kids brought in a good candy haul on Halloween, but they were both ready to head home after an hour or so, which surprised (but pleased) me. Until next year!

Eagle Falls

The second day of our Fall Break mini-vacation we followed a trail on the OTHER side of the Cumberland Falls that led to a different waterfall called Eagle Falls.

The trail was a three-mile loop and afforded beautiful views of the Cumberland Falls from a different vantage point. Isn't Kentucky beautiful? Seriously.

 

I knew Eagle Falls would be much smaller than Cumberland Falls (in fact, I was worried it would just be a trickle), but I was again pleasantly surprised.

The falls cascaded into a little pond that then ran over the rocks in a stream and into the larger Cumberland river.

Once again, the boulders in the area were huge and fantastical and a source of endless entertainment for the kids.

At one point, all these huge boulders must have been part of the land above the Cumberland Falls and come crashing downstream . . . you know, hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Needless to say, we had an outstanding time at the Falls . . . both sides of it. Next time you visit us in Kentucky, we'll take you there if you want ;).

The Cumberland Inn

After spending the day hiking around Cumberland Falls, we were ready to settle down in our cozy hotel in the small Kentucky town of Williamsburg, about 20 minutes further south. The town is home to the small Baptist college called University of the Cumberlands. The Cumberland Inn is actually owned by the university and is quite nice. It was free (woot!) through United miles (our first stipulation), and it had a great indoor pool (our second stipulation).

It also contained two very quirky museums in a separate wing of the hotel. The first was a privately donated taxidermy collection.

Very weird, but weirdly cool.

The second museum was a collection of crosses. It was also very weird, and not in a cool way, but in a vaguely interesting way :).

The hiking was good, the swimming was good, the hotel was good, the free breakfast the next morning was good (well, the free part was good, the food part was just ok). It was the food that we found lacking. There don't seem to be a great many good restaurants in backwoods Kentucky. Go figure. There were, however, a few with some local color. You take what you can get.