Halloween Night

As you may know, I’m a procrastinator… and at the last minute, I could not find a monkey costume that would fit Jaxon, so my plans of us going as the Wicked Witch of the East and a flying Monkey were discarded.

After raiding my closet and making a trip to Target, Jaxon and I ended up dressing as Nerds. (It’s really sad that the only thing I had to buy was a pair of knee high socks for me and an argyle sweater for Jax.) I even made Jaxon a little black bow tie out of one of Matt’s old socks. Heh.

Nerdy Mama, Matt, the “Green-Hand Man”, and nerdy Jaxon.

Matt, wanting to get into the holiday spirit (but not enough to join our clan of nerds) decided to cover himself in green paint and a tin foil hat. He called himself the “Green Hand Man” but the kids decided he was more Oscar the Grouch. Gotta love kids!!

Tyler (who came down with strep) made a full recovery in time to go trick or treating. Michael was putting the finishing touches on his Zombie costume as we arrived at my sister’s house.

Tyler the Zombie tries to eat my brains.

But it was all for naught, when an elderly woman decided that he looked more like “a Hip Hop.” AHHAAAHAA!!!! Hilarious! Lizzie and me were dying laughing.

My mom made both Lizzie and Brianna’s costumes. Brianna’s Wonder Woman costume was so awesome that I thought Lizzie had decided to go out and just buy Brianna’s costume.

Brianna (Wonder Woman) and Kylie (the Dark Queen) dance around the living room.

Of course, even with all of Wonder Woman’s strength, Brianna needed help carrying her candy bag towards the end of the night.

Lizzie looked as sweet as pie as the Prairie Mother, complete with a bonnet and curls!!

Trick or treating was fun. We went to my sister’s neighborhood, because we decided that we weren’t going to collect candy for Jaxon (like I saw some other parents doing for their 1 year olds.) I mean, Jaxon can’t eat it so really it would be for us (and neither of us need to be consuming a bag of candy!)

Lizzie’s spoooooky front porch, complete with creepy dry ice.

It was a lot of fun, and more tiring than I remember as a kid. One year down… at least 10 more to go.

Happy Halloween!!

Suite Jesus in San Francisco (day three)

Although Jaxon kept us up all night by crying every two hours (on the dot from Midnight to 6am), we all woke up and got an early start on the day. We planned for breakfast at Denny’s and then we’d head into the city to pick up Matt’s art work, and then go to the pumpkin patch in San Rafael to get a pumpkin for Jaxon. After a lovely and perfect temperature drive El Camino Real, we found an IHOP. However, Jaxon passed out just as we were parking, so we decided to just to keep on driving (since our gas mileage in the Prius is so totally awesome) and ended up in Novato at the pumpkin patch. Jaxon woke up just after we ate and had a blast riding around in a red wagon and pushing a little lawn mower.

We decided to head down to 111 Minna early to grab Matt’s art. Good thing we did! Turns out that after Matt left the night before, nine pieces of art sold. One that was sold was later stolen. In a weird way it’s rather flattering that someone wants your stuff enough to steal it.  He was invited back to do another show. We packed up the remaining art drove to the Galleria for a celebratory lunch at the Olive Garden. It was another delightful experience. Jaxon was in the best of moods, our waitress was super friendly, and we had an excellent booth, excellent food, and 3 Andes candies came with our bill!!

After-lunch naps, Barnes & Noble…. a relaxing end to a perfect day. Matt and I enjoyed each other’s company, hanging out on the bed reading books until we fell asleep in each other’s arms.  And yes, it was that romantic in my mind… until I woke up at 2am to make sure Matt had his mouth piece in by poking him in the teeth, which I don’t think he liked so much.

Sunday we pack up and drove home. It sucked. We ate terrible food (well it tasted good, it was just bad for us.) Jaxon cried a lot and slept a little. However, 9 hours later we pulled into the driveway on Kensington and were glad to be home.

Suite Jesus in San Francisco (day two)

I woke up Friday tired. Jaxon slept with us the night before and he likes to sleep diagonally. We headed to 111 Minna to hang Matt’s art. He said it would only take an hour. Yay, because I wanted to do a bit of shopping and spend some time with the family. Well it took like 4 hours. I took off to avoid the weirdo guy flirting with a pregnant me. Jaxon peed all over the Bloomingdale’s bathroom (and of course I had no change of clothes – bad mother!) The Gap had no clothes and the sales associates were really annoying and not helpful. Up Powell street, H&M didn’t have the shirt I needed (their basic black tee!!!) and Lush was all out of their face mask. I didn’t get Atonement from Borders because by this time, no-nap Jaxon was pretty much pitching a fit every time we stopped so I grabbed a pretzel from a street vendor and trekked back down to the art gallery. Jaxon passed out on the way so I stopped for a few minutes at the Jewish Museum to finish my pretzel and watch some lady dance around in leg warmers and then take pictures of herself. If I hadn’t been so tired and cranky, it would have been hilarious!

Matt was finishing up as we arrived. My mood was pretty terrible by that time, so we didn’t make it to Borders. Matt was pretty freaked out about going to the art show alone (I was supposed to chill at the hotel with Sara because I didn’t feel like being the fat, pregnant lady at the club) so he talked Sara into baby sitting for us. But my mood was so terrible, that at the last minute we canceled and I ended up at home with Atonement (yay) and a burger from BJs. Life was starting to look up again. I took a bath, Matt went to the gallery alone, and Jaxon finally went to sleep on time. It was nice to get a bunch of texts from Matt and although nothing sold =( everyone LOVED his art and flocked around it all night.

Update: After Matt left the show, a ton of his work sold. One that was sold was later stolen. In a weird way it’s rather flattering that someone wants your stuff enough to steal it.

Suite Jesus in San Francisco (day one)

Matt showed his work in the Suite Jesus art show at 111 Minna Gallery last Friday night in San Francisco, so we decided to make a mini vacation out of it before baby Milo arrived. Solidifying things was a nightmare. Matt needed a way to display his digital art. As his collection grew, we had to forgo flying up to SF. We still needed a sitter for Jaxon – the gallery was also a bar, not a place for babies. And who would keep the dogs while we were gone?

Two days before our departure date, everything fell into place. Alamo rented us a mid-size car (complete with Southwest points!) for under $100. Our vet recommended Fon-Jon Dog Kennel for Bea and Wally – who’d be able to sleep in the same room for 10% off the price. And Priceline.com sold us a 4-star room at the Hyatt for $90, saving us from a possible run in with bed bugs.Fabulous! We loaded up the car and were on the road by 10am. The boys slept all the way through LA, making for a whine-free drive. =) We stopped outside of Tejon Ranch, stretched our legs, and had Subway and coffee. Jaxon ate applesauce and sweet potatoes. Life was good. Since we had upgraded our car to a Prius (it was so bad ass with it’s rear view camera and AWESOME MPG) we didn’t have to fuel up until about half way through the trip. The hours flew by asMatt and I discussed NLP, the election, some crazy brilliant guy, and Tony Robbins. After a crazy bathroom emergency (I won’t go into details) we pulled up at the Hyatt Regency:
View from the 5th Floor Terrace. FABULOUS!!!
We parked (had another bathroom emergency) and unloaded the car. We were pretty much dead tired, but we met up with Ruby & Sara and decided to eat across the street at Sizzler.

Prego me with Sara and Ruby in the hotel room.

The food was gross and bland. Jaxon was cranky, plus I forgot to put a new shirt on him so he was wearing a jogging suit looking like some kind of gigolo. But it was the only time Ruby could see Jax so we just sucked it up and enjoyed the fact that Sara didn’t mind chasing a wild one year old around the restaurant!
After some chatting time with the girls (discussing details about our SPA WEEKEND!!) I crashed with my sexy husband in our fabulous Hyatt bed (complete with white duvet sheets!)

Oh how I’ve missed you SF!!

It’s Dry and I’m Miserable

I can’t stand it… I’m literally crisping away. You should see my feet:

Gross, I know. I could use my Ped Egg if it wasn’t still at Elizabeth’s house (God, I have GOT to get over there!) but then I would have to lotion my feet like crazy and then wear socks… and it’s way too hot for socks. I don’t even have pants on. My nose is hating this weather. I dreamt of crawling inside Jaxon’s nose with the bulb syringe to suck out all the yuckies. Everything in my dream was dry and dead… even the flowers.

We tried getting my dad to pick us up to go swimming at his houue but a mouse drowned in his pool and is still in there. Grody.

Debate night tonight. Hope it’s not another snoozer.

UPDATE: Best Debate EVER! Obama totally rocked it (despite what CNN will have you think). McCain was not on the offense. Attacking while not making any points of your own doesn’t make you a winner or “feisty”, it means you have no points, no details, nothing. So glad that we didn’t miss this one!!?

Atonement…WTF?!? (spoiler alert)

I was torn about watching this movie. I heard it was really good (and co-stars my boyfriend, James McAvoy) but I’ve been on a brainless movie kick lately. Yesterday I finally had some free time and decided to watch the flick.

I was instantly excited about reading the book. It was so good. I loathed Briley (and couldn’t think of anything that she could do to redeem herself). But then Jaxon woke up when Briley came to visit her sister and Robbie and I had to stop the movie. Later that night, I started the movie up again after speaking it’s praises to Matt, excited about the ending. It totally effed me!

1. I didn’t know that I only had about 10 minutes left to watch. Total bummer.

2. I didn’t expect that the last 10 minutes would just shatter any good happy love feeling I had about the movie.

THEY BOTH DIED!!! Everything that I had just watched was FAKE??? While that nasty Briley had received fame and fortune from her writing, including the story how she totally fucked over her sister and (possibly) only man she’d been in love with??? Good, I’m glad that you’re dying. And no, writing a book with a happy ending doesn’t excuse you from being a nasty jealous little brat (who knew EXACTLY what she was doing!) She was jealous and made up a story. Oh it was a horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE ending.

And I bet the book is even better.

Jaxon Turns One!

Actually, he turned one on Thursday but we celebrated on Saturday with a Halloween-themed party. I was worried that the weather would be nasty but everything turned out perfect! I worked my butt off leading up to the party (with the help of my sister!) but it was all worth it. Everyone who RSVPed showed up and we didn’t have too much or too little of anything. The cake was awesome, although the raspberry filling didn’t go over too well with little Miss Brianna. Jaxon was on his BEST behavior. No crying or whining. He walked around the house, mingling with his guests, wrestling with the other babies, and eating an ENTIRE slice of birthday cake. I was nervous that he would throw up so no frosting. Jaxon loved everyone singing Happy Birthday, although I’m pretty sure he didn’t know that the singing was for him. The candles mesmerized him and the kids had fun blowing them out. He got tons of good gifts, including a glow worm that he kisses everyday (I think because it looks like him), a truckload of balls (so much fun to clean up from under the couch), a truck that scares him when it starts moving by itself, a savings bond (whoo hoo!) and a crap load of clothes and blankets which give me peace of mind when he’s asleep in his cold room at night!

I am glad that it’s over…. it was very stressful to plan… our house was in total disarray before I started cleaning. Next year we’re having an ice cream social. Very low key and low maintenance. Of course I’ll have Milo’s first birthday party to throw… but I’ll be a bit more prepared. I already have a banner!