Zaynzley the Go-er

There has never been a child in the Carlton house who loves to go out and about more than Zany.  She has had some competition in that category from Declan and Archer when they were little, but she wins hands down. Zany loves to go for a ride even if it is just to pick up a brother from practice and come straight home.  The phrase: "I go, I go too" is often heard here. I sometimes have to be mindful of my vocabulary (never use the word go) if I don't want a companion.  Mostly she is really good to come on errands and the like as long as it doesn't encroach on naptime.  If it does get to close to naptime she will make anything extremely difficult, walking from one side of the store to the other, buckling her in her carseat, carrying in groceries.  

Zany wearing a Merida costume holding the horse, Angus.

Zany hates wearing these kind of dress up clothes as she finds them scratchy and uncomfortable.  She hasn't yet learned to suffer for beauty (high heels and I guess princess dresses).  I can't blame her they are really itchy.

When she is home and can no longer watch TV, she likes to "help mamma" or pretend play.  I caught her in the hallway with her baby tucked in a stroller with a blankie, carrying a her pet dog, Wu-Wu and of course, every lady needs a purse to carry things, in this case, wooden orange juice and yogurt from her play kitchen. 

Zany: ready to go

What was that Wu-wu? 

Yes, I remembered the orange juice and yogurt.

Zaynzley still loves horses (Ha-has) and delights in pointing them out as we drive around town.  She often drags this enormous horse around the house with her.

Zany hanging in the hall with her Ha-has

She is growing up so fast and her vocabulary is growing as well.  She can still be difficult to understand but usually she can get her point across.  Zaynzley is a real go-er!

More Quarter Costumes

A few bonus Halloween photos, from the glut of costumes Rhi bought for a 25 cents. The costume bin is now brimming with more costumes, even for girls now. 

If you want a pic of Declan, just leave your camera unattended!

Meet the Alicorn! (a unicorned Pegesas)

Sneaky fish

Whiny fish

Mustache, Mohawk, and Violet Spikes

When I was in high school, homecoming week would have daily dress up themes and each class (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) would compete with the other classes to see who could have the most kids dressed up.  Nowadays, it is red ribbon week in which the kids dress up to celebrate say no to drugs and drug awareness. Most of their dress up days are pretty ho-hum, like wear red because I love myself, as a opposed to dress like your favorite villain, which they have never done but I think would be fun.  Two of my favorite days this week were mustache day and crazy hair day.

Declan is a planner.  He is the kind of kid who likes to always wear a watch (see below) and wakes himself up every morning with his own alarm clock (he has been doing this for years while his bigger brother has to be literally drug out of bed and woken up several times by a parent).  Several days in advance of the actual mustache day, Declan wanted to have several conversations about what kind of mustache he would sport.  The night before Declan wanted me to draw ten different mustache styles so he could pick which one he wanted.  Luckily for Dec, my dad (Pa) has had many different kinds of facial hair over the years and so I was easily able to come up with ten different mustaches.  Declan chose the Pa as we labeled this mustache.  I always like drawing mustaches on kids even before mustaches were all the rage. It gives you a glimpse of what they will look like when they are men.

Pastache

Declan with Pastache

Archy was always my dark baby.  He was born with black hair that never lightened like his brothers hair did. I wasn't sure how his black hair would take to color but the purple showed up quite well.

Archer in kindergarten

Archer sporting violet spikes 

and his uneaten breakfast that was destined 

to be dropped in the road on the way to the bus

McCoy hair is much lighter so I decided blue was the color for him and since his hair is usually considered crazy we stuck with his daily Mohawk.

McCoy front view

McCoy's blue mohawk side view

Luckily, I picked up some half price halloween hair spray so I will be prepared for next year's red ribbon week but let's hope they do something really crazy like dress as your favorite villain day!

A Gum Faced Boy

Eddy and I were sitting on the couch in the family room when Declan casually strolled into the room and asked, "How do you get gum off your yourself?" My mother's suspicion meter rose to a eight and I instantly replied,"Why do you want to know?"  Declan quickly answer, "Oh you know if one of my future children ever gets gum on them I will know what to do."  Knowing Declan it seemed a plausible question; he asks a lot of questions often about imaginary scenarios.  I replied, "Well you can take the gum and press it on the place with gum and it will usually come off pretty easy."  Declan wandered away.  About five minutes later he returned and asked, "How do you get off gum if it won't come off with the gum?"  Mother's suspicious meter is now at a ten, "WHO has gum on them?" 

 When I was three years old, we lived in Sohren, Germany on the top floor of a really old half timbered house.  I had gone to bed with gum in my mouth, apparently my mother hadn't taught me not to do that, and when I woke up my hair was stuck to my yellow pillow.  A large chunk of my hair had to be cut out and my dear yellow pillowcase had to be thrown away.  It was a bit traumatizing and I never went to sleep with gum in my mouth again.  

Expecting the worst (gum in Zaynzley's hair), I leapt off the couch with fire crackling in my eyes, I demanded that Declan tell me who had the gum problem.  Under my intense glare, Declan cracked and told me it was McCoy in the bathtub.  I zoomed down the hall to find McCoy with gum all over his face and even embedded in his eyelashes.  "How did this happen?" I irritatedly demanded.  "I don't know?" McCoy weepingly replied.  

All my children take after my sister Ashlee and can't blow bubbles with gum, weird I know, so that ruled out the blew-an-enormous-bubble-that-popped scenario.  I took McCoy's gum and try pressing it into the gum on his face but his gum was so old it and about to fall apart it wouldn't remove any gum. I had Quinton quickly chew up a fresh piece of gum to try to use that to remove the gum.  That didn't work either; there was to much sugar in the gum and it wasn't sticky enough to remove it.  Next we tried canola oil and I was able to painstaking scrape off the gum bit by bit.  I would rub a spot with the oil then scratch off the gum with my fingernail wiping it on a paper towel.  That still left his eyelashes.  All my boys have really long eyelashes-all the better to get gum stuck in them.  I tried the best I could to clean it without pulling out his eyelashes.  I managed to get most of it out but it took some time.  To be fair, I never told McCoy to not put gum all over his face or to avoid getting gum in his eyelashes.  Let's hope, like me he learned his lesson. 

 Thanks, Halloween gum for that life lesson.

Not a happy gum faced boy or mama (not pictured)

McCoy learns a life lesson

This was Halloween, this was Halloween

I love to go to Rhi's for Halloween. The whole lot of us go trick or treating together as a family walking door to door throughout Rhi's neighborhood (much to Quinton's chagrin). Our thrift store had all costumes a quarter sale so everyone wore quarter costumes to trick or treat. Everyone dressed up, except Rhi (who did wear Halloween colors). Our plan was to trick or treat, then come home and watch a movie out by the firepit in the backyard. Some of our party didn't have the stamina to continue trickin' and treatin'. The intrepid four (Rhi, Myself, McCoy and Dec) spent too much time (three hours) trick or treating, although we received four full size M & M's (the fellow even gave some to us adults). At one door, an older gentleman made the kids do a trick like sing a song to get a treat.  When we got home, it was late and we were footsore having walked several miles . So we ate a glut of candy and watched a short Halloween cartoon, before retiring for bed.

After 14 Halloweens or so, Rhi finally gets to do a beauty make up.

Snow White wonders, what sort of trouble three ninjas and Anakin are up to

Ready for Candy

Oh no, Ninja Fight!

Anakin uses the force to say "You will give me Candy"

I am R2 D2

Beware the Candy stealing Ninjas

The Godfather of this motley crew

Snow White finds a wishing well

Finally off to get the goods!

(Rhiannon's note:  We end up with a lot of candy with so many trick or treaters.  After many years of experimentation I have settled on what works best for us:  Halloween night is no holds barred eat as much candy as you want then it gets all get locked up until the next night where we watch a family show and then they can eat as much as they like again.  Then they get another time when they can pick five candies and then on the third and final day they pick five and the rest is given to their piano teacher (Grandma Parke) who uses it as a reward to the piano students.  So it is all cleared out of here after the weekend or three days.  Now it is less than a year until the candy feast known as Halloween is back!)

What They Wore-Stake Conference & Socks

Today was all of Arizona Stake Conference for our church, which means two hours of trying to keep your hopped up on halloween-sugar-kids quiet and reverent the whole time.  It was so crowded, there weren't enough seats in the main assembly and we sat in the foyer.  My kids had much more freedom to move around and be noisier than normal.  I was able to watch our surprise rain storm through the foyer's glass doors, we also had plush armchairs to sit in and so I was quite happy with our seats.   

With only two hours of church, I had lots of energy and I tackled the much dreaded basket of unmatched socks.  An old friend of mine mentioned in her blog that she throws away any socks that come through the laundry, wash and dry, and don't have a mate. I was shocked by that; unless she has her kids trained to always put the socks in pairs into the dirty laundry or something, but is that even possible to train kids like that. If I had the "throw away unmated socks each load rule" we would have no socks in this house.  Then again I would not have to spend my entire Sunday afternoon matching socks.  

How many socks were matched today?  

 284 pairs of socks.  

How do we even have that many socks?  I have resolved to no longer buy any white socks. White socks are so hard to match and don't stay as pretty as colored socks.  I did however give myself permission to throw away any life long loner socks (those that have remained unmatched for months/years and any other socks that offended me in any way).

The motley crew of sock losing fiends

Arrangements

Watching the Arizona Cardinals football game 

Ashlee was suppose to blog (as we arranged to switch so I could blog for Halloween day) but due to an illness will be unable to do so. Hopefully, her illness will pass quickly and she will be back to full strength before we know it.  I know she was really sick as she didn't even want to look through boxes at the thrift store we went to, she always loves a good browse at the thrift store.  At least she will have lots of football to keep her company while she is under the weather.  I like to watch football when I am sick. 

Besides picking up a million candy wrappers around here, I have been folding laundry trying to catch up, don't ya know.  I actually like folding laundry but I despise putting it away.  Eddy and I have a deal that if I fold it, say while watching football, he will put it away for me (this deal only works when he is home and I fold laundry). We are both happy with this arrangement I guess that is the what makes a good marriage finding arrangements that makes both parties happy.  Now to find an arrangement that will keep clothes and socks off the floor.  

 I am really, really hoping we can be done with these ninety degree days, blah, where is my lovely fall weather?  Let's hope I can find it in November!

Happy November to you!