Thanksgiving

A week ago, the weather forecast for Thanksgiving in Garberville was looking ominous--heavy rain, low fifties. Micah's parents suggested it may not be wise to come up for Thanksgiving. We decided to take our chances and drove up north anyway. Glad we did: it was a beautiful time, with early morning fog, dew on the grass, and cold nights perfect for sleeping.

The dew was like diamonds,
and stayed on the grass for most of the day.

Self-portrait in the forest.  Madrone, douglas fir, tanoak, and others.

Xander contemplates the land from his moss "raft."
Micah and Kai are way downslope in the background.

We had a delicious "celebration meal" as Xander put it. The usual items, just minus the dairy and the gluten: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie.

Xander made himself busy playing outside, building a "castle" out of discarded marble tiles, taking his pet whale for a walk, exploring in the woods. Grandma Ellen gave Xander a Go Fish card game and he must have asked us to play cards ten times a day. Kai went on a hike with us, played with musical instruments, and kept us up off and on every night (he's a terrible sleeper these days!).

Path leading toward the main house.
We slept in the "annex" to the right of this path.

Xander and Micah starting on the marble castle.

Xander in his dirt house.
We had to change his pants four times each day.

Kai happy to be hiking.

Temporary home while Denis and Ellen redo main house interior.
We managed to squeeze four adults and two kids in
here for Thanksgiving dinner.

On Friday, Micah went on a long bike ride out to Shelter Cove, where Xander, Kai and I picked him up. We explored the tidepools and saw an incredible sunset while waiting for Micah to finish his ride. It would have been a great evening for everyone, except Xander's motion sickness came back with a vengeance on the way out and the way back to the Cove. At least Micah got in a ride.

On Saturday, as we were leaving, we stopped by a friend's house down the road and were gifted with 21 (!) freshly laid eggs. They made it back whole on the seven hour drive home, and this morning we had the most delicious scrambled eggs ever. (Thanks Blaze, Erin, Riley-Dawn!)

Twenty-one freshly laid eggs--a gift from Blaze & Erin.
(Oh, and the table they are on is made from a scrap of
madrone wood salvaged from underneath Blaze's barn.)

This egg puts grocery-store eggs to shame.
Tall, orange yolk, thick white, and delicious flavor.

Birthday Season

November: Birthday season is upon us. Xander turned four on November 6th, and Kai will turn a year old on December 5th.

We celebrated Xander's birthday last weekend, at Cordonices Park in Berkeley. The main attraction: a 40-foot long cement slide, (a.k.a. the Scary Slide, the lawsuit slide). About fifteen kids and their parents came to the party--most of them friends of Xander's from preschool. As expected, the slide was a hit, though there was a brief period at the beginning when it seemed like not such a good idea. (15 preschoolers + pizza + cake + 40-foot-long concrete slide = high potential for broken bones + concussions) After a rough start, in which Xander excitedly fell off the top of the slide and scraped his face, and another girl went down the slide and started to cry in fright, the kids settled in and there were no more incidents. Well, there was a preschool version of a fist fight at one point at the top of the slide, but that was quickly cleared up after we reestablished turn-taking and clarified that everyone could use the slide, not just the kids at Xander's birthday party.

I mommed out and made Xander a BART train cake.

Xander much happier, after viewing his
BART train birthday cake! (He has paint on his
face from Dia de Los Muertos)

On Halloween, Xander's teachers had all the kids dress up in costumes and took their photos. We got a CD of all the pictures on Friday, and they are great--and very artistic. Xander wasn't so into the dressing up. He's more of a realist--right now he's playing "traffic jam." However, we did get one photo (of the 188 they sent home) with him in it.

For Halloween, preschool had all the kids dress up and took pictures.

Xander wasn't too interested--it was yucky. Sad bumblebee.

Kai is beginning to stand up on his own for a few seconds at a time. He's babbling all the time - mama, dada and nanda for Xander. He also understands Spanish--ask donde esta el perro? and he'll point to the picture of the dog. Next installment will include lots of pictures of Kai. Poor second child, is he getting short shrift? (OK, I had to look up short shrift, as I wasn't sure what a shrift was or if I was misspelling the phrase.)

Happy Halloween!

Wow, we actually did Halloween this year! It's hard finding time to make/borrow/buy costumes, purchase/gut/carve pumpkins, and purchase/eat/purchase more/candy when you have two kids under four and two parents with full-time jobs.

Pumpkin guts were proclaimed "icky"

Happy family with...oh wait...

Last year's impromptu bonfire on our front lawn/s'mores distribution center was such a hit, we decided to do it again this year--with a lot of help from our neighbors. Key to success: teamwork and delegation.  Since we live in a duplex with a cottage in back, the three households combined candy, and our backyard neighbor, Else, was in charge of s'mores assembly. She recruited two friends, and they must have made 50 or more s'mores that night.  I made some very quick mulled wine (Two Buck Chuck!) and heated up some spiced cider. Micah was very ambitious and fired up the grill. We had grilled sausages on rolls for dinner.

Costumes this year were super-easy. Xander recycled his BART train costume from last year. Kai dressed as a bumble-bee, wearing a last-minute borrowed costume from a neighbor. Micah went as Captain America (well, a guy wearing the mask, anyway).

BART train Xander, Witch Jojo, and Princess Bella
shaking down a neighbor for Snickers Bars

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I typically think about costumes months in advance. This year, though, I went to bed the night before with no clear plan--particularly tragic as work was holding a costume contest with a $50 prize. I fell asleep thinking about my costume options. The next morning, I macgyvered a passable garden gnome, using Xander's fitted blue bedsheet, a post-partum support belt, striped stockings, Dansko shoes, and lots of safety pins. I left for work in a nearly complete gnome costume. I just needed to find something to fashion into a tall, red, pointy hat.

Since I was running late, I decided to save time by driving. As I was turning into the Goodwill parking lot, I ran over the curb and heard a sickening hiss. Punctured tire. In the end, I managed to find some cheap fabric for a hat and a nice passerby helped me change the tire. I dropped the car off at the tire shop near work, and once I got to work, used some 11x17 card stock and spray adhesive to make my hat.

Mom's Garden Gnome outfit. Only $140 if you count the new tire.

So that's the story of my $140 gnome hat. Thankfully, we've gotten some post-Halloween use out of it:

Baby Kai-Gnome