Disco Fever

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!!!

From Saben....

Super Lightening Woman and Princess Pink Bike.

Have a great one!

Red Hot

Have you ever noticed that chili peppers look like skinny red-faced little men wearing elf hats?

I spent some time mulling this over after rescuing and stringing up this wild bunch (who were still loitering in my garden bed) from the 27 degree weather headed our way.

My son is amusing me to no end lately. His newest trick is cleaning things up. He loves wiping up spills w/ napkins or towels. I would love to make out with whoever invented the locks on the ice/water dispensers on refrigerators. Saben has figured out how to get them to work now and without the locking mechanism I am sure the kitchen would be flooded... or all my towels would be sopping wet as he made spills just for the sheer joy of cleaning them up again. Sometimes we forget to lock it and it was very satisfying today (in an evil sort of way) when he hit the water button and it managed to nail him right in the face. heh heh heh.

Along the same lines, he is now enamoured with drinking from cups with no lid. The drinking part is great, he has mastered it. Unfortunately as soon as he finishes drinking he just goes back to his business, forgetting he is holding a cup of messy liquid. The cup gets tilted and invariably spills on him, on the floor, on me.... But then Saben gets to clean it up! Hurray! The fun never ends around here.

This weekend Kyle took our back stairs out & began rebuilding them. So now we have no stairs, no grass, no plants & no patio in our backyard. It is so beautiful. Anyways, the more entertaining part is that today he came home & didn't have keys to any doors except the back door. (with no stairs) He had to crawl in the dog door which is 4.5 feet off the ground. I was so sorry to miss that.

Speaking of sorry to miss that.... that was a segway attempt since this post is about as smooth and graceful as a young girl trying to ride her training wheel bike down a bumpy trail and stopping to pick up every leaf she passes. sigh. can you see why I haven't been writing much lately?

One last shout out to some wonderful friends (you know who you are) who watched Saben for us Saturday night so that we could go to an actual PARTY. With ADULTS. And stay out incredibly late. (well midnight....) We had so much fun....like I've said before, not getting to go out with friends & do fun stuff like that is one of the harder parts of mommyhood for me, so I am deleriously appreciative of our poor friends who fell asleep on the couch waiting for us to return from our adventures. THANK YOU!!!!

October

I am sure you are all wondering (or not) what we have been up to lately. Here's a brief synopsis.

Being Silly

Staying Cool

Getting VERY Mischevious

Learning new tricks

Going pretty places

Enjoying the mountain air

Tearing up the yard

Building Fences....at 11pm

Saben at 18 months

Saben is a little over 1 1/2 years now. He is so cute and funny I don't even know where to start or how to describe it.

Some of my favorites:

• He likes to do this suprised face with an intake of breath that is hilarious. He also puckers his lips and does a pleasantly suprised sounding "oooooo" when he thinks something is pretty neat.

• He says more words than I can possibly count, his favorites are still shapes - oval, circle and cana for triangle. He also likes pointing out the moon, airplanes and says train when he hears it whistling downtown.

• He hates dancing and was disgusted by fingerpainting. Crayons are ok though, especially taking them in and out of the box. He is still obsessed with shape sorters, his "First Words" books and playing with keys in the car.

My least favorite thing is that Saben is starting to lose his innocence with other kids. Last night he was even hitting at one of them. He grabs, steals, screeches & covets with the older kids now. Not quite on the same level, but his will is raising its ugly head. He even is trying out hitting at me when he is angry.

He has a special screech that he uses for Roxxy (although I heard him trying it out with kids last night too). He likes to taunt her. He holds out a treat and then as she comes to get it, he screeches at her and pulls it back. If she comes close he hits at her. She has learned to back way off when he does his little screech. I was trying to get her to clean up the mess under his highchair the other day and from across the room he screeched at her and she immediately ran off & wouldn't eat anything no matter how much I begged her.

Still, I am loving this age. It is so fun to watch him learn new words, try new things and suprise us with new skills that seem to come out of nowhere.

What's bringing me joy this week....

This spring, I planted sweet peas, dahlias & sunflowers under our dining room window.

The sweet peas got uprooted by cats who think that area is a litter box and the ones that did survive never really got going enough so I could smell them in the house like I had hoped.

The Dahlias are this dark purple red color (fuschia?) that seems to clash with everything else in my garden. They bloomed ok, but were not my favorite.

The Sunflowers were a complete success. They grew tall enough to see from the window, tall enough to be amazing (8 feet?). They bloomed in yellows, oranges, reds and browns which probably explains why the dahlias looked awful next to them. Now that fall is here, the heads are drying and little birds are flocking to them for seeds & they sing to me each morning. Saben can see them from his highchair and all in all, it is just wonderful.

Does this remind anyone else too much of a scene from Indiana Jones for it to be cute for a kids party?

Sick Dude.

(courtesty of Martha Stewart Kids)

Do they eat soup in California?

Yesterday it rained here in lovely western Washington. (followed by an afternoon of clear bright sunshine) One of my first thoughts on seeing the rain was "Hurray! I can make soup!" and dreams of bubbling crock pots filled my heart.

It made me think though. Do Texans eat Pot Roast? When the temperature drops from 90 degrees to 65, do californians think "oh hurray, time for a warm bubbling pot of beef stew!"

If I lived in a perrenially warm climate, I am not sure I would ever eat soup or winter squash, or sweet potatoes... quite a few things actually, which I never ever eat during the summer.

Bad Bad Blue Fin Sushi

I just had the worst restaurant experience ever. Please, if you live in Bellingham, don't ever go to Blue Fin Sushi on Samish way. We were eating with Saben & a five year old, so you know when you try to dine with kids that slow service is a complete nightmare. Most waitresses realize this as well. But not all....read on.

1. I order Ebi & seared tuna on the $1 happy hour special to go with my tempura roll, my friend is having a hard time deciding, so asks the waitress to come back.

2. Waitress never comes back to take my friend's order, 15 minutes later, my friend has to go find her in the back somewhere to place her order.

3. Waitress gives me raw tuna instead of seared, but I eat it anyways because it took so long I didn't want to wait any longer

4. Waitress forgets our miso soup

5. My friend's food arrives 25 minutes after my food, 35 minutes she chased down the waitress to actually get it ordered. In a restaurant that has five tables of couples which apparently completely overwhelmed the staff.

5. I get the bill and instead of ordering me the $1 sushi special, she put in two orders for each one. I tell her I only wanted one $1 piece and she gets all huffy and tells me I shouldn't have eaten it. Except there was no possible way for me to know that the $1 special came with just one piece of sushi! I just said "I'll take the $1 special for the ebi & tuna". How does that then cost me $2 each???

6. As she walks away I say "this is ridiculous, I am never coming back here again"

7. The waitress comes back and tells ME that I am being rude and disrespectful. If I don't want to eat there, that is my decision, but no need to tell her that.

8. I then point out how long our food took and she says "well you're the one who brought your kids and that's why we give you salad & miso."

9. We leave and for the first time in my life I leave no tip.

Sorry if this is boring, but I was so irrate, I had to vent.