Monday, November 12, 2012

Pumpkin Carving, At Last...

Our friends A and A hosted a pumpkin carving party.  It was fun! 
B got very into it...  She was working on a detailed rendition of the Kool Aid Man.

A was like a jigsaw- a very accomplished pumpkin carver. 
D made a haunted house, which could also be construed as a bat with a ghost in its belly...

K carved an eye.
It required much concentration...


And the tongue made several appearances...

M made a scary face.  Several actually.

Here is B's finished pumpkin!  She was aghast when I told her my girls had never carved pumpkins, so she volunteered to come and help them do it.

Our friend C and her kids came to help.

Miss K.
B helped Miss M clean out the guts.


The kids all designed their own pumpkins.



And B, once again, shows that she must really enjoy hacking things with a knife.  (Imagine scary horror movie "eeeech eeeech" music playing...)







Here are the finished products!

Miss A...
Miss M...
She wanted her's to have Mater teeth.
Miss K...
Master C...
He wanted his to be made of moons.
Lots of fun!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

The House: Play Room

 Let's face it:  we live a long way from our family, and from many of our friends.  We live in Guam- it's not easy to get any farther "away" than that!  But even when we aren't on the far side of the world, we are in the military.  We move all the time.  We can't often visit the homes of our loved ones, nor they us (although we have some friends and family who have, thankfully, put forth much effort to come and see us!!!).  I feel that knowing what a person's house looks like, what they spend their lives looking at and living with, helps you connect with that person.  So I'm going to post pictures of our house in the hopes that my friends and family will do the same! 
We live in a three bedroom house.  We opted to have all three of our girls sleep in the same room so we could have a toy room/ spare room.  That day bed is the same one I slept in growing up.  The quilt was a present from my wonderful mother-in-law for our wedding.  The map quilt I made with my Mom long ago.  The fairy alphabet I found at a thrift store.  One of the rocking chairs was what Miss A asked Santa for two Christmases ago.  Then we found the other at a thrift store.
 The shelves were built by B out of the leftover shelving from when the ill-fated St. Louis Deseret Book closed down.
 I wish I had about six more of them.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Halloween...

We had a fun Halloween.  On the Saturday before, our squadron had a Trunk or Treat.  Miss R dressed as a turtle.  The turtle hat, however was too much.
So she gave it to K, who spent the day with us.
We decorated K's jeep.  I had purchased floods of candy, most of which came back home with us.  I think I could have given candy to the whole island and had some left over...  I'm now trying to figure out what to do with it!  (Besides eat it myself...)  My friend KY and her family won the decoration contest with an awesome crime scene set-up involving a witch broom crash, with she and her husband wearing CSI uniforms.  It was fantastic!  I wish I had taken a picture...
KK is several months pregnant, but still looks fabulous in her son's last year costume.  After the trunk or treat, we moved into the gym for a huge party.
Miss R loved wandering around...
And taking or begging for other people's food. 
She ate a lot.  We all did...  It was a very well stocked party!
I thought the cutest costume was this little sumo wrestler...
Miss R finally ran out of steam, and collapsed on the floor.
It was a fun party!
On Halloween day, we went to our friend A's house for some supper before heading up to Rota Street for trick-or-treating.  We thought it best to cram some nourishing food into our children before turning them loose with unlimited candy...
Miss H.
Miss A and her Favorite Friend Master D.  Very inseparable...
Miss A wanted to be a cowgirl, so I saved one pair of jeans when I was cutting off all pants in our house to make them into shorts (long pants are extremely unnecessary here in Guam...).  They only had boys' long sleeved shirts in any stores, so I got one of those, then sewed some fancy fringe on it.  She was wary of it at first, since it was a boys' shirt, but ended up being willing to wear it.  I used my old belt from when I worked as a wrangler, with my grandpa's belt buckle.  And she had begged and begged for some real, high heeled, cowgirl boots.  So she was all decked out.
Master D, very scary.
Miss R couldn't wear her turtle costume, since it is made for a more "normal" Halloween, meaning one with temperatures lower than 90 with extreme humidity and no breeze.  Fleece costumes just don't cut it here!  So she went as a fairy.  I made her a new tutu, and got some new wings from a thrift store.  They didn't have straps, so I just tied a loop out of some elastic that I had cut from an old torn sheet and looped it around her arms.  It stayed on well.
She looked very cute, so I took lots of pictures...

Miss H the butterfly.
Miss K the Jessie.
She is a professional poser.
Miss L.
Miss M, in her peacock costume (with an extra crown...).  For a long time, Miss M said she wanted to be a napkin.  I don't know how or why she came up with that?  But I kind of nudged her into being a peacock instead...  We got this peacock costume a couple years ago from gymboree.  At the time I couldn't believe I was paying forty bucks for a costume, but man, has it more than payed for itself...  It has been worn almost every day, washed, peed in, washed some more, ridden bikes and scooters, and played and played.  The tail wing things that came with it long since gave up, but the dress is still going strong.  I was supposed to make her a new tail, and a feathery mask, but I just didn't get around to it, and I couldn't find any feathers...  I did extra eye make up to compensate...
Miss P the gypsy.
Miss R ran for the street, and when I pulled her back onto the grass we were treated to a full Utter Baby Meltdown.  It always makes me laugh...
Miss A the Elder.
And another Miss A.  She has been pestering her mother for years to make this costume.  We called her The Grim Carrot.  She was very cute.
Her brother Master C.
He all headed in a pack up to a street here on base called Rota.  It's where the higher ranking people usually live, and they are allowed to live there only with the understanding that they must make a huge, over the top, fully decorated deal out of Halloween and Christmas.  The whole long street was closed off, and there were soldiers with German shepherds and guns walking around making sure everything was safe.  Every house was decorated, some with haunted patios or bowling set up, and there was tons of candy.  It was a huge party.  Every few steps we ran into people we know, and it was fun to chat and laugh with our friends. 
I found these masks at the bx, and they worked great to help me identify my girls in the throng.
We met up with our friend Miss J.


Miss R slept through the whole thing, which was just fine.