My Dad - halloween god

So, Halloween just ended and it's my favorite time of year. Seriously. I go completely insane for Halloween. Sure, I love candy, but more, I love dressing up and all the frights. At work, I do the Haunted House for our Halloween carnival. I love everything about that. It is a lot of work to set up, but every year, they ask if I'll do it again. I always say yes. I will take pictures next year though. Someone asked me about that and I didn't even think of it!

So, over the years, I have gotten more and more obsessive, so have the kids. When Corey was 3 weeks old, I didn't bother dressing her up. We didn't go out, in fact, it seems weird to me when people take their infants out just for the candy. I have seen people do that and always wonder. Maybe they just can't buy their own candy. Anyway, when she was 1, she was a clown. That year, she had a store bought costume, but we did minimal make up. When she was 2, she was a lady bug. She picked her own thing, but the creativity hadn't come out yet. At age 3, she was a bunch of grapes. I don't have that picture on this computer, but it was cute. I got her some purple sweats and several shades of purple felt and made the top look like grapes clumped up. She also got a purple stocking cap that had felt leaves and a pipe cleaner stem. NOW the fun was beginning! Her best friend was a barbie cowgirl that year. So at age 4, I thought we'd make something even cooler, but we had a backslide. The barbie cowgirl was going to be a barbie cheerleader, so my awesome cool daughter, wanted to be a cheerleader too. I refuse to buy that crappy character costume stuff, so we just bought her a KU cheerleader dress that she could wear any time. The new born Amory was a Jack-o-lantern I made out of orange sweats, a orange hat, and black felt. FELT IS OUR FRIEND! He only went out because his sister and her friend were going out. Some people insisted on giving candy to a 2 week old, but whatever. Anyway, I'll have to find that picture on the other computer too. For now, I have just Corey.



At 5 years old, my child realized she will NEVER be barbie ANYTHING for Halloween. As we were driving somewhere, we were discussing Halloween. I asked what she wanted to be. She said, "I want to be a stoplight". I am sure that was random as we were sitting at a stoplight. This is a kid who at age 3 named her cat Pick because I asked her if it was her pick when she chose it out of the box of free kittens. So, when I asked it's name, she was frustrated at me for not knowing it was PICK!
So, I decide, stoplight, HELL YEAH we can do that. We ran with it. So, my kid was strapped in a lightup box and it was the BEST costume EVER! Her brother was a bee. It was a hand me down and it fit. We are creative BUT cheap!



So, the next year, was fun too. We had Corey decide she wanted to be an angel and her brother should be a devil! WAY cool.


The next year, we were all vampires. I can't find that picture. Then the next year, Corey was a dead prom date. It was so hard to get her to wear bloody makeup! Amory was a grim reaper that year. He had his face painted AND wore a mask. After that, Corey was a dead bride. That was fun. We found a black and purple formal at a garage sale. We bought black roses to make a bouquet. I need to get my old computer up to get these all!

Last year was a Vampire RockStar and a dead guy.




Then this year was a vampire school girl, a skeleton boy, and me the zombie punk.






Now what does all this have to do with my dad? Well, I got this enthusiasm from him. When I was a kid, I remember him working on my makeup to the extent of perfectionism. He even did my hair. Sure it took forever to get my hair combed out that year, but I looked like the best vampire of all time! Also, he taught me a cool trick for cheapness. If you need a beard (5 o'clock shadow) burn a cork and rub it on your face. Anyway, imagine a biker guy doing MAKEUP. That's my dad. Now, let's think of the time he wanted to be a woman for Halloween. He shaved his face, chest, and legs! Then, another year, he wanted to be a clown. His thick long hair wouldn't fit in a bald cap. He ripped it. He then shaved his head bald! I think that was the first time he had short hair since the Navy! He went all out all the time.

Oh, and he's also the one who taught us to carve pumpkins. I'm slightly saddened by the fact we didn't carve pumpkins this year. The ones the kids bought though, were not good though. AND the fact I had strep made me run out of time. I only have one picture of my dad online. It has nothing to do with Halloween though.

Anyway, most people say they miss their loved ones on holidays or on their birthday or even the anniversary of their death. Sure, sometimes I do think of my dad on those types of things, but the time I miss him most of course is Halloween!

Birthdays

If you've read this blog at all, you will know that both my kids have October birthdays. Thankfully, we've finished up the party insanity. Corey's birthday was last Monday with her party the Saturday before. She had a really fun party. When I asked her what they were going to do she said, "Play Rock Band." I thought that might work for a bit, but I wasn't sure it would entertain everyone. Well, it did and we also tie dyed t-shirts. She got tons of gift cards and we got her a digital camera. She has been quite excited about that. Anyway, we sent the boys home at 8pm and the girls slept over. Pure insanity, but I think they had fun.

Amory's party was today and his actual birthday will be Tuesday. He's been asking for legos and that's what he got. We worried because he is such a mess. However, I think it's a good idea for him. He needs to work on his fine motor skills and even though this isn't writing, it will help. He definitely has the attention span for it. His party was a pirate party. I had color sheets and we painted bandannas. (Firefox says that is spelled right, but it looks funny).

I'm trying to think back to my birthdays as a kid. I don't really remember much. Is it because we did things on a smaller scale when we were kids? Or do we just really not remember all this effort our parents put in. I'm hoping for my own sake it's that we just didn't go as big when I was a kid. I remember going to McDonalds as a kid for my birthday and my friends came and we had presents. I don't think we had the real party though. I think it was more of a come and eat and hang out. I don't even remember handing out invites. Who knows.

5 things you might not know about each of us

Amory

1. Amory is almost exclusively called AJ now. I honestly think that one friend of mine, the principal, and I are the only ones that call him Amory. The principal is swinging towards AJ too. It's so bad that he was across the street and I knocked on the door and the grandma answered and I asked if Amory was there and she said, "WHO?". The mom knows what kid is mine, grandma, not so much.

2. Amory is musically talented. He can memorize music and sing guitar parts after only hearing them a time or two. He makes up his own songs. He can keep a beat on a drum set and is awesome at hand drums. However, he can NOT play guitar hero or rock band.

3. Amory is a geek (like his mom). His passions include star wars, comic books, and transformers.

4. Amory loves to read. His favorite books right now are dinosaur books. I swear he has probably checked out the whole section at school. When reading them out loud it amazes me that he can pronounce most of the words.

5. He loves animals. His favorite thing to do is to go to the pet store. They all know him there and pretty much let him do whatever. He's helped catch a koi from the pond, he's fed fiddler crabs, held a bird, petted a snake. He just goes in and asks, "What are you doing? Can I help?" Of course, he did get bit by a hamster and it bled like crazy, but they took him to the back room and cleaned him up and he thought he was awesome.

Corey


1. Corey is a typical big sister. Many people think she's this nice, sweet girl. She's really not. She does things quietly to get her brother in trouble. She won't let her brother do anything with her unless it benefits her. She also beats her brother up way too much.

2. Corey was reading before kindergarten. She's always been good with reading. She loves it. She is now doing above average in math though. Her teacher had to come tell me how well she did on a standardized test the other day. Always great to hear.

3. Corey can take a shower for over an hour if you let her. It's insane. Wait until she's a teenager. I'll never get her out of the shower!

4. Corey loves to bake, cook, draw, color, paint, and pretty much everything else that is creative. She is an artist on every level. Her new passion is cake decorating. Also, she's an amazing singer.

5. Corey is very sensitive and things really upset her. The good thing about this is she is very aware of things going on around her. She pays attention to everything and has an opinion about everything, but she is also empathetic and wouldn't want to hurt feelings.

Nikki

1. I don't have a lot of hidden secrets. If you have known me for any amount of time, it's easy to know what I'm all about. Seriously, I'm an open book and have been about the same person since I was a kid. I'll go with some general info I guess. Oh, this is an old picture. I don't have long hair in the front right now, and never really wore clips in my hair. Here's my opinion about hair. It's just something that grows on your head. Who cares! I prefer to cut it short and ignore it.

2. I like sports. All sports. Well, ok, I'm sorry but golf is boring to watch and I've never played it so maybe not golf. When I was a kid I was a huge Lakers fan. I couldn't stand Larry Bird and the dorky Celtics. Now, I'm all about the Celtics. I've been into them since Paul Pierce left KU and went to Boston. Strange, I know, but I tend to follow players rather than teams when it comes to the NBA.

3. I'm shy. Most people don't believe that. I always say I lead from behind. I will do this at work, home, and even did it as a kid sometimes. I can't even remember how many times I'd make my brother do something for me. Shoot, once we went to see Body Count, he had to go get autographs for me. At work, I'll let the aide in my room lead us into a field trip. I'll say, "Just go in and say we are from CLC and we have an appointment." Then I hold the door. Why can't I go in? No idea. I think it's because I don't want to seem like an imposition. Even if I've been to a place before, that's how I am. I guess I don't want to cause trouble. (I'm the peace maker). Also, that's one reason I like playing drums. You get to be in the back and hide. Once I'm in my element though, I can't shut up. How can you be so shy and so social? No idea!

4. I failed Calculus 2 at KU. I don't even know why I took it. My advisor sucked that's why! I didn't need it. I could use it as an elective. Well, the TA spoke no English, he couldn't say half the names in the class. I was failing so bad, I should have dropped it. Instead, I stayed there. By the time finals rolled around, I said screw it an F is an F. I didn't even go to the final.

5. I moved around a lot as a kid. I really hated that. I went to most of the grade schools in Oak Harbor, Washington. Then we moved to a small town in Nebraska. I'm thankful we moved from there. When I say small, I'm not joking. The year I graduated highschool, the graduating class for that UNIFIED school was 2 people! Unified means from several towns in that area! Two people. TWO. Anyway, then off to Lincoln, Nebraska. I honestly never liked the cornhuskers, but Lincoln was a lot of fun for a kid in 5-8th grades. Well, it was good friends and lots of places to play. I never wanted to leave there. In fact, my family moved. I stayed with my grandparents a few months. I had to go to Hiawatha, Kansas after that. What? Never heard of it? Really? Maybe that is because it's small. Not as small as that first town in Nebraska, but sure not big. The plus is, I knew everyone I graduated with. The down side is there wasn't nearly as much to do. Also, I never really felt like that was home. I kept wanting to go back to Oak Harbor or Lincoln. Luckily, we didn't move any more. I moved to Lawrence, KS for college and have been here since. Love it. I plan to let my kids grow up in one town and keep all their friends. Sure, there isn't as much to do, but I think it's more a sign of the times. People just don't let kids run around like we did when I was a kid. This neighborhood does have kids running around some.

Kenny

1. Kenny is the cook around here. I will cook, but ultimately, Kenny is the one who makes things. He makes his own spaghetti sauce. I also like when he makes fried potatoes and rice bowls.

2. Kenny is a pacifist. He can get angry, but never to the point where he wants to hit someone. Well, sometimes my brother pushes him, but even Ghandi would want to deck him.

3. Kenny feels the same way about Hallmark holidays that I do. They are cheesy and we don't need to have a card or a special day to tell people we care about them. Of course, he seems to feel that way about birthdays too, and my birthday SHOULD be a holiday.

4. Kenny was born in the same town both his kids were born in. That's pretty cool. Sure, he hasn't lived in Lawrence all his life, but he was born here. The kids like to see the hospital they were all born in.

5. Kenny is a guitar player that is wasting his talents. Seriously, he's pretty good and gets better when he actually plays. He has not played in a band in about a million years. I sometimes wish he would play somewhere, but he's really a homebody.

So, what's going on.

Again, I've been out of the posting thing for over a month. I have an excuse! The first part is that October is always extremely busy. Both kids have birthdays. That's just the tip of it.

October 6th is my oldest child's birthday. It was also the day of the school fun walk. Well, I ended up with a bad stomach virus and all I wanted to do was puke. I normally help at the fun walk, I went up there, but they sent me home. Turns out we had our best ever turnout and the most money ever raised. Well, sadly we were supposed to go to the amusement park with my daughter and her friends that day. We had to postpone. I felt like the bad mom. She did end up having a great day though. She did the walk then my mom took her, her brother, and her friend running around shopping all afternoon. When my mom got tired of the them, she sent the girls with my husband to the movie and the boy went to my brother's.

Then sometime around the 8th, our cable was off. Luckily, my mom dvr'd many of my shows. BUT, we thought it was from late payment, so we had to wait for a week for pay day. (yeah, we are slow payers, sorry, it happens). I was off work, and no cable. In our house, no cable means no internet. BAD. Well, so that all sucked and we went in and paid it. It's usually back on right away when we get home. NOT this time. We call them and ask and turns out our cable was NOT disconnected all that week. We had tech support and everything. The outside cable was chewed up. Apparently one of my amazingly brilliant dogs chewed it in half.

We did the amusement park on the 13th. It was rainy and gross all morning. Of course it was! It ended up clearing soon after we got there and it was great. We had a TON of fun. Got all the kids home around 9pm!!!

Amory had a great party on the 20th with all his friends.















It was a costume party with a bleeding eye cake (yes, I made it, but while I'm proud of it, it's not that big of a deal). I had absolutely nothing planned other than cake. We had it at my mom's house though and she has a huge outside play area, so that was good enough. Fun was had by all.

Then in case that wasn't enough, we did the whole Halloween thing too. Amory decided to be the Boogey Man instead of a vampire. It could have been awesome, but he had no patience for the makeup, so it was just OK, but people liked it. Corey was still a Rockstar Vampire.









So, mix that with basketball, volunteering at the school, work, gymnastics and karate, we have been running. I do plan to write AT LEAST on Mondays again though. Check back tomorrow. (edited to fix pics)