Happy Halloween!!

Nananananananana Batman!!

As I contemplated what to do for costumes this year, I had a hard time finding good inspiration. Against my better judgment, I asked Dane what he wanted to be, knowing full well that he would say Angry Birds.

He said Batman. 

And the inspiration hit.

Now, as much as I enjoy the new Dark Knight, Christian Bale Batman (push-up scene anyone?)*, the most salient Batman for me is from Batman: The Animated Series, 1992-1995. 

So that's mostly what I based our costumes on. And, considering the cosmic inevitability of Joel being the Joker, he was a combination of animated Joker and old, campy, Cesar Romero Joker. We didn't use Heath Ledger Joker, mostly because I wanted our children to continue to want a relationship with their father.

I just love our sweet little superheroes. Usually, by the end of costume making, I am feeling kind of burned out, but their costumes were quite easy. 

For Robin: make a cape, add details to red onesie, make leggings and little gauntlets (heehee!), make boot covers. 

For Batman: make a cape, buy grey shirt and grey leggings (which were actually yoga pants that I turned into leggings), screenprint Batman logo to yellow fabric and attach, make belt, make gauntlets, make boot covers, buy mask. 

But then came the purple tails tuxedo. You can't really be Joker without it, but it's not like purple tuxes are readily available. 

So, what resulted is some of the shoddiest, most haphazard sewing ever wrought by human hands. It won't stand up to close scrutiny, but the appearance from afar would, I believe, give some of the lamer contestants of Project Runway a run for their money. 

And the secret to an ultra creepy Joker smile? Putting grapes in the upper corners of your mouth. 

In case you can't tell, I am Commissioner Gordon. I wasn't surprised that little kids didn't recognize me, but I was surprised at how many adults couldn't figure out who I was, even in context of my whole family. I am an integral part of the crime fighting team! The turner-onner of the Bat Signal! 

My costume was super easy. I just used an old belt to make a shoulder holster, and made a holster for an airsoft gun. Swish. 

POW!

We wore the costumes to our ward's Chili Cookoff/Trunk-or-Treat, and I'm sure you all know how hard I work to win that darn chili cookoff. But alas, I'm becoming more and more like Uncle Rico, never able to relive my glory days of '07. I tried a new recipe this year...thanks for nothing, Trisha Yearwood. 

However, I did win Moistest Cornbread. YES! Never mind the fact that "moistest cornbread" doesn't even sound like a good thing. I wore my ribbon proudly for the rest of the night. 

We also won Best Theme, since I decorated our trunk as the Bat Cave, with flapping bats and a Bat Signal. Triumph all around. Well, except for the chili. 

Then, tonight, on Halloween night, my parents offered to pass out candy at our house so Joel and I could both take the kids around trick-or-treating, which was really nice. It turns out that we have a lot of generous neighbors. And their reactions were pretty much all the same: "Hey, it's Batman! Oh, and Robin! He's so cute!" June played the androgyny of Robin very well. 

We never got June to hold her candy bag, but she sure clutched candy with amazing resolve. And Dane was a champion trick-or-treater, even encouraging moderation at times. 

So, we had a happy Halloween. And despite being loaded with sugar (June had a Tootsie Pop in each hand for a while), they both went to bed easily and happily.
Happy Halloween!

Oh, and if you're still reading this, check out this crazy story:
At the chili cookoff, my name was announced as the winner of the moistest cornbread. So later, this guy came up to us to tell this crazy tale. First of all, I had noticed him earlier because he looked like New Jim from The Office, which we'd just happened to have watched the night before. And New Jim confirms that my name is in fact Ami Frost and asked if we used to live in Utah. Then he rattles off my old cell phone number, and I'm starting to wonder what the heck is going on. It turns out that when we changed from a Provo number to a Salt Lake number, my old number was reassigned to him. And he spent months getting phone calls from people looking for me! He said he usually wouldn't answer but then would listen to weird messages for Ami Frost. He even guessed that I was a therapist, based on the messages he heard. Maybe some of you even called him! What kind of messages were you leaving him, anyway?
Isn't that crazy? Some guy gets my old number, and then years later in Edmond, Oklahoma, he happens to be visiting his older brother, and we meet at the ward chili cookoff. If my life were a romantic comedy, we would have fallen in love. But seeing as he was about to leave on his mission (to Tokyo!), it wasn't meant to be. Oh yeah, and also because I am very happily married.

*I am joking about the push-up scene. I like Christian Bale Batman because of his sweet spirit.

Dane Turns 5!

My sweet baby boy turned five on Saturday. Five! Can you believe it?

We spent a lot of time gearing up for Dane's first friend party--an Angry Birds Party! 

As the big day approached, Dane kept checking with me, "Do you have Angry Birds decorations? Do you have an Angry Birds cake? Will we have Angry Birds games?" He definitely didn't want to leave anything to chance.

Well, I believe the party was a success. We had decorations:

Food:

Presents:

Ninja Turtle gear from his school friend Jack.

Cool magnetic dart board from Grandma Frost.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas DVD, which he's been wanting since Christmas.

Unfortunately, almost all of our pictures were somehow deleted off the camera. I have no idea how it happened. But amazingly, my friend left her fancy DSLR at the house, so I stole some photos off her camera. And took some of my own photos. Heehee!

We had some fun party favors, and the pictures disappeared, but we had Angry Birds eggs (brightly colored sixlets), mini Angry Birds kites, Angry Birds graham crackers, Angry Birds bandaids, and homemade yarn pom pom Angry Birds and pigs with little plastic cups so they could have their own Angry Birds games.

So, on to the games. We had a lot of fun games. 

First, the kids made their own pig face on a plate. Then, they assumed their new pig identities and suddenly found themselves chased by a huge, red Angry Bird!

Joel chased the kids around for a while with the giant rubber ball, and my mom laughed that he seemed to be having even more fun than the kids. 

June got a turn as the Angry Bird, too.

The we played Angry Birds bowling, inspired by this tutorial. 

Things I learned: 

1) Don't skimp on the paint. I was trying to conserve paint and added water to the bottles, and they just didn't cover very well. 

2) 3- to 5-year-olds are not so big that empty soda bottles are too easy to knock down with a rubber ball. I added like 1/2 cup of pinto beans to the bottles for extra weight, and they had a pretty hard time knocking them down, even from just a few feet away. 

And we played Pop the Pigs!

I stole a pallet from behind Ace Hardware (which is a funny story in itself) and painted an Angry Birds scene on poster board attached to the pallet. And I made Angry Birds bean bags using old t-shirts and freezer paper screen printing. Joel made clippy hooks out of baling wire from which to hang the pigs, and we strategically placed thumbtacks behind where the pigs would hang to make for easy popping.

Then the kids attacked!

This is a cool shot where you can see the pig popping and the "points" (candy!) falling:

 
Here you can see Dane releasing the three blue birds:

A pig carcass:

Candy!

After the kids went home, my family (who were a great help wrangling the kids), all got a turn with the pigs:

Then we feasted on the richest, most deliciou cake I've ever made:

And drank in June's adorableness:

We went to dinner so Dane could have his beloved miso soup with rice (which I had made him for lunch, too). Then, his happy day ended as he prayed, "and bless me that I had a great Angry Birds party." 

I think he had a good day.

So, all in all, I was happy with how it all went and I learned some good things. We invited six kids and ended up with eight, and I think it was a great number. I also learned that having a party on his actual birthday made it so we couldn't do any of the regular, special things we usually do on his birthday, like special breakfast and stuff; we had to spend all day getting ready. So I'll remember that for next time.

I can't believe Dane is five. He is a sweet, good-natured, observant kid who make me laugh all the time. We have our share of frustrations and struggles, but at the end of the day, I love to snuggle him look forward to seeing him in the morning. He is creative and affectionate, and he notices and remembers amazing details. When I took him to his five year doctor's appointment, he took his new plush Angry Bird with him and insisted that the doctor bandage the beak (which was sore from smashing so many buildings). And when the nurse came in to give him his immunizations, he asked her if he could pray, and then said a quiet little prayer that he wouldn't be so scared. 

I love him so much. Happy Birthday, Dane. Don't grow up too fast, okay?

Parenting Double Whammy

Prepare yourselves to feel really sorry for me. I experienced two big parenting milestones two days in a row:

Dane's first day of school and June's first birthday.

I don't even know what to do with myself. As I signed Dane up for pre-K (which isn't officially school yet, but since kindergarten is full day now, I put him in pre-K, and it felt exactly like how kindergarten used to be, you know? Every day for half a day? Yeah. The effect is the same.), bought his school supplies, got him excited, reminded him to close the stall door when he goes to the bathroom, etc., I really just felt excited for him. Then, the day before school, it dawned on me: he's going to school! He won't just be mine anymore! Someone else will be in charge of him! Every day! 

I was sure I wasn't going to be one of those moms who cries when she drops her kid off at school. 

I was wrong. 

He was sure happy to go to school. Now, I try not to engage in mommy bragging much--it's sort of against my upbringing. But these are the facts: Dane misses the September 1st cutoff by three weeks, which makes him pretty old for his grade. He is also a fairly precocious kid, and he is spelling out words, reading early reader books on his own, and doing math. I'm sure the benefits of putting him in pre-K will be much more social than academic, which is fine with me. But I already feel some stress about the possibilities of acceleration and what not. Having a kid in school is stressful.

Anyway. 

Here he is coveting the other kid's airplane puzzle as he was waiting for the schoolday to begin.

When I excitedly went to pick him up, I found him wearing different clothes--the clothes from his emergency extra clothes bag. He claimed to have wet his pants, but his teacher was pretty sure he just wanted to change. Later, he told me it was kind of awkward to have to wear his extra clothes. Hopefully he got it out of his system. 

He made a friend named Noah, though he sometimes gets confused and calls him Moses. 

And June's birthday:

Can you believe she is a year old already? I sure can't. In fact, I'm pretty sure I expressly forbade her from getting bigger. But she is a willful child. 

I planned a little party for her, just with family. I must say, the food was delicious. We had Cafe Rio pork tacos for lunch, followed by a lovely array of cupcakes. 

June's smash cake was Pioneer Woman's best ever chocolate cake with "the best frosting I've ever had."

The cupcakes with pink frosting were the same as the smash cake, and the cupcakes with yellow frosting were these lemon poppyseed cakes with raspberry curd. I used a different, more delicious frosting that would be utterly cruel not to share:

2 c heaving whipping cream, whipped

1 can sweetened condensed milk

juice from 1/2 lemon

1 teaspoon lemon zest

Once cream is whipped, stir in remaining ingredients and prepare for amazement. It makes a ton of frosting. Like, I have about 6 more cups of it in my fridge right now. 

Rika made the happy little suns and clouds in her Cricut for me. 

Anyhow, I can't believe how big she is. I figured for the first birthday, she wouldn't really care about presents, but, again, I was wrong. She got into tearing the wrapping paper and looking excitedly for what was inside. 

Jiichan and Baachan got her this adorable shopping cart to aid in her biped adventures:

And Rika gave her a plush Grover (a.k.a. Jopie; I had a similar doll when I was little and called him Jopie), which she lovingly packaged in a casket with his arms crossed. 

I have a weird family.

June is so smart and beautiful and big. She loves books. Like, brings them to you constantly and gets upset if you don't read them to her over and over. It makes me so happy that she loves books, even when it's a bit trying to read the same book over and over again. 

Tonight, after dinner, she was walking around with her shopping cart, then left and grabbed things to put in her cart. My one-year-old is grocery shopping.

She is sleeping so much better (though a double ear infection complicated that a bit), and she is picky about what she eats. She loves chocolate. She dances by waggling her head back and forth whenever she hears a catchy tune. She plays peekaboo and "I'm bloind!" She's taken up to five steps and has twelve teeth. She is sweet and snuggly when she wants to be and is a squirmy jellyfish when she doesn't. 

I love her so much. In many ways I can't remember life without her. Dane likes to smell her hair and say, "I'm smelling the cuteness!" Yeah. She has a lot of cuteness emanating off of her. 

Happy Birthday, sweet baby. Thanks for being born to us.

Incidentally, Joel and I went to the cattle baron's ball last night. It was a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, and you had to be a cowboy. 

We had fun and good food, and Joel got to experience seeing his coworkers inebriated. That was less fun. 

And in case you're wondering, I made Joel's belt buckle out of a picture frame. It was pretty awesome and made all the drunk poser cowboys jealous.