Costume Fashion Show

It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I have plenty to do, but I thought I would write about something totally not related to the recent or coming holidays.  Back in September, the boys really got interested in dressing up.  I believe the arrival of some Halloween costumes had a little something to do with this.

They will spend all morning clowning around in their costumes.  It is pretty entertaining just how "in character" they will get.  Though, as you can see, some costumes are not much of a stretch:

William wanted to make sure I got a picture of his tail.

As we are slated to move some time in the next year, I have had new energy to get things organized and tidy.  One of my long time goals was to clear out the guest closet.  This probably would have been helpful about 10 guests ago, but better late than never.  Once the boys saw this new space, they quickly confiscated it for their own use.   Their excitement became greater when I moved all of their costumes in it (as opposed to various places around the house.  On the floor).

They will come find Eric and me and tell us that a show is about to begin.  We then sit on the bed and wait while they disappear into the closet.  They will come out in various forms of undress and ask us to help fasten the backs of the costumes.  Then, they fight.  For about a minute.  At the end, Dom goes:  "Well, that's our show.  We'll now take a break.  We have three more shows".  I'm trying to get them to add some songs and dances for the ladies.

Above we have Darth Vader and Spiderman.  Below we have Anakin Skywalker and Peter Parker.  I love that these costumes can pull double duty.

Here we have Dominic modeling his Jaguar costume from a year ago and Will modeling the ghost costume we made this year following our annual viewing of "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown."  The boys had been walking around with blankets over their heads.  I realized this clothes bag from our hamper (that is never used, but often washed) made a great ghost costume that they would not trip over.  Genius, I know.

William growling like a Jaguar:

The great thing about masks is that you don't have to wait for the kids to look at you and smile when taking pictures.

Molly has yet to wear a costume, but I wanted to give you one close up of her adorable face.

Action picture of the boys while Molly contemplates her next move.  They love to "fight" and take turns over who is the dominate one.  Molly will try and get in on the action, but then scoots away if it gets a little too intense.  Eric recently discovered the hard way that if he pretends to "get" Molly, the boys become more ferocious as they fight to protect her.  Sounds like some ideal older brothers.

Halloween Weekend

Happy Halloween!!  As I am getting in this post prior to the last candy bar being eaten, I think I'm in the clear.  Plus, I am getting it in before the big holiday this week.  Double clear. 

We carved pumpkins for the first time with the boys (and Molly).  We've been either traveling or too tired in years past, and I don't think anyone remembers that we didn't actually carve a pumpkin.  But, after their experience this year, it looks like we are set for doing this tradition for years to come.  And by we, I mean Eric.  This year he was assisted by our good friend, Jeff, who came to visit with his fiance, Tracy.

Here Will poses next to his pumpkin.  A pumpkin that he picked out the spider web design for and then didn't touch again.  But it was most definitely his pumpkin.  Do not question it. 

The morning of Halloween we hosted playgroup which naturally had a Halloween Party vibe to it.  I am sorry to say I did not take pictures of the extensive Halloween decorations.  Eric's spider web hanging talent was unknown until this year.  It is amazing.  I started the task, but Eric quickly took over and far surpassed my vision. 

Here we have the gang.  I think that is a dinosaur, Spiderman, alien, Spiderman, Darth Vader, Superman, and Poppa Smurf.  As you can see, Darth Vader had his hands full convincing people to join the dark side of the Force.

At 6 o'clock we headed out for some pilfering of the neighborhood.  This was our first year (and probably only year) to actually trick or treat in our neighborhood.  We got some great intel about where the best houses were (next door:  They give the BIG candy bars and the boys hit it twice).  The evening ended a little earlier as Dom wanted to get back to help hand out candy.  Silly boy.  We could have gotten a lot more!!

I decided to get into the spirit of the holiday at the last minute.  Not bad.  Plus, I earned some good treats myself.  For those curious, Molly went as a cute, but cold, baby.  I have a whole theory on dressing children under the age of 2 up for Halloween, but I will not bore you with that here.  I will summarize it with this thought:  Big Headache.  The one exception to the theory is if you only have 1 child and therefore no other way to get free candy.

Look how festive I am getting with our lawn decorations.  This is Katie.  Our dog.  She is the best pet ever.

As I said earlier, our friend Jeff came for the weekend and helped with pumpkin carving as well as entertaining the boys.  He also spent a little quality time with his God-Daughter, Molly.  It was great to see him and meet Tracy and we look forward to seeing them again when he gets back from his deployment. 

Things I have learned

We have been doing our afternoon lessons for a little over two months now and I have learned quite a bit.  I thought I would share some of these epiphanies with you.  For the observant among you, this is not the Halloween Post that I had sort of promised.  But, don't worry, I'll get to that.  Probably around Christmas.

When I was taking education classes in college, a big focus was how to make a lesson incorporate as many other subjects as possible.  Generally for math we'd hit English and History by saying that we'd have the students write a report about a mathematician.  <Skadoosh! Top that English teachers!  What are you going to do?  Have the students calculate their own grades?  OOOOO! Long division with decimals.  On a calculator.  Fancy!>

These lessons have come back to me as I have done letter collages with the boys.  I can think of few things that can cover as many topics as a letter collage.  We hit geography (states), math (numbers or shapes), vocabulary,  religion, and probably some that I haven't realized.  The letter "O" gave me the opportunity to discuss opposites with the boys.  I just wish I had realized this a little earlier.  It was only around the letter "O" that I started coloring in all of the states that began with the letter, not just one or two. 

Another thing I have learned is that the letter "C" is a troublemaker.  Dom is really good at telling you the letter that starts a word, but C always gives him trouble.  And don't get me started on CH.  Good grief!  But, truth be told, I'm much more frustrated by this than Dom.  He just goes on his merry way not realizing that the fact C exists in our language just made his life about 10 times harder. 

Something I am particularly proud of is that I have figured out what to do with all of these otherwise useless scraps of construction paper.  Make mosaics!  I let the boys practice their cutting skills and print off coloring pages with large spaces.  The first time we did this, I free handed a rainbow.  What is the side of the brain that provides the artistic talent?  Whichever side it is, is my weak side.  So, printing off pictures worked much better.  I have three lovely fish themed pictures.  With jewels for eyes.

Finally I've learned to just relax about getting through a lesson.  If the boys aren't interested, we just take a break or I let them pick out something they want to learn about.  This has lead to a lot of discussions about spiders, frogs, and hot lava.

Catching Up Post 3: Kansas/Missouri

We started out our trip to Kansas celebrating Dom's birthday, again.  Dom loved being able to spend it with  Nana, L'Opa, his cousins: Mary Ann, Rosie, and Peter, and his Godmother: Katie.  I will be forever grateful that his cousins taught Will and Dom this new version of the Happy Birthday song:

Happy Birthday To You (cha cha cha)

Happy Birthday To You (cha cha cha)

Happy Birthday Dear Dominic (cha cha cha)

Happy Birthday To You!  (cha cha cha)

Dominic does not like cake, so Nana made him a chocolate peanut butter chip cookie cake.  He loved it, as did everyone else!  Molly, did not get any, though...

Dominic got another round of presents.  I apologize for not having a better set of pictures.  The highlights were fireman galoshes and a bunch of kitchen utensils.  He loves helping me in the kitchen and between Nana and myself, he is set for cooking tools.  There is even enough to share with Will.  Thank goodness! 

A couple of days later, Dom also received a new costume from Mitzi.  It is awesome and I will get a picture up during the Halloween post in a week or so!

Molly makes a new friend.  They have a lot in common.  Both are most mobile on all fours, both eat whatever they find on the floor, both like to be held (unless they don't want to be held in which case they lunge for the floor), and both often make sounds that get progressively louder until they get what they want.

While in Kansas we were able to not only see family, but Eric went Turkey hunting with his family in Nebraska.  This is a long tradition and the boys have been practicing around the house ever since hearing Dad's stories.  They use light sabers for shotguns, the couch for their truck, and our hearth room for Western Nebraska.  Best of all, this keeps them occupied for literally hours!!  With Thanksgiving around the corner,  I suspect our art project in the next week will be some sort of turkey. Or as they call it: Target Practice.

While Eric was out roughing it, the kids and I traveled to Lee's Summit, MO.  It was wonderful.  Having cousins the same age means that I can go hours without seeing my sons.  So even though I was a single parent for a couple of days, my life got a little easier.  And my siblings and I had a little night out of our own which may be the beginning of a new family tradition:

 

Ok, to be honest this is a tradition they have been trying to start for years.  I've been the stick in the mud who never wants to go out.  But, in my defense, the majority of these times I've been pregnant or caring for a newborn.  Or just really, really, really tired!

Also in Kansas, we got to witness the beautiful wedding of a friend of ours.  Everyone got cleaned up for the event:

And, naturally, The Reddigs/Buschelmans/Keel and friends had a great time at the reception where we were among the last on the dance floor.  I don't think it was coincidence that the majority of those left with us were other parents out without their kids.  You gotta love a good Catholic Wedding Reception!

  

Catching Up Post 2: Trip to Oklahoma

For years we have been hearing about this awesome tailgate party on the campus of OSU.  We decided a year ago that we needed to experience it first hand.  I really didn't want to see KU play OSU, but the weekend that worked out best for us just happened to be the KU game.  Ah well.  At least we didn't have to think too hard about what we were going to wear.

In order to actually go to the game, we drove from Ohio to Oklahoma in one day.  This was a highly successful trip due to the little man on my right.  He sat next to Molly and entertained her and gave her things to chew on so that our stops were minimal.  When he wasn't being "super-kid", he was watching "The Empire Strikes Back".  Molly doing her impersonation of "Godzilla"

And here is William making up, I am sure, an elaborate story concerning trains that probably fall off the bridge.  All voices  performed by William T. Buschelman.

The tailgating event was pretty amazing.  I was wiped out by the end and I only ate.  A lot.  These guys are pros and are able to put up a canopy tent in less than 5 minutes.  I've never actually done this, but I'm pretty sure it would take a lot longer and a few therapy sessions.

The real reason we wanted to tailgate...

Uncle Brian showing Will the correct form for rolling down an incline.

A lovely family picture.  For some reason, William insisted on having his arm around me.

Innocent Molly does not know what was about to happen to her team...

By this point we had told Dom that we were going into the stadium about 5 different times.  He showed quite a bit of patience as we went from tailgate to tailgate.  But, by the end, he was ready to get to his seats.

The game was pretty dismal for us Jayhawks.  I won't go into it here, but let it be known that we are not just fair weather fans.

A much happier occasion was celebrating Dom's 5th birthday with family.  Since I made Brian keep his hat on for both shots of the table, I felt it was only right to show them both here.

Dom with his first set of gifts.

A brilliant gift from his Aunt Megan and Uncle Stephen.

Everything unwrapped.  Quite the haul.  And I'm happy to say that all of these gifts are used and used often.

The above picture is special for a couple of reasons.  First, it is lovely to see the boys and Molly around their grandma.  Second, I was taking a nap.  The memory of which is still lovely.

The first time I got to play Sorry with Dominic.  I played this game a lot with my cousins growing up.  It was a treat to play with Dom and teach him the correct way of saying "Sorry".  You know, the way that sounds like you really aren't Sorry...

 Ok, I just spent 5 minutes trying to get these three pictures where I wanted them, and I'm not messing with them anymore.  Eric's dad is a retired Colonel and the above are all the patches, scarves, and name plates from 28 years on active duty with the Air Force.  Quite the legacy.  And Liz was with him the whole way.  The picture above that is also quite the legacy.  Our three kids are very lucky to have the grandparents that they do.


One final story from this trip.  Friday afternoon was beautiful.  We played a little touch football.  Well, it was suppose to be touch.  Will preferred to tackle.  It did not matter what position he was playing, whether he was on offense or defense, or if the play was dead, he would locate his older brother and bring him down.  His mission was simple :    
 GET DOMINIC!!