Halloween Pancakes

I was feeling all crafty around Halloween - in spite of the aborted scuba diver costume. So Sunday morning I decided we were going to make "pumpkin" pancakes. Not actual pumpkin-flavored pancakes because then I would likely be the only one eating two-dozen pancakes while the rest of the family noshed on Eggos or something. But I'm  thinking some red and yellow food coloring and some raisins? We've got pumpkin-like pancakes!

I run this idea by Tagg as we're lounging around watching Sunday morning cartoons and he is not a fan. "NO MOMMY. REGULAR PANCAKES." No amount of convincing, cajoling, craftiness was getting me closer to him eating orange pancakes. So of course I make them anyway. Plus one regular pancake, just in case.

I think it's fairly obvious from this photo that this is a bad idea from the start. These look...scary? And adding the raisins for the jack-o-lantern face might have really pushed it beyond the limits. But I'm thinking...this might still be kind of, a little, maybe sorta cute.

And then I flipped the pancakes. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! Mutant pumpkin pancake zombies! RUN, people! Run!

And, believe it or not, Tagg loved it. He ate two. Even the mutant raisin eyes. Sloane loved them too, although she ate the eyes first cuz that's what she does. So Pumpkin Pancakes? A big hit. But I keep having nightmares about pumpkin zombies so I'm still too scared to think about making them again any time soon.

Work of Art

 Isn't this lovely? I think this is the first "person" Tagg has painted. It's a masterpiece.

He was actually working on a very special art project this day. Painting birthday cards for some very special people. When I asked him what they were called he knew exactly: Birthday Cake and On the Day You Were Born. So we labeled each card accordingly. We're not allowed to wear shirts when we paint anymore because the creative process is not always good for shirts and pants, not to mention the table, the dog...but it's always worth every paint splatter.

Gettin' Dirty

Dirty Girls.

 Have you ever hear of the Dirty Dash, a 6 mile mountainous trek that promises the following:

Have you ever said to yourself, “Marathons are too easy, and Triathlons are for sissies?”
We haven’t either…those races are really hard. Think about it…the first person to run a marathon actually died.  HE DIED!...and he probably didn’t even have fun along the way!

Well, welcome to a new kind of race: THE DIRTY DASH.  This race that puts all other races to shame.  The Dirty Dash is a mud run obstacle course where a military boot camp meets your inner five-year-old’s fantasy and subsequently converts boy to man and then man to swine. 

You’ll need endurance to trudge up mountains of sludge, courage to overcome uncompromising obstacles, a complete lack of shame to wallow in pits of mud and a smile to show through at the end!

Dirt? Mud? Sludge? Sign us up! Cuz that what's we do.

Obstacle #1...balance beam, over a mud pit. Seriously.

Greased up with dish soap before the big slide. Sweet!!!

Army wall!

Natalie after rocking the big slide!

Apparently hands like to make mud prints on butts.
There's no other explanation.

Shut up. We walked some.

No. These are not Jell-O shots. Everyone was
hoping but they were just the straight stuff.

Before we got "dirty." Literally NO idea what we were getting into.

Pig Tattoos? Perfect. Almost better than a medal.

We were the first wave of the day so we had a little less mud and guts. The reason we know this is that Natalie ran the Dirty Dash again the next weekend with her company team from Adobe, which includes my brother Marc. Dressed as Angry Birds. (video, anyone? You really should watch this!) And they were dirty dirty. Like REALLY dirty. We kind of had to try to get dirty. Which we did.

Mile One. With all the hills, it felt like more. So clean.

Climbing the walls, all military like.

The tire run! I felt like a pro football player!

Climbing hay bales! Some guys were literally jumping them.

Here piggy, piggy!

The rope climb was awesome!

Heading into the swamp. Seriously a half-mile slog through
thigh-high water filled with critters, ivy kind of stuff, and
really stinky mud. Like the kind you don't want your lady bits touching.

The last jump into the mud pit! Photo by 8 year old strangers.

Much needed. Best 4 bucks we ever spent!

The showers weren't quite as warm and relaxing as we'd
imagined. That's a power washer for heaven sake.
But not freezing was well worth it!

That's How We Roll...

Sunday. Scooters. Swim Goggles. Pancakes...regular. Welcome to the weekend at our house.

Boo!

So, here we go again. Halloween. Blech. You know this is not my favorite holiday, right?

See, I'm trying.

About a month ago, I started asking Tagg what he wants to be for Halloween. "I want to be Tagg." "I'm just a boy." "NO COSTUME!!!" This goes on for weeks and then one day, the answer is "I want to be a funny bat." Woo-hoo! An actual costume! But wait. What the hell is a funny bat? I look it up online and there's nothing. Apparently he is the first kid in history to request a funny bat costume. 

I can't convince Tagg that any of the Batman costumes are "funny bats" so I have no idea what to do. Maybe he'll go back to just wanting to be Tagg. He did seem mildly interested in a skeleton costume that showed up on the search so I'm thinking that might, just might be a back-up plan. 

And then one day, he walks in and says, "Mom, I want to be a scuba diver." What?! Great, but what?! Where did THAT come from? So I Google it. FYI there is no such thing. You can either buy real scuba gear for a bazillion dollars or you can try to fashion one from household-type items in a real artsy-craftsy, do-it-yourself moment. That's the route we took.

Looks so cute right? And easy.
Not so much.

I sent my dad on a Home Depot, craft-store treasure hunt for the gear while I scoured the city's sporting good stores and retail outlets for a cheap-ish diving mask and flippers. (Impossible to find, apparently, once fall sets in). Then we had my mom distract the kids with frosting and decorating Halloween cookies while me and dad spent two hours making air cartridges and the holster out of netting, spray paint, velcro and duct tape (silver spray paint does NOT stick to 2-liter bottles, by the way) and finally, it was kind of okay. Not great but functional. 

So I put our masterpiece on the counter. The next morning Sloane had 30 seconds of unsupervised time and bam! completely trashed the fruits of our labor. She had a piece of velcro in her mouth and duct tape on her head when I found her. Not good.

"Scuba gear de-constructed." - By Sloane

So, back to the great costume search. I ended up ordering the stupid skeleton costume. 20 bucks plus 20 bucks in rush shipping. Really? Really.

Kinda cool, right? IF you can get your kid to wear
the mask and the gloves AND the foot things. Which I cannot.

New costume idea? Skeleton Scuba Steve. A mish-mash of the skeleton costume (he'll only wear the body suit, no mask or gloves) and the scuba outfit (no canisters or air tank, and no scuba mask but tie-dye swim-lesson goggles are okay, flippers but only if they're taped to his feet so they don't trip him). And oddly enough, it kind of works. 

That's an outfit, right?

So after bribing Tagg to get in his new costume with the help of epic-amounts-of-candy-potential bribery, and wrangling Sloane into her sparkly Tinkerbell outfit, off we went to trick-or-treating round 1 at my office. 

Fairy in motion. Some things never change!

Sloane was not happy. Tagg was not happy. But one candy bar later, they were both down with the magic of Halloween. Sugar.

A Halloween Miracle. In spite of a chocolate bar and a red sucker,
Sloane's darling outfit survived for round 2 of trick or treating.

"You got any contraband candy under there?"

Trick or treating this year consisted of 20 minutes of pictures, 6 houses of trick-or-treating (after Tagg stripped off the scuba half of his outfit and insisted on riding his scooter from house to house), hauling home half their body weight in candy, beer treats for the adults at our lovely neighbor's house, and then answering the door for about two-dozen trick-or-treaters while we played jumping games with glow-sticks in a completely dark living room.

Hilarious.

Size 4T and still high-water pants. At least the shoes are cool.

Cousins It.

I may have to revise my "hate" verdict on Halloween. It's growing on me.

Cute, right? I think we're cute. Even if it
does take suckers to get the kids to sit still for pictures,
and Scott and I just dressed up as parents.

Splash. Fly. Slide. Smile.

Tagg, the super flyer.

Sloane in the dog water. In her shoes.
The world's best swimming pool.

New slide strategy. It's strangely reminiscent of
Tagg's preferred form on the swing.

We take our sliding serious.

Picking unripe strawberries in hot pink moccasin
boots and a diaper. This could catch on.

Swimming lessons. One, two...ah, just go!

Four-wheelin' with the doll stroller.

Vroom-vroom.

Dance Moves

Bye-bye, Wiggles. Hello, Backyardigans. Yep, the old boys from down under have been replaced by some kooky cartoon animals with a zippy theme song.  They hear the first couple of bars and drop what they're doing to start grooving! I have to say...the kids' dance moves crack us up. We won't count on them winning So You Think You Can Dance in the future but they are stinking adorable.

Now, Harper on the other hand? Any 1 1/2 year old who knows how to drop it like it's hot...she may be a contender!