Giraffe or Cow?

Today you get to help settle a great debate in our house. For the sake of fairness, I won't tell you which spouse is on which side of the debate.

Giraffe or Cow?

I bought Kaitlyn a backpack the other day (since she loves Tyler's so much), and it has a little pouch in the front for this little friend to hang in. In fact, the backpack is the same spotted fabric as the animal.

But what kind of animal is it?

For your reference, here are some pictures.

Giraffe. They have spots and the horn . . . things, but also a long neck and a nose, instead of a muzzle.

Cow. Spots again, and a muzzle. They do have horns sometimes, though they are curved.

So, take the poll! I think it is obvious, but so does Christopher . . .

The most wonderful time of the year!

Yup, it's that time of year again!


Egg nog time!


I have had a bit of an obsession with the stuff ever since I was a kid. I remember we weren't allowed to have very much of it, but we were always begging to get more. And now that I am an adult, I end up buying my very own little carton. In the worst manners possible (sorry mom) I just take one sip every time I open the fridge and let it run down slowly to my tummy.


Yummmm.


And, last year I discovered Gingerbread Egg Nog, which has a recipie on the side for pancakes. I was so excited to make those again this morning! The kids inhaled them, even after the bananas they ate while I was woking on them. (Gotta have some nutrition in there somewhere, right?)


And now, random pictures of Kaitlyn.

We don't know how, but she went to sleep in her jammies, and when we pulled her out of her crib the next morning they were on backwards. She even ZIPPED THEM UP!

I'm working on the hair, I swear. But she pulls out the ties a lot, and I don't want to loose the length . . .

It's all gone.

Well, I finally caved. I knew when I met my husband that he was loosing his hair. He had a good attitude about it- said that he hated the idea of doing comb-overs or Rogaine. "Just let it go, man," he said. I figured I could deal with that. After all, my four older brothers all had the same thing happen to them. But then, one by one, my brothers coped with it by buzzing it all off. Which was fine, for them.

And then they tried to get my husband to do the same thing.

And he loved the idea.

And I freaked out and cried.

So, bless him, he didn't do it, no matter how much my brothers tried to sneak it behind my back or something. I knew that it would be over someday, and that I couldn't stop it without going back in time and marrying a different guy. But I just wanted to cling onto the dream a little bit longer!

Then, for his 30th birthday a couple of weeks ago, I told him that he could shave his head. I had a few people seem up in arms that he had to wait for "permission" from me, as though this was some control issue, but let me assure you that this goes both ways. I used to enjoy dying my hair red in high school, but my husband doesn't personally like red hair on girls. So I don't do it, because I want to be attractive to him. Likewise, he was kind enough to wait until I gave him the go ahead to shave his head off.

The effect was even stranger given that he had his beard from Halloween still. So, without further ado, the before and after.




I had to work hard to find a picture of him without a ball cap on, but there you go. Christopher with hair. This was at the Vatican, in case you were wondering.

And Christopher without hair, this last weekend at our cabin. Hopefully the pictures are big enough you can tell what is going on.

I'm getting used to it, slowly but surely. He loves it even more than he thought he would. His family didn't really like it either, especially his mom. But his co-workers were so excited that he actually shaved it while he was at work.

Naples- Cruise part 3

The second stop on our cruise was Naples. Jon, the one in our group who served his mission in Italy, told us that Naples is considered the dirty and crime-ridden city of the country, so we didn't plan to spend much time there. The first thing we did was catch a train down to Pompeii.

I went to Pompeii on my last trip to Italy in High School, and I loved it both times! It is just an amazing thing to see. Everywhere else you go to see ancient sites, you have to learn how each government changed the building as they conquered the last group. But with Pompeii, you get to actually see how it looked in 79AD.

I took a million pictures, but I won't bore you with all of them. This is our tour guide, and I highly recommend hiring a guide if you ever do go there. I was glad we didn't purchase the Excursion from the ship, because buying the train ticket and hiring the guide when we got there worked out perfectly. But if you don't get a guide, you have no idea what you are looking at.

This is the part that is the most creepy to me. Basically, when they were doing the excavations they noticed air pockets with bones inside, so they would fill in the spaces with concrete before digging them out. What they found were the last moments of people's lives. Most of them died from the poisonous gas before the ash covered them up, so they most often have their hands over their mouths. Just amazing.

After Pompeii, we caught the train back to Naples. It was just in time, too. Pompeii wasn't crowded when we got there as they opened, but by the time we left at noon it was getting jammed. Since Naples is the birthplace of pizza, we figured we had to try some here.

And boy, did we. We each ordered one, since we all wanted different kinds, but they were huge!

Notice that mine, in the lower right, has an egg on it. Runny yolk and all! I figured if you are going to try something, you might as well go for it. And my verdict is to never put an egg on my pizza again. I have to admit that I preferred American pizza, as well. The thin crust had a lot of burned edges from the cool ovens they have, and the sauces were a bit greasy for my taste. But still worth the experience.

After lunch, we mostly just wandered around shopping until we got back on the boat. But it was a great day!

Halloween

We had a really fun Halloween this year!

First of all, most of my friends know I am kinda nuts about making costumes. It is the one time a year I allow myself to sew, because when I get into a project the house kinda suffers. And it did. This year, I learned that watching too much Project Runway can be bad for your health. Or at least your child's diet, because Christopher would come home from work and find out that there was nothing for dinner a few days in a row because I was so immersed in my project.

See, Christopher's boss is rather big into Halloween. For years he has been building coffins and scary things for a front yard display with fog machines and strobe lights. But this year he went completely overboard (ha!) and threw a Scallywag Swoiree party the night before Halloween that was unbelievable. You can see a video that the photographer made here. There was a shipwreck in the front yard, along with tombstones, a prison cage, and very realistic cannons. Inside there were decorations covering every inch of the house, from a skeleton playing the piano to a treasure chest of chocolate coins with the Digicert logo on them. He also rented a costume for my husband to be "Captain Skarda" at the party. Christopher is on the right, if you couldn't tell, with his boss Ken.


So I figured if he was going to all that effort, the least I could do was get a pirate wench costume! But since I'm me, I didn't want to buy one at the store. I decided to make one. Without a pattern. In one day.

Sorry, that's a terrible picture, and I hope to post a better one later. But for the costume, I think I did rather well. I have a ton of leather in my basement from the baby shoes years, so I was able to make myself the vest from that. I did use a dress pattern for parts of it, but a lot of it I had to make up as I went. That is certainly the part I am the most proud of. As a bonus, I can even wear it with jeans. The sashes were rather easy- just cut 'em out, really. I loved the trim that I got on the clearance rack. Thank heavens I already had the skirt from an antique store years ago. And the white shirt? I am pretty sure that is the worst made garment I have ever thrown together. Trust me, the vest covers all the flaws. I didn't use a pattern or even a pin- I measured myself and cut four rectangles, then sewed them together.

Told you I need to stop watching Project Runway.

Anyway, on to the kids.

Kaitlyn's Tinkerbell came from the Disney store, but I did make the shoes and her bow, as well as a yellow tutu for underneath too make it even more "floofy".

I went back on forth for Tyler, because I have always prided myself on the costumes I made for him. But my awesome Sister-in-law passed on a box of dress up clothes to us for Christmas last year, and this pirate shirt and hat were in there. I ripped a sash to tie at his waist. Does that count? No? Dang.

So . . . we had three pirates and a Tinkerbell. And yes, that is a live bird. Christopher's brother came back from his mission and bought himself a Macaw. Usually he is the worst pet I have ever seen, but he was so excited to have the attention at the party that he was very well behaved.

To put things in chronological order, Thursday night was a party with Steven and Melissa, two of our closest friends. They have a party up at her family's cabin every year, and we wouldn't miss it! Of course, I forgot to take pictures. But there was one couple that came in the most amazing Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip Costumes ever!

Then, Friday I went to was Tyler's preschool party. For that, I put him in the dump truck from last year, because that thing was awesome and nobody at the preschool knew it was a repeat. Unfortunatly, the kids kept wanting to play with the dump truck while Tyler was wearing it, so Tyler had to kinda fend them all off. And he had to figure out a new way to go down the slide.

Then that night was the big party. It was a bit much for the kids, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. But they sure loved the playroom upstairs.

On Halloween itself, I took the kids out trick or treating. Neither of them really understands yet, but they were starting to get the hang of it by the end. It is like herding cats though. Kaitlyn would say "doggie!" and veer off to go visit it. Or "rock!" and wander off to play in gravel. They liked knocking on the door, and they especially liked the neighbor who makes homemade doughnuts and hot chocolate every year. Tyler had another donut hole in his mouth every time I turned around, and Kaitlyn screeched at me if I tried to take away the hot chocolate.

All in all, it was some good loot!

Flour and Consequences

So the other day, I was having a very long day. One of those where nothing went right. I decided we would make homemade pizza for dinner, since the kids love to help put the toppings on, and maybe that would cheer me up. So I set the dough to rise and figured I would use the 5 minutes it needed to rest to surf the internet and cheer myself up.

It is a sign of how much I needed that break that the noise of sudden laughter fits didn't make me check on the kids.

Instead, Christopher comes home and shouts "what on EARTH?" I come downstairs, and it turns out our kids had found my flour bin. They were taking handfuls and flinging them at our glass coffee table in the front room (apparently it's hilarious, you should try it) and leaving a trail of flour between the front room and the kitchen.

Yikes.

Christopher was put on "time out" duty, which was keeping them sitting on the piano bench so they didn't step in it. And I vacuumed and wiped the best I could.

Then, the next morning, I heard it again. LAUGHTER! Quiet pause. LAUGHTER! Quiet pause. I come running down, and it was the flour bin again. At least this time they put the bin closer to the coffee table, so there wasn't a trail.

And as soon as they saw me coming, the little stink-bugs turned tail and ran - straight for the piano bench. They then both patiently sat there while I cleaned it up. Again.

Apparently the crime was TOTALLY worth the punishment.

Malta- Cruise part 2

Our first stop on the cruise was Malta, a country I have to say I didn't know existed until I saw it on the agenda. But it turned out to be one of the most beautiful ports we came to! Everyone said we had to be up top while the ship came into port, and they were right. We were coming in just as the sun was coming up, and the port is deep into Valletta, the capital city on this small island country. It was beautiful.

We were all standing on the chairs to get a better view.

Christopher and I wandered around Valletta for a while at first, and it was a really neat place. The streets are mostly for pedestrians, and in fact some of the streets were actually stairs lined with shops, since the area had so many hills.


A lot of people said that the St. John's Cathedral in town was not to be missed, and from the outside we couldn't really tell why. It looked like a neat old church, but nothing that different. But on the inside, wow. It was an amazing Baroque church in every sense of that movement- completely over the top and over decorated on every surface. And the Caravaggio painting in there was really amazing. Unfortunatly, they don't allow flash photography, and I didn't carry a tripod on my trip, so my pictures weren't very good in there.

From there we caught the local bus up to M'dina, a Medival walled city up on the hill. They call it the silent city, and I could see why. It is well preserved, and beautiful, but only 300 or so people live in the entire place, and they keep it contained and preserved.

We also went through some catacombs, which had the most long-winded audio tour I have ever heard. But Christopher thought it was interesting. Mostly, we just enjoyed just wandering around and enjoying the city. There is a feel to these European towns that you just can't get in such a "new" country like America. We think something is old when it has survived a hundred years, but for them, the capitol city of Valletta is "new" because it was built in 1600.

But hey, no matter where you go, you can find people naming their business in a foreign language to sound cool without actually understanding what the words mean.