Birth-o-PrimaryProgram-o-Baptism-o-Ween Part 1

The end of October is always a busy time of year for our family.  We love Halloween.  One of my friends posted on Instagram that Hallloween is a verb in her family, and I have to agree.  Like her we Halloween hard.  

Halloween is extra special in our family because it's also Charlotte and Lydia's birthday.  So every year the days around October 31st get turned into one long celebration we call "Birth-o-ween."

But this year the days around October 31st are even busier than usual.  Because in addition to the holiday, and the birthdays, we have Charlotte and Lydia's Baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a Primary Program at said church.  

We've already had a lot of fun and important activities related to what I am now calling Birth-o-PrimaryProgram-o-Baptism-o-Ween so I decided I better write a blog post now so I don't get overwhelmed by the end of these crazy/busy/fun days.   

Last Monday I had to find the all important paper that says how much money the VA pays for our housing allowance each month.  We have to do our annual certification for the Idaho Childcare Program.  The VA money doesn't count as income per se, but ICCP likes to see it so they can see how we are making ends meet.  I also needed it because we were randomly selected for income verification for Free and Reduced Meals and I wasn't sure if they counted the VA money as income or not.  Anyway, I couldn't find the paper ANYWHERE.  I knew I had seen it a few weeks earlier on Brandon's desk, but I wasn't sure what we'd done with it.  

I ended up going through a years worth of unfiled papers and getting everything organized. I had piles of papers laid out all over our king size bed. I really should have done this a lot sooner. So it's good I finally got around to it. But I still couldn't find the VA paper. 

After everything was filed away I found a file folder in a drawer that I hadn't checked before.  I looked inside and found a lot of random Brandon stuff.  I looked through there and found the paper!  Ugh, I should have just looked there first.  But now everything is all organized again so that's good. 

Around noon I went to my Physical Therapy office for one of the three 20 minute massages I earned by attending my appointments on time and not cancelling.  I've never had a real massage before.  I loved it.  It was definitely what I needed after all the hunched over sewing I've been doing.  

I stopped by my office to catch up with my co-workers. After that I realized I had about 20 minutes until the kids would arrive at the day care.  So instead of driving there I just walked up from my office.  It was one of those wonderful autumn days that makes me so happy to be back in a climate that actually has fall.  I'm still not a big fan of winter, but I am happy to have fall again. 

I picked the kids up and Miss Wenda told met that the teachers at the elementary school had told her that Derrick had a FANTASTIC Day.  I think this was the first good Monday in at least a month so that was great news.  

We walked out of the building and the kids were a little concerned when they didn't see the car.  I told them I'd walked up from the courthouse and that we'd walk down there and play at Caldwell Park before going home.  They all cheered.  They had fun walking across ISU's campus and then through the University neighborhood.  Some of the houses were decorated for Halloween and the kids loved the scary decorations.  

When we got to the park the kids ran right for the playground and started showing me all their tricks.  Usually we get home and they are all wild in the house so it was nice to have them have a place where they could run off their energy.  

Derrick had fun playing with the drinking fountain water.  Silly boy.

Here are some of the tricks Charlotte and Lydia showed me.

And here is Veronica's trick.  

I just love how this picture turned out.  

Derrick had therapy at 3:00 so we went back home so he could change before his therapist met us at the house.  After they left, the girls and I worked on a project that Charlotte wanted to do.  She'd been saving milk jugs for several weeks for this project.  We drew faces on the jugs and then hung them up in the scary tree branches we'd put around the porch.

The next day we added fake spider webs to the branches.  And we put battery operated tea lights in the jugs.  I turned everything on before we went to catch the school bus one morning and it looked so spooky. 

On Tuesday Veronica and I  went and did some Thrift Shopping.  Veronica grew 4 inches in the last year and basically was down to about three pairs of pants that sort of fit.  I realized we needed to get her bigger pants.  So we went on a hunt.  At Idaho Youth Ranch we only found one pair of pants her size.  Before we left I checked out the furniture section (like I always do) and found something I'd been looking for for weeks.  A solid dresser for Lydia.  Lydia's dresser has been falling apart for a while. (We actually had trouble with it in Alabama) We'd set it aside for a few months but we'd pull it back in because it's better than nothing.  I've been looking for a new dresser for several weeks, so when I saw this one for $19.95 I bought it right away.  Never underestimate how much four working drawers can improve your quality of life.

Veronica and I went to DI next and found her 6 pairs of pants that fit perfectly.  She was so excited.  Every time she tried one on she would say, "I want to wear THIS one!"

And after that we went to the school district office and took in all our proof of income.  I wanted to do it in person because our situation gets a little confusing.  For example, I gave the lady my last pay stub, and then told her that I was currently unemployed, but that I was getting re-hired November 5th.  Then we had to try to figure out if the VA money counted as income.  In the end we still qualified for Free Breakfast and Lunch so everything worked out.  

We also stopped at the dollar store to buy the fake spider webs and the tea lights.  When all the kids came home from school we decorated the front of the house.  

At four Veronica had her karate lesson followed by Charlotte's Dance class.  Both were fun for each kid.  Brandon had Derrick and Lydia with him.  Lydia enjoyed Ukulele and Derrick enjoyed the walk he went on with Brandon at Edison Fitcher Nature area. 

On Wednesday I was finally able to get around to working on the Twins Baptism dresses again.  My mom came over at 10:00 and helped me with all the tiers on Lydia's dress.  I'd been dreading hemming these tiers so when my mom offered to help me with the ironing and pinning I was so grateful.  

My mom taught me everything I know about sewing. She started teaching me when I was about 6 years old.  She taught me how to make a skirt.  As I got older she taught me how to make shirts and dresses.  A lot of times I would work on the project on my own until I got stuck.  Then I'd go to my mom and ask her to explain the pattern to me, or show me how to set in a sleeve, or place a zipper, or how to hem.  And every time she'd patiently explain it to me.  With her help I sewed three prom dresses in high school.  I think about that now and I can't believe I was that confident in my sewing abilities.  Maybe I was just really confident in my mom's ability to guide me through tricky patterns.

So it was comforting to have my mom working with me on this complicated dress. And I'm so glad she was there!  Just like old times she helped me figure out what the pattern was saying.  And we were able to talk it through together.  I told her, "If you weren't here I'd just be muttering to myself and I'd still be confused."

My mom does feel comfortable sewing anymore, but she still has some great pinning and ironing skills.  She ironed the hem for each of the FIVE tiers on Lydia's dress.  That was no small task because the tiers kept getting wider.  We had to take a picture of the bottom tier with all the pins in it.  I think we counted 41 pins all around the hem.  

It took us 3.5 hours to get all five tiers together and hemmed.  I can only assume it would have taken me 7 hours on my own.  (Probably longer because I'm sure I would have made at least a few mistakes.  It was such a good feeling to get those tiers done.  I felt like it would all be down hill from there.

Here's our blurry victory picture.  I forgot that my front facing camera takes blurry pictures and in my euphoric state I didn't notice the blur until it was too late.

On Thursday morning I sat down at the machine and sewed the tiers to the lining.  (At least I think that's what the pattern called it.  I'm still a little confused.  Don't worry about it.)  Seeing this come together was so great. I kept thinking, "It's working!  I'm going to have these dresses done in time."

Thursday afternoon Veronica had her final free introductory Karate class.  She received her white belt. (And couldn't stand still during the ceremony.)

Here's a video of her breaking a board with her kick.  She was really excited to do that.  And you can see her trademark jumping at the end of the video.

After the class they talked to us about signing up for real lessons.  I declined for several reasons.  1. We can't afford them, 2. We are moving within a year, and 3. The classes are on Monday's and Wednesday's and that doesn't work with my work schedule.  So no karate right now.  But that doesn't mean we won't ever do them. 

On Friday morning I sewed Charlotte's dress bodice to the skirt.  Her's was the "easier" dress so I was working on it first so I could sort of know what I was doing by the time I got to Lydia's complicated dress. I screwed up and put the right side to the wrong side the first time, and I was glad I wasn't trying to do Lydia's dress first.  I fixed my mistake and the dress looked great. 

Then I had to put the zipper in.  I haven't done a zipper since Derrick's blessing outfit 6.5 years ago.  I couldn't even remember which of my the four extra presser feet that came with my sewing machine was the zipper foot. I literally had to do a Google search for an image of a Pfaff Zipper foot to figure out which one was the right one.  But once I had the right foot on the machine the zipper went in fairly easily.  

After the zipper was in I cleaned everything up and took a quick shower.  Brandon's classes end at noon on Friday's and we were planning to go on a date while the kids were still at school.  

He came home and we went to A&W for lunch.  Back when we lived in Logan we lived right next to an A&W and we always seemed to go there when we ate out.  Its still one of our favorite places to go together. 

Then we went to several stores to find birthday and baptism presents for the twins.  Brandon was in such a good mood.  His love language is gifts so he was really happy to be buying things for the girls.  

We went back home and hid the presents before we went to the Daycare to pick up the kids. They were all excited to see us.  We'd made it to the end of the week yet again.  

We came home and Brandon made pizza while I took a little nap.  We had a big evening planned and I needed a little break if I was going to make it through it all.  

After dinner we started getting the kids into their costumes for the Halloween Carnival at the Elementary school  This was our second dress up event of the season. I know I showed all these costumes last week, but I worked hard on them they are getting featured again. 

Here's Charlotte/Mary Poppins. 

Batman Derrick.

Pirate Captain Lydia (oh and those shoes aren't part of the costume.  Those are really the shoes she wears out in public every day.  I feel like I need to send a note to her teacher explaining that Lydia truly has other shoes, but she refuses to wear them.  She will wear these until they fall off her feet.)

And Spiderman Veronica.  I feel like I improved on the face painting this time.

We went trick or treating to the teachers' doors all around the school.  There were fun games and photo areas set up all over.

The best games were in the lunch room.  Derrick really wanted to play the cheese puff game.  He was so excited to have shaving cream on his head.  I was so impressed.  Two years ago he never would have even set foot in a room this crowded or noisy.  And this year he was participating in a game!

We came back home and the kids had fun eating their candy.  I was trying to come up with an idea for a good Halloween Themed side dish for the party the next day so I pulled up videos on Youtube.  We had fun learning ways to make Halloween Cake Pops (which we did not have time to do, but it was fun to dream.)

Then it was time for bed.  Everyone went to bed really happily.  Brandon and I stayed up late watching Dry Bar Comedy segments on Facebook.  (We love those.)

Saturday was a BUSY day.  Brandon's parents were hosting a Halloween Party down in Ogden that evening so we had to get ready for that, but we were also trying to get the house clean from the prior week while prepping for the upcoming week. We had to give the kids baths, clean the bedrooms, clean the dining room, do the dishes, make food for the party, make dinner to have after church on Sunday, return DVD's to the library and pick up a book that was waiting, do some laundry, and so on. I was in overthinking overdrive and may have stomped around the house a bit more than necessary. Finally I had a little vent session to Brandon and felt much better about the whole thing.  The kids were helpful and we got everything done with time to spare too.

In the early afternoon we drove down to Eden.  We arrived a few hours before the party which gave the kids some time to enjoy the house to themselves.  We haven't been to Utah since the middle of August so it was good to be there.

Brandon wanted the kids to watch the Disney version of Icabod Crane with the Headless Horseman.  The kids liked it.

Then it was time to start getting into costumes.  And again, I'm going to highlight each costume. Charlotte was really getting into Character as Mary Poppins.  She liked to say, "Mary Poppins, Practically Perfect in Every Way."

Derrick was loving being batman.  In other years it's been a struggle to keep him in his costumes, but this year he stayed in his costume the whole time.

Lydia was excited to be a pirate.  Her Bestefar dressed up as a pirate too and Lydia told him, "I'm your captain!"  This was the first party where she could bring her sword so that was fun for her.

And here is my third attempt at facepainting.  She smuddged it, but this was actually my best one so far.  I'd figured out the white part around the eyes was easier to do with a makeup brush than my finger (go figure.)

Charlotte wanted to pretend to be Mary Poppins arriving at the Banks' house.

Brandon and I were really excited to finally debut our costumes at this party.  Months ago Brandon let his hair grow out and we commented that he looked like Wolverine.  He said, "I should be Wolverine for Halloween." I got really excited and said, "And I can be Jean Grey!" 

I really identified with Jean when I watched the X-Men animated series as a kid. I was so excited when she became the Phoenix followed by being DEVASTATED when that whole saga played out.  As a teenager I loved watching Famke Janssen play Jean Grey in the first two X-Men movies.  The end of X2 was such a good tease for where the series was going.  But then the third X-men movie ruined it all.  When X-Men Days of Future Past fixed things I found myself crying in the movie theater.  I'm cautiously excited to see the Jean/Phoenix story play out again in the next X-Men movie. I don't really like Sophie Turner as Jean so she has to win me over big time in the Dark Phoenix movie.

Wow my nerd flag is flying.  But I don't care because I was thrilled at the chance to dress up as Wolverine and Jean Grey.

Brandon grew his hair out again for Halloween (and wore a hat to school for at least a month.)  He also grew out his beard and shaved it to look like Wolverine's.  He had buy and then wear a wife-beater for this costume which was something he never thought he'd have to do. But of course the best part of the costume were the claws.  He got these off of Amazon for $20.  He had so much fun with them.

My costume was mostly based off of Jean's look in X2.  But I wanted a nod to the Phoenix. I found a T-shirt that was the perfect shade of green at a thrift store. Then Brandon drew the Phoenix logo on his computer, printed it, cut it out, and then painted it onto the shirt.  It looked fabulous and I will wear this shirt all the time from now on.  The boots, pants, and jacket were all thrift store finds.  I don't know if I'll ever wear the pants again, but I've already worn the jacket and boots a ton.  Oh and we can't forget to mention the belt buckles. Brandon crafted these from leftover aluminum at school and added rivets.  There was also painting and clear coats and other such magic involved.  He had a great time with this little project.

We had fun doing  a little photo shoot before all the guests arrived.

Charlotte loved all her accessories.

Me again. I thought about going permanently red again for the costume, but I'm finally back to my true hair color again and I feel like staying there for a bit.  So we just did the spray on hair color.

Everyone arrived and we had a yummy dinner.  We'd decided to bring a 7 layer dip and Youtube gave us the idea to pipe sour cream into the shape of a spider web.  Brandon even added a spider.

Here are most of the cousins enjoying dinner together.

There were lots of game and other fun things.  We voted on costumes.  Charlotte won The Golden Pumpkin Award.  (This is the second year in a row she's won a category).  Brandon won Toad-ally Awesome.  He gave his award to Lydia.

Normally we would have stayed the night at Brandon's parents, but we had the Primary Program in our ward at 9:00 am the next day.  So we changed the kids out of their costumes and into pajamas.  Then we drove back to Pocatello.  We were back before 11:00. 

I'd had the kids lay out their Sunday clothes before we left on Saturday so that made the morning go a little easier.  The kids had also taken baths on Saturday morning.  Veronica had traces of red makeup, but nothing obvious so we were good.  Everyone posed for me outside the church.

I couldn't take pictures of the Program so I'll just tell you about what each child did as I show you these pictures. Out of all our Charlotte should have won "The best behaved child."  She sang every song, confidently repeated her part (none of my kids had their parts memorized), and looked like she enjoyed the whole program. 

Lydia started out the program a bit rough.  Our ward never had a chance to practice on the stand during church, and we had to miss the Saturday practice because of the Halloween Party.  So Lydia didn't know that she was assigned to a seat next to Derrick and far away from Charlotte.  She found out when she got up to the stand and was gently led away from Charlotte.  She did not like that at all.  She was in tears during the first song.  Luckily the leaders and teachers very quickly noticed her distress and told her she could sit by Charlotte.  That stopped the tears, but she looked sad for most of the program.  She did give her part when it was her turn. I think she would have won the award for "Most on Stage Drama."

Veronica would have won the Award for "Best/Worst Crusty Looks" for the second year in a row.  With the exception of Karate I have never seen this girl perform.  If you ask her to recite her ABCs she'll look away.  If you ask her to tell you a story she'll hang her head.  If you ask her to stand up in front of the whole ward and sing several songs she will stand there and glower at everyone. Brandon and I were trying not to laugh at the variaty of faces she was making.  We also sent her teacher several "it's okay, we know you tried" looks. She did say her part, but she didn't appear to enjoy it.

Derrick is always a bit of a wild card.  I never know how he'll do in the Primary Program.  So far we've had two good years, but that didn't guarantee this year would be good.  On Saturday Brandon had gone to the church early in the morning to set up tables and chairs for a funeral luncheon.  He took Derrick with him and then sat down on the stand and tried to explain that Derrick would sit up there on Sunday.  Then before church on Sunday I took Derrick up to the stand again and explained it again.  He seemed to understand. 

But when it came time to go up there he didn't want to go.  I forced him into the aisle where his teachers were waiting and they took him up to his seat.  There he proceeded to give a demonstration of 101 ways to be irreverent with a seat.  He sat on the seat while it was folded up, he stole his teachers seat when she went to help another child with her part, he tried to lay on the seat, he turned around in his seat, etc.  The nice thing was that he was quite.  He had teachers sitting on either side of him and a member of the Primary Presidency behind him.  He seemed resigned to his fate. 

When it was time to do his part he repeated it well.   He seemed really proud of himself.  But I think he was a little mad that he still had to stay on the stand.  That's when the escape attempts started.  He made 5 unsuccessful attempts.  He was finally successful during the closing song.  He made a bee line straight for me.

Later Brandon commented to one of Derrick's teachers.  He has three.  One is the actual teacher of the class.  The other two are a husband and wife who are there to help with Derrick and another autistic boy.  Brandon told the husband, "you are like the Man with the Yellow Hat from Curious George.  No matter what that monkey does you are still patient and smiling."  He got a kick out of that.  We really do appreciate Derrick's primary teachers.  The put up with a lot of antics, but still love him. 

My parents had come to see the program and after it was over they came to Gospel Doctrine where Brandon was teaching. He gave a good lesson on the Millennium. 

After church Charlotte and Lydia had their baptism interviews with the Bishop.  Back at home I knew the kids would be worn out from the party on Saturday and the program that morning.  I'd checked out the 1956 version of the movie The 10 Commandments from the library and so we just watched that all afternoon.  It's nearly 4 hours long so it was the perfect thing to do.  We ended up having some really good gospel discussions during and after the movie. 

This morning it was rough to get the kids up for school.  We have to wake them up at 6:30 so as I was getting out of bed I told Brandon that we have to move away from Pocatello because I can't do this for the next 6 years.

Derrick was especially out of sorts so I e-mailed his teacher to give her a heads up.  I don't think we'll be doing a lot of weekend travelling the next few months.  It's too hard on Derrick. 

After the Elementary school kids were on the bus and Veronica was at Daycare I came home and sewed Lydia's bodice to the skirt and added the zipper.  I still have some hand sewing to do, but these dresses are basically FINISHED!  Whew!

I was going to show you the pictures of the pumpkins we carved tonight.  But I think that's enough Birth-o-PrimaryProgram-o-Baptism-o-Ween stuff for this post.  I'll save those for Part 2. 

Have a Happy Halloween!