The Masked Offenders Attack!

What do you get when you combine a lazy Sunday afternoon and an endless supply of masking tape? Masking Tape Masks, of course! Now that we have church from 9-12 instead of 11-2 we have a lot more afternoon than we're used to. No, I didn't go to choir and no, I din't have all my home teaching done yet; it just seemed like the perfect day to wrap my kids heads in tape.

The whole thing was really Jenny's doing. As the kids were finishing up their lunch, she suggested making some paper mache figures with Nathaniel and Matthew while she and the younger two laid down for a nap. They headed up to bed I looked online at a few paper mache websites and decided on a recipe: 1 part flour to 5 parts water, boil for 3 minutes, add some salt to increase shelf-life and then just a pinch of cinnamon to cover up the bad smell...no problem. As soon as the concoction started boiling I began wondering just how I was going to keep this sticky gooey mess off the carpet in our dining area. I must have gone on wondering too long and not stirred enough because before I knew it the flour had all clumped together and scorched the bottom of the pan. The entire mess quickly found its way to the sink and in my mind I literally thought (and I'm not even a little ashamed to admit this): home-make mache = broke = need to fix = DUCK TAPE!
I knew I didn't have enough duck tape, but I always have plenty of 2" masking tape we use for painting the town houses. So I first convinced Matthew (much more trusting that Nathaniel) to sit in the high chair while I formed two pieces of tin foil over his entire head and then began running strips of tape every which way. After a few minutes, Matthew informed me that he couldn't breathe. No problem. I just took a little painting brush and poked some nostril holes for him. I was going to give him some eye holes too, but after he complained that I'd jabbed the end of the paintbrush a little too far up his second nostril I decided against the idea. Once his entire head was mummy-wrapped, I took the scissors and made two cuts along the back and pulled the mask off. A few eye holes, a mouth, a little paint and walla! It was about then that I looked over at the scissors and noticed a few strands of curly blond hair, which I of course quickly wiped off before Jenny came back downstairs from her nap.

Not to be outdone, Nathaniel sat up in the chair next and earned himself his own mask. I say "earned" because, based upon all of his complaining, the tin foil was pretty pokey and I'm sure it was difficult to breath even with two nostril holes. Matthew also decided it would be fun to start jabbing Nathaniel's bum with a broken toothpick (once I had his entire head wrapped and he was sitting defenseless -of course). I joined in the fun and went silent, making Nathaniel think I had left the room and that Matthew was really going to have his way with him. After a few seconds of pure panic I spoke up, partly becasue I felt bad but mostly to keep Nathaniel from tearing the mask off in a frustrated tissy and thereby rendering it useless.

It's been about 6 hours sinse we finished our project; the masks are still in good working condition and I'm still laughing at the pictures we took. I guess the only thing keeping this afternoon from going down as a complte success is me being able to convince Jenny that the scorched pan in the sink is all hers tonight.

Seeing Things a Little More Clearly Now...

Nathaniel finally got his glasses!

The eye clinic called Friday morning after the kids had left for school and told us that Nathaniel's glasses had come in. Excited, we swung by and picked them up as we were out running errands so as to have them for Nathaniel when he got home. "Nathaniel, guess what came today," Matthew teased as Nathaniel came in the door. A huge grin spread across his face. He knew exactly what Matthew was talking about.

I wrote several words on our little chalkboard using larger letters along the bottom and smaller letters in the words towards the top and then had Nathaniel stand back about 10 feet and read the words to me. He could read the bottom 3 words, but by the time he reached the 4th word the letters were too small for him to read. It was then that I placed his new specs upon the bridge of his nose. "Dad, these really help!" he exclaimed!

The doctor told him he only needed to wear them while at school and that whether or not he wanted to use them at home would be up to him. So we bought him a hard case to keep them in while they were at home. The case hasn't been used yet as he hasn't taken his glasses off except to go to sleep! WE think he likes them.

We spent Christmas day at Jenny's folk's place. We had a wonderful dinner and a nice time visiting, after the huge snowball fight out in the front yard that is! I think everyone got hit several times, but only Jason and Chris got hit with balls larger than boulders.

We got snow early this year and the kids couldn't have been happier!

They ended up only having school 2 of the last 5 days the week before Christmas break. Playing in the snow was fun, but Nathaniel and Matthew were disappointed to not have their Christmas programs.

Isaac's "Bowling" Party

Since my last post, Matthew now has two more loose teeth and his older brother can't be more upset about it. According to Nathaniel, Matthew should have to wait until he is in the second grade to loose his teeth, just like he had to wait...life is so unfair.


Tuesday night we celebrated Isaac's 4th birthday. He told us he didn't want a "birthday" party but a "bowling" party (not to be combined as a "bowling birthday party" under any condition). We had lots of family meet us at the bowling alley for a fun evening: Grandma and Grandpa (my folks), Pippi and Papa Duck (Jenny's parents), Aunt Jenn and Hope, Cousin Robin with Amy, Janae and Tanner. We also picked up Alexis who is in Isaac's primary class. She always says she's going to marry him in the temple one day, so I figured taking her bowling was the least we could do. The kids had a blast bowling for the first 4-5 frames, that's when their attention was captured by the arcade room back behind us. After a few more frames of courting kids out of the arcade room for their turn to bowl, we decided they were done and headed to the house for cake and presents.


Jenny made an awesome ice cream cake with a Spiderman-Dr. Octopus topper to boot, it looked great and tasted even better! Isaac got a ton of new toys including lots of bath figures, miniature animals, a GI Joe type missile launcher, and of course a bowling set (we couldn't help ourselves).

Heavy Metal Sunday

Pretty typical week...the clouds are back and the rain has been off and on. Yesterday we closed the town house office down early and all drove into Salem for Logan's birthday party at Pietro's Pizzeria. I remember eating at Pietro's a few times as a kid. It was a quiet, mid-sized restaurant with a firehouse theme: fire hoses hanging in the entry, a brass fire pole with the bottom half of a fireman coming down from the ceiling in nothing but his red long johns, and lots of miscellaneous firehouse memorabilia throughout.
I walked in the front door and immediately looked up; there were the fire hoses, just as I had remembered. As I came through the second door I was greeted by the red underwear guy sliding down the fire pole and thought, "I remember really liking this place. This is going to be gr..." It was about then that some little kid coming toward me tripped and just about knocked me over. I got my balance and looked back to see if he had managed to stay on his feet as well when I saw it -the arcade room! A thousand square feet of arcades crawling with hundreds of little kids all racing from pin ball machine to alley bowler touting their long strands of purple redemption tickets. I remember thinking, "OK, so they've added a few things. This will still be nice," as we got caught up in the current of people headed toward the back of the room. I saw at least 10 other birthday parties set up and there were literally kids everywhere! Don't get me wrong, I like kids. I have 4 of my own and one on the way but this was a ridiculous number of kids!
We passed a large sign painted in neon paint that pointed the way toward mini golf and laser tag. Wow, they had really vamped the place up. We rounded the bend and caught Ian's eye. The birthday table was very nicely decorated with party favors, pointy hats and balloons, very cool. It was in the "party section" of the restaurant (though the entire place was packed with parties) and was in the middle of about 6 other party tables swarming with kids, though none of the other tables looked as festive (kudos, Ian).
To make a long, 2 1/2 hours of sheer bliss for the kids short: they got to play mini golf, eat pizza, have cake and ice-cream, and play the arcade games. It was a terrific party, though very loud and a bit chaotic even for a Dad who's used to a pretty rowdy house. By the end of the party, the boys had earned just over 300 redemption tickets at the arcade center, enough for each of them to get an inflatable electric guitar. We said our thank yous and goodbyes and then headed out to the car to make the trek back to Albany. After a little resistance, I agreed to blow up the guitars so they could play them on the way home.
They were really cranking it out but we had to make a pit stop at my parent's place. No problemo! They brought their guitars in with them and began power sliding across the kitchen floor and jumping off the furniture while they jammed like big time rockers. It was quite funny to watch as the sugar buzz completely took hold and had them acting like a heavy metal band on stage. Once again in the car, I cranked up the stereo, hit the interstate and they rocked all the way home.
This morning I was awaken by Johnny Cash in my living room. Apparently, the boys hadn't lost interest in their guitars yet and they thought Johnny needed a few more band members. Matthew found a hard rock station on the radio that I had to turn off at least three times since we got home from church and the guitars somehow went from from instruments of mass commotion to weapons of mass destruction. Matthew got poked in the eye, Isaac’s block house got knocked completely off the table in one giant swoop of Matthew’s guitar, and Isaac’s guitar kept knocking Abby over –though it wasn’t his fault (just ask him). So all three boys are now up in bed, all three guitars are now deflated and up in time out above the cupboard, and I’m left to myself wondering what I'll be waking up to tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

For all the ranting and raving always done about the weather around here, I'd just like to take a moment to give Mother Nature a big THANK YOU. After a week of above average temperatures and no rain, we woke up Friday morning to the smell of wet asphalt and the sound of rain hitting the rooftops. I rolled out of bed and thought of complaining to Jenny, but then remembered, "Oh ya, this is Oregon and today's the 31st." While the rest of the country is out racing through the neighborhoods collecting candy, having costume parties or smashing pumpkins in celebration of Halloween, here in Oregon we traditionally welcome in our first wet and windy storm of the season. This year, it seemed, would be no different.

By mid-morning, a bit optimistic, I hopped online to checked the whether forecast: Heavy rain this morning changing to scattered showers by afternoon, returning to heavy rain by evening. "Just in time for trick-or-treating, great." I thought.

Ian and Logan came down from Salem to go trick-or-treating with us and got to our place at about 6:00. When I answered the door I noticed it had stopped raining and the sun was actually starting to come through. We hurried to get the kids in their costumes and out the door while we had a break in the storm. Jenny stayed to pass out candy and Ian and I followed the kids through the neighborhood. After a hour, the candy bags were full and Abby and Isaac's little legs were worn out so we headed back to the house. Ian felt a raindrop on his head and I had one hit my nose (insert whatever joke you find most fitting here) so we decided to pick up the pace a bit. Ian made the comment that he couldn't remember a Halloween when it didn't rain, not that it had never happened before, just that they weren't as memorable as the ones spent running from covered porch to covered porch dodging the rain.

We made it back safe and dry, sifted through our spoils, danced around the front room with the strobe light going as the sugar rush began to take hold and then said goodbye to Ian and Logan. It was the perfect ending to a perfect Halloween that we will all soon forget about completely.