HUZZAH!!!!!!!

WOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOO!!!!

WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!!!

PHILLY PHILLY PHILLY PHILLY!!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!

Exploring in our Jammies

These days, Weston is only happy when he is holding onto our fingers and walking around the apartment. Around and around and around. Occasionally, he likes to grab onto the furniture or bang on the guitar or open a drawer or reach for a toy, but mostly he just likes to walk. So, I took a little video this morning. This is exactly what I do with Weston every morning after he wakes up and eats. We explore, and then explore some more, and then some more, all the way up until his morning naptime. Lots and lots of exploration taking place these days. (And lots and lots of back-breaking bending-over. What we parents endure for our oh-so-cute littles!) :-)

P.S. You may enjoy the very end of the video, when I accidentally let him topple a little. Haha! Oopsies.

Let the Halloween Festivities Begin!

Our friends Jacob and Tak invited us to a Halloween dinner party on Saturday. Hooray! It was the perfect way to kick off the Halloween fun. And they went all out for it. Tak prepared the most amazing Halloween spread that I have EVER seen. She is hardcore. And these were just the snacks and treats -- the dinner was on a separate table!!

We finally had the opportunity to get Weston into his full Yoda costume. Here he is, checking out his little lightsaber:
He was really very fond of that lightsaber -- he spent most of the evening sucking on it. Good thing he had the power of the force to protect him from its searing hot razor-sharpness:

Check out the little Yoda booties!! Tak made those, too. THANK YOU!!! I am eternally grateful, and I kind of want a pair of my own.

They set up a backdrop and camera for official party photos:

If you can't tell, the sign on my chest says "The Force." That's right, I was "The Force" for my costume. I was what enables my little Yoda to be held and suspended in mid-air. Awesome, right? I had nuthin' until about two hours before the party, when Tim made that suggestion. Thank goodness that one of us is creative! (And obsessed with Star Wars.)

Tim was Wolverine for his costume... but Wolverine 20 years from now, after he let himself go a little bit (hence the gray highlights in his hair). FYI, THIS is why I've been living with a mutton-chop crazie for the past couple of weeks:

We had a great time with the photo shoot!

And here's a great shot of Tim's freaking sweet, homemade adamantium claws. He whipped those up in about an hour. How does he do it??

So far, we're really enjoying the Halloween season. We're EXTRA excited to go trick-or-treating on Friday night with our little golden ticket to free candy (aka mini-Yoda). And Weston will be none the wiser. Haha! Nice. Then on Saturday, we're going to a trunk-or-treat party, where the kids go trick-or-treating around decorated car trunks in the church parking lot. Yay more free candy! I never knew how AWESOME it is to have a kid at Halloween. :-)

Zap

Abbie tagged me. Usually I pretend that I don't see tags (haha, sorry), but since Abbie is one of the sweetest, friendliest, gentlest people in the entire world, I realized that I'd feel really bad about disappointing her. :-)

4 RANDOM THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MY HUSBAND:

(1) He cracks me up to no end. He is seriously the funniest person that I've ever met. It's what originally attracted me to him in high school, and what continues to attract me to him. He jokes, he makes funny faces, he points out hilarious things on TV, he acts silly. He make many haha funny long time.
(2) He is super hard-working. He focuses himself on his assignments, and he works in a timely, diligent, efficient manner that I have never been able to master. He always wants to work and learn and improve.
(3) He always makes time for his family. (That's probably why he works so efficiently.) Even when he's loaded with things to do, he still plays with Weston and makes trips to the store and indulges my little family activities. And he lets me know that he's having a lot of fun at it, too.
(4) He is the ultimate gentleman. He always opens doors, pumps gas, carries heavy things, and walks on the street side (so that if someone gets hit by a car, it will be him). He is also extremely helpful around the house. (I used to be a highly capable person, but it's hard to stay that way when your husband is always helping so much and doing so much for you.)

4 JOBS I'VE HAD:

(1) Cashier/party hostess/character extraordinaire at Chuck E. Cheese. (Yes, I was THE Chuck E. Cheese. You put on the ice vest and costume, go out, wave to kids, fight off the ones who try to grab your giant mouse nose, dance around for the birthday parties, wave some more, escape to the walk-in fridge, remove the costume head, and collapse from heat stroke.)
(2) Dining room server at Brittany Point, a retirement community. (Waaaaay more mellow than Chuck E. Cheese.)
(3) Community Facilitator (aka Resident Advisor) at GWU. (Hey, it got me a single as a sophomore.)
(4) Administrative assistant at the U.S. Department of State, Office of Foreign Missions. (It was awesome. I got a sweet security clearance.)

4 MOVIES I'VE WATCHED MORE THAN ONCE:
(Okay, there is absolutely, hands-down, no possible way that I can limit this list to just 4 movies. There is so much more cinematic depth to Jean than 4 movies can possibly represent.)

(1) Lord of the Rings trilogy
(2) Aliens
(3) A Christmas Story
(4) The Little Mermaid
(5) Forrest Gump
(6) Waiting for Guffman
(7) Napoleon Dynamite
(8) Toy Story 1 & 2
(9) UHF
(10) When Harry Met Sally
(11) Fern Gully

4 T.V. SHOWS I WATCH:

(1) The Office
(2) 30 Rock
(3) Lost (when it's on, anyway)
(4) Daily Show / Colbert Report

4 PEOPLE WHO EMAIL ME REGULARLY:

(1) My mom. Absolutely. All the time. My mom.
(2) Uncle Joe (usually forwards, consistently hi-larious)
(3) Barack Obama and Joe Biden (they keep wanting me to donate)
(4) Kathy, the Stake YW President

4 OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:

(1) Berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.)
(2) Nutella
(3) Anything s'mores
(4) Anything with corn and/or cornmeal (cornbread, corn fritters, hush puppies, corn chowder, tamales, etc.)

4 PLACES I WOULD LIKE TO VISIT:

(1) Brazil (Tim served his two-year mission here, and I missed him fiercely while he was gone, so I accordingly studied maps of Brazil, planned a study-abroad semester to Brazil, and took two Portuguese courses in college)
(2) Japan (sushi, origami, architecture, culture, Tokyo Disney Resort, etc.)
(3) Iran (but only with someone who speaks Farsi)
(4) Italy (again... with Tim... Tim only... no children... me and Timmy) :-)

4 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO IN THE COMING YEAR:

(1) Watching Weston get older, crawl, walk, run, learn, develop, play, laugh, smile, etc. etc.
(2) Enjoying Christmastime in PA and at Disney World
(3) Engaging in more "personal enrichment" activities, like cooking, baking, reading, crafting, learning, etc.
(4) Getting pregnant again (if I may dare dream)

4 PEOPLE I AM TAGGING:
(I used my random name generator. Feel free to participate or ignore. I will not beat you up.)

(1) Emily W
(2) Dana C
(3) Megan M
(4) Lauren P

My Fuzz-Halo'ed Swinger

Editor's Note: YES, I am watching the World Series. No, I'm not a total poser. The T.V. is on in the living room behind me, and I am turning around and looking at it every now and then. :-)

Today, our family experienced two big "first's." Firstly, Weston and I met up with some friends at the park this morning, and he rode a swing set for the very first time! (I know, it's silly for me to document all these minor "first's" in his life. Wait, no, it's not. It's awesome.)

As it turns out, Weston is big enough for the swings now, which is great, because now we have something to do at the park besides just stand around and stare blankly! Here are some photos of the excitement:

Haha! Our other "first" of the day was when Tim and I tried Salvadorean food for the first time. There's a Salvadorean restaurant about a block from our house, so we walked over there for dinner this evening. It was muy delicioso! I ordered the "Plato Tipico Loco" (yes, that's what it was actually called), and it included a variety of items, like grilled plantain, fried yucca, rice & beans, cheese, pupusa (a funny, tortilla-like food, fried with queso y pollo), tangy salad, and sweet corn tamale. It was SO good! It was indeed "loco" in its goodness. Anyway, the meal was extra-interesting because Weston sat in his highchair, red-faced and pushing, almost the entire time. Methinks he was a little fartsy. That kept us laughing heartily.

Anyway, I just had to snap a picture of him at the end of our meal... not of his red-fartsy-face, but of the sunlight from the front window shining through his fuzz-head. It cracks me up:

Weston's little fuzz-halo:

This one captures the fuzz-halo even better (haha!):

Little Sock

Goodbye little sock. Hello big sock. (Sniffle sniffle)

Pumpkins for All!

It seems like everyone has been doing blog posts lately about their excursions to the pumpkin farm, so now here's ours. :-)

We realized that, now that we have a child, we need to make an actual effort when it comes to holidays. No more forgoing decorating and just sitting around eating Halloween candy by ourselves - nope! Now we're getting FESTIVE! We know that holidays are a lot more fun when you "get into them," so for Weston's sake, we're trying to do just that. (At least to the extent that we are capable... finding him a costume, baking sugar cookies with orange and black sprinkles, carving pumpkins, and going trick-or-treating. We're focusing on baby steps here. We'll get to the advanced stuff like turning our home into a Haunted House later.) And we also know that holidays are a lot more fun when a cute, happy little person gets all excited for them. So, we're in for a fun holiday season this year. ...Okay, so Weston has no idea that Halloween or anything else is even coming up, but still, we can pretend that he cares. :-)

So, on Thursday, in an effort to secure pumpkins for said carving activity, we drove out to Underwood Family Farms for their harvest festival. This friendly family greeted us at the entrance! (Apparently they were all flattened in a freak accident. Very sad.):

There was country music blaring when we entered (Tim shuddered a little), and eventually we discovered the rip-roaring stage show:
We checked out a number of tractors and farm equipment that they had on display, and Tim took a bunch of pictures of them for art/machinery/design studies (he's always doin' crazy things like that, that artist husband of mine):
This photo is for my dad... I imagine that he might have ridden around on one of these babies when he was growing up on the farm:
Then we tried our hand at the Corn Maze. We were initially exuberant and prideful of our smart human brains that could certainly conquer the stupid corn:
After 10 minutes, though, we realized that the corn is a lot cleverer than it looks, so we retraced our steps back to the entrance:
There were a bamillion pumpkins at the farm - big pumpkins:
... and little pumpkins:
... and some beautiful but strange stalked pumpkins:

... and pumpkin displays:
... and some more pumpkin displays (I think this one is an artist's representation of the Great Pumpkin-Tractor War of 1927):
Weston sat atop an especially ginormous pumpkin:
Look at the cute little farm boy!
Then we took him to another tractor for yet another photo op:

Just precious... in a country sort of way:
Then we visited the farm animals. These creatures, which I'm assuming are ponies or miniature horses or something (probably should've read the sign), were very friendly:
The cow was also very friendly. I think her name was Daisy. Or Bessie. (It's always either Daisy or Bessie):
Hayride time! I insisted upon the hayride. It's not a harvest festival unless you do the hayride. Period.
This was the best picture that I managed to get of Weston and Tim during the bumpy hayride. Weston was very wiggly and unsteady -- I think he'd been sniffing too much hay:

A final photo op with some pumpkins:
( I don't think he was very fond of the scratchy hay on his softy little legs):
And we finally picked out our pumpkins!! Here's our little pumpkin family:
I love me a man with a wagon full of pumpkins. Woooooo-hoo!

Before we left the farm, we purchased some pumpkin butter from their country store. Then this morning, I baked scones and served them with the butter. SO GOOD!!! Seriously, pumpkin butter is like spreadable pumpkin pie. It just does not get any better than that. :-)

YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

To buy or not to buy?

First a disclaimer: This is a post by Tim. The opinions found in this commentary do not represent the views of Jean Anderson or any of her subsidiaries. On with the post…

Imagine the following (metaphorical) scenario: You are a young child and have always wanted a puppy. Christmas morning comes, and under the tree you see a puppy-shaped box (I said use your imagination). Your heart jumps for joy! As everyone opens his/her presents, you save that special box for last, knowing that it will make your every dream come true. Finally, the moment arrives, and you open the box! Inside, however, all you find is a note that says, “Sorry, the puppy ran away.”

Here’s another scenario (bear with me…): You find a treasure map in an old trunk in the attic. After months—nay, years—of anticipation and preparation you’ve put together an expedition to recover the treasure. You follow the clues, you dodge the traps (unfortunately losing a couple of members of your expedition—collateral damage, you tell yourself), and you finally arrive at the burial site. After hours of frantic digging, you unearth a box! Then when you open it, all it contains is an expired Denny’s coupon for buy-one-get-one “Moon Over My Hammy.”

It is my hope that these scenarios can come close to conveying my unfortunate experience with a childhood hero this past May 22. No, Indy didn’t touch me there, but he might as well have; I’m just as scarred by our encounter. I bring this up now, as I currently face a daunting dilemma: the film-that-must-not-be-named has been released on DVD today.

Does the DVD collector/completist in me buy it to round out (square out?) the quadrilogy, or does the Indiana Jones fan in me continue to deny its very existence, shunning it from my home? Do I give it a second chance? It may be worth it for the special features (wow, how did they make such a crappy movie?). I’ve been hurt already by this film, and I don’t want to get hurt again. What say you, loyal readers of the blog? I don’t want to just run a poll, because I want more feedback than just a “yay” or “nay”. Who is on Indy’s side, who?

Dear Russian Dance Party

Dear Russian Dance Party,

First of all, and I know this is shamefully belated, but welcome to the neighborhood. We like you guys; or should I say, we really want to like you guys. I can’t tell you how thrilled we were when you, a friendly, normal-looking, young Russian couple, moved into the apartment above us. We really enjoyed chatting with you those two times about our miserable internet connections; we shared smiles and laughs. Because of these lighthearted interactions, we foresaw not only good neighborly relations, but potential friendships too. I must say, we were relieved and optimistic.

I hope you don’t mind if I go ahead and collectively call you “Russian Dance Party;” the moniker simply refers to the bizarre Euro-techno that, we have gathered, regularly thumps from your apartment… especially on Sunday mornings. Not that it bothers us. Whenever we hear it, we smile and comment that Russian Dance Party has started up again.

We have gathered that you are smokers. Not that it bothered us… in the beginning. But then the weather cooled down, so we finally, delightedly, shut off the A/C and pulled open the windows to enjoy the rays of sunshine and let in the fresh breeze and listen to the leaves churning in the wind. Along with this fresh breeze comes the pungent smell of your cigarettes, which you are smoking on the tiny metal balcony above our front door. While speaking Russian very loudly and feverishly into your cell phones. So just after they are opened, our windows find themselves once again shut.

We realize accidents happen. But it seems that, somehow, your cigarette butts occasionally wind up on our front steps. And once, your lighter found its little way there too. We appreciate when you pick up these items or throw them in the trash, rather than leave them at our front door. Perhaps surprisingly, we also notice when you don’t. Maybe the best solution would be to stop knocking things off your balcony. Just a suggestion.

We have also gathered that you drink. Although we are not imbibers ourselves, we recognize that drinking is a popular pastime among our peer group and would never fault you this behavior. Sure, it’s fun to line up your empty beer bottles on the precarious edge of your tiny metal balcony above our front door. One’s degree of alcoholism is always commendable and is worthy of display. It’s not so fun, however, when we’re lying in bed in the early morning, after a long night of thumping Russian Dance Party, only to hear a liquor bottle fall from your balcony and smash into a thousand pieces on our front steps. Again, we appreciate that you promptly showed up to clean up the pieces of glass, but in the future, we could recommend that you NOT DROP THINGS ON US FROM YOUR BALCONY.

Anyway, on with Russian Dance Party! We look forward to future friendly interactions with you, but we realize that friendship is pretty much out of the question at this point. If you find this to be a deplorable situation, then we would hope that you seriously consider our suggestions of COMMON COURTESY in order to remedy the matter. Thank you.

Sincerely yours,
Americans with Fuzzy-Headed Baby Who Live Downstairs

H&M Hottie

I realize now that I must buy ALL of Weston's clothes at H&M. :-)

Fun with Tuesday

I had a really fun day yesterday. It started out like most other Tuesdays... there were some chores, there were some errands. But by mid-afternoon, it started to get good. First, Weston and I headed over to the Kidspace Museum for their monthly free night. I've been dealing with a little bit of Portland jealously lately, after my friend Heather wrote about the Portland Children's Museum, which looks AWESOME. But as it turns out, the Kidspace Museum is like the Pasadena version of the Portland Children's Museum! Hooray!

The entyway is really snazzy-looking with all these shiny metals and orbs:

The museum has a variety of exhibits and play areas, but the early childhood playroom is where it's at. Weston and I hung out there the whole time, along with a bunch of other kids and moms. There's a slide with all this brightly colored material on top that the kids loved playing in:
The rest of the room is chock-full of toys and blocks and crawling mats and fun shapes and pretty much anything and everything that might stimulate a young mind:
Weston was taking it all in:
Still taking it all in:
Here we are, enjoying our Motherboy time (thanks to Dana and her blog post for the photo!):
Here are Annie and Megan, with little smiley Elijah:
And here's Dana with cutie patootie Owen (oh, FYI Owen, Weston had that plastic corn in his mouth at one point... haha, sorry):
Then Weston and I returned home to discover that Timmy was able to sneak out of class early! Woohoo! So, Tim and I were able to play with the kiddo and eat dinner together, which was nice. Then it was time for the presidential debate! Yay! I love debates, and Tim humors me and watches with me. However, I only love debates on TV, not on my blog, so I won't say anything else about it. :-)
After Weston's bathtime and bedtime, I decided to do something that I hadn't done since having a baby. I WENT SHOPPING. Like, for myself. For clothes. For reals. Whee!! I had a 20% off coupon for Kohl's, so I drove over there and tried on a million items. I actually only ended up getting two things, though, because I'm a tightwad. First, having been inspired by my friend Liz's exploit into the world of purple shoes, I purchased this tunic, which is a look that I have never before considered, and which, my friends, are no longer only for medieval knights or lords of Rohan:
I also purchased wide-leg jeans that sort of look like this (except they're a lot darker):
Look at me, trying out these new styles. Whee! And of course, I purchased a new toy for Weston (see photo below). No, not the animal choo-choo train, not the safari baby... just the tiger that Safari Baby is playing with. Well, I am kind of a tightwad. FYI, I searched on the Fisher-Price website for a photo of this toy, and the website suggested that I should "let the tiger ride on the Amazing Animals Sing and Go Choo-Choo." Hmm. But I don't own the Sing and Go Choo-Choo... hmm. The website also said that the tiger toy is good for Baby because, and I quote: "Baby's actions make intriguing things happen, sparking curiosity." By "intriguing things," I think they mean the toy's clicking and croaking (I mean purring) sounds. I think Fisher-Price might take themselves too seriously sometimes.
Anyway, when I returned home, I discovered that my friend Rebecca had dropped off a special, adorable surprise: a brand-new onesie for Weston!!! Yaaaaaay! How cute is this:
Rebecca and another friend Natalie recently started a company called Max & Magnolia, where they sell hip onesies and other baby goods. SO CUTE!!! Thanks, Rebecca! It was the perfect end to a fun-filled day. :-) (And Weston totally digs it!)