ANIMAL STYLE

I am trying to be proactive (the adjective, not the acne treatment) about Halloween this year. This way if the kids want to be something weird, I will have weeks to find Ebay and thrift store deals to piece together their costumes.

Luke wants to be an In-n-Out employee. That's fine as long as it doesn't turn prophetic of what his life career will be. I found this one online and actually got excited about how easy it will be.


Next, I asked Charlie. Since he is 2, he screamed his answer at me -

"TALKING FRENCH FRIES!!"

What? Not only is that dorky, but he's going to have to wear a name tag for anyone to know what he is. I found this one online from the Pottery Barn for only $100 -


It's cute, but not $100 cute. I just checked Ebay and people are actually bidding $100 on this costume. Silly people. If I'm going to spend $100 on my child's costume it better be for something like Darth Vadar with a real light saber. Charlie wants Erik to be "ketchup and mustard" and me to be a hamburger. He laughed for a long time at himself.

Don't hate me, but I'm trying to talk my kids into being Woody and Buzz this year using borrowed costumes. I know it's generic, but I'm tired and it sounds easier than making a french fry costume out of yellow pool noodles.

IF THE SHOE FITS

Luke's been taking more pictures. However, I will only post one because there is very little variety -


Almost every picture is of his shoes! Notice his signature move of putting his shoes on the wrong feet. Other people seem to care more than he or I do that he wears them this way.


Thanks to Skechers amazing marketing campaign, Luke is obsessed with his shoes. He sleeps with the shoe box every night, begs to take it to the park, and forces us to read the ridiculously bad comic that accompanied the shoes. Preschool starts next week and when I asked him what he wanted to bring on his first day, he said, "My shoes!" My response was, "You are a boy still, right?"


I found this picture of myself when I was the same age as Luke. I was as far from fashionable as possible. Notice the mushroom/bowl haircut and homemade green necklace worn over my red turtleneck. (Perhaps this was cool in 1982.) I definitely didn't know clothing brand names as a 4 year old. That's why it is so shocking to see Luke's infatuation with this brand of shoes. We don't even have television, so it's not like he's watching commercials! If this continues, I may need to consider starting a special savings account now to fund his clothing budget for when he gets older.

WITH LOVE, FROM ALCOHOLLY

Nobody freak out. I've decided to start blogging again.*

As I was going through this summer's pictures, I realized that I never posted the story about my mother's birthday present from Alcoholly!

Sometime in the middle of June, Alcoholly handed me a beautifully wrapped gift for my mother's birthday. The next day, she left this message on my phone:

"Dearheart. Please get a pencil and write this down. [long pause] 'Only to be opened in front of husband.' Now tape it to your mother's gift. You see, Dearheart, your mother's birthday gift is some of my lingerie. Your mother informed me that this is acceptable in your religion, although it is only to be viewed between husband and wife. It is crucial that she does not open this in public."

As if I was going to let my mom open a package containing Alcoholly's old lingerie in private! This is going on the internet.

So, in July, weeks after my mom's birthday, I was able to deliver the scandalous package to her in Arizona. My imagination was running wild about what was inside. I had never seen Alcoholly's lingerie before, but one time Erik was moving something in her closet and a whole bunch of it fell on his head. He couldn't ever really talk about it without becoming nauseated. My sister, Caitlin, even came over to watch my mom open it! (Ironically, my Dad was at work.)

Now, here's the disappointing part of the story: It really wasn't that exciting.


In fact, after we opened it up, Caitlin put it on and ran around the house singing, "I Could Have Danced All Night," because it wasn't all that funny. You know, like this -


As a bonus, Alcoholly included this big pair of purple Granny Wide Sides, which are made to look even bigger in this picture since Caitlin is a size 14 in girls.


So, now you know how I spent my summer vacation.

*Mostly because Kathryn sent me a sweet death threat if I didn't post anything new.