Pumpkins!

The Friday before the best date ever and the same day as the Fun Run at Rex's school, we took a family trip back to Riverbend Farm, the location of Rex's field trip earlier in the week.

I like it.  

1. they grow their own pumpkins--unlike other pumpkin patches in the area that do not.

2. They have these awesome slides.  The biggest is about 2 stories high.

 Greg, Rex and Alice enjoyed the slides while I fed this kid--he eats a lot.

 3. They have other farm animals to play on and didn't kick us out when they closed at 6:00.  They let us stay and play until every one except Henry was super hungry.

 The next Monday, we carved our finds.  And this year without the huge fight/temper tantrum between Rex and Greg.  This year it was Alice and Rex fighting over the official pumpkin carving knife--the knives from the kitchen weren't good enough.

Rex remained in character most of October

Rex carved a scary face.  Alice carved a princes.  

We tried a Pinterest tip and dunked the pumpkins in bleach--they lasted almost until Halloween, so almost 2 weeks.  Our neighbors only lasted 2 days.  Pinterest win!

Best Date Ever

Y'all should be jealous of me and how rad my mom is.  This year she decided to stop being a boring adult and to do stuff, like kayak and play laser tag.  Seriously, my parents and some of their other empty-nester friends played laser tag for a date a while back. After making fun of her a bit for playing laser tag with a bunch of high school students, I became bored with me and Greg's typical date where a trip to Target after diner is living on the edge.  And then, I saw an amazing Groupon for a zombie hunt and sent it to Greg.  He didn't want to do it because he didn't want to get attacked by a zombie.  But I bought the tickets and invited a few friends anyway.  We went last Friday night (it's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday.) 

And it was amazing.

Seriously this is what we did: first we waited.  For nearly three hours.  It was pretty crowded.   I had a pretty fun date and most of my friends were there so we gossiped around the bon fire and checked in with our babysitters every half hour (really, though, so lame--the checking in with the babysitters).   

After the waiting, things got real.  We loaded onto a truck, got our paintball guns, and set off.  As we were driving to the zombie infected areas, the tour guide asked, "How do you kill a zombie?"  Shoot it in the head, obviously.  "That's right," she said.  "You SHOOT IT IN THE HEAD."  And then we entered the infected area and real people (dressed as zombies--zombies aren't real) charged our truck and we got to SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD.  And the best part--they weren't armed.  That's right, we got to shoot paint balls at unarmed people while they walked and we drove.  I got one guy in the eye--twice (he had a motorcycle helmet on).  Most fun I've had in a long while.

And then we went home and paid our babysitter a million dollars because I thought we'd be back by 9 at the latest.  We walked in at 12:30.  Ooops.

We bought these Groupons back in September, so I had plenty of time to plan all the awesome pictures I was going to take to post on Instagram and right here on this blog and all the funny things I was going to say to go along with them.

Get ready for them

Yeah, I need to work on that whole flash at night thing.  I still have the memories.

And then on Saturday, Greg found this video.  Looks like we have more to fear than zombies.

Mom of the Year Over Here

October 14, 2014: Rex's first field trip.  I tried to be a good mom.  My mom is a pretty good mom and she always went on my class field trips, so I decided to do likewise.  I sent Alice on an extra long play date and even hired a babysitter for Henry and off I went to be a good mom.  And then all my old insecurities from high school crept back in.  As an adult, in adult situations, I'm fairly confident.  But in a school, I'm 14 again.  I was nervous to walk to up to Rex and say hi because he might not want to be friends with me.  And then I didn't want to sit too close to him because I might embarrass him.  He didn't seem to really care that I was there and kept running off--he even rejected my offer of water because it wasn't cold enough and opted in wait in line at the one drinking fountain for a 3 second drink.  And then, at the end of the field trip, I just kind of left.  The other moms all held their kids' hands and took a billion pictures and walked them to the bus, but I was too nervous that Rex wouldn't want me around so I waved from a distance and left.  

In all honesty, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to act around Rex.  I want to maintain a certain level of coolness--not hot mom cool, but cool enough to be present so that I can keep my all-seeing mom eye on him.  So instead of hanging out with Rex, I returned to confident adult Heather and tried to actually be helpful to the teacher.  I put faces to names of kids in Rex's class and starting making mental notes of the kids he can and cannot play with--some of those kindergartners were mean.

And then I took this picture and I'm super glad I didn't look at it until I got home because I'm pretty sure I look like an 80-year-old.  I thought I was maintaining my youth and thought to myself that I look the same as I did when I married.  I was wrong.  Greg, so kindly, confirmed "Well, it's not the most flattering picture of you."  He's such a diplomat. 

Then on Friday, putting aside my semi-failure of Tuesday, I went back to the school to watch Rex run in the Fun Run.  Again, I asked myself WWMMD? (what would my mom do?) Answer: make a sign and bring Gatoraide--which she did for nearly all my cross country races.  So Alice and I made a sign for Rex and ran to the grocery store. Rex thought the sign was pretty cool and made sure to tell Alice that she should hold it up higher every time he ran by.  He also made sure his friends knew he wasn't drinking water like them.  We cheered for a few laps.  Then, because I was in my running clothes with my giant stroller, having just finished a run before coming to the school, one of the aides asked if I was going to run. I didn't know that parents were supposed to run too.  And out came 14-year-old, school Heather again--what if I embarrass Rex?  I do run a little funny.  And I've go this giant stroller?  And am I supposed to run my normal pace and run over all the kindergartners?  Or does Rex want me to run with him?  Ultimately I decided that the track was only an eighth of a mile and was full of kindergartners and I didn't want to run any over with my giant stroller and Alice wanted to participate too, so we walked 5 laps.  We tried walking with Rex a bit, but he just ran ahead of us and our 3-year-old legs.  And when it was over, I gave Rex a wave and left.  Very unceremoniously.  Was I supposed to hug and kiss him?  Not sure.  I'm just not sure how to be the mom that my kids respect but still let into their private lives.  I got in the car, feeling like I'd let Rex down for not smothering him with kisses and hand-holding like the other moms did to their kids, but he didn't seem to care.   Luckily I added a kid to my "do not play" list, so at least it wasn't a complete fail (and the teacher, aides, volunteers--basically all the adults--thought my sign was pretty rad.  Adults like me.)

The 0-3 for Alice

While we were in Florida, Alice had a birthday.  She's 3 now.

We started the day with the customary bathroom picture since she was born in a bathroom.  I wonder how long she'll put up with that one.

 Then she got to open one present.  She got 3 new Lego girls from Rex.  Alice plays with Legos like they're Barbies so she was pretty excited.

 Next was church, followed by a nap on the floor with her bottle, because it's totally normal and socially acceptable to drink out of a bottle when you're 3.  Actually, no it's not, but it's also not a battle I'm willing to fight.

Then we woke her up so she could throw a tantrum at dinner that I made her favorite food--mac-n-cheese.  I put ham in it so it was disgusting.

 I'm super into Fancy Nancy right now, so I talked her into Fancy Nancy cupcakes.

 And FINALLY presents and the end to the dinner/after nap tantrum.

 I must tell the story of this dress.  Alice loves to dress up.  Back in June, my mom bought her a princess dress that she shredded in a week.  I decided then that Alice needed a new dress up dress and was resigned to getting one of the million dollar Disney ones in order to have one that lasted more than 2 days.  Then I went to a consignment sale and just happened upon this dress.  It's a real dress--not dress up and was only $12 and looks like  and sounds like a princess dress.  I've been taking it out of the closet and looking at for the past month, I've been so excited.

 And this is what she thought of it.  (She's taking it off).

 Moving on.  Barbie's dream house, for Legos.  She was pretty mad that I made her wait until we got home to build it so as not to lose all the little pieces.  I love/hate Legos.

 And her favorite gift: the pink dump truck Greg got her.  Why do my kids always like the thing Greg gets them?  Why not the perfect, amazing, beautiful princess dress?  Why? Why?

Before we left, Alice and I had a little photo shoot.  Here are some of the out takes, but she's still pretty cute.

Happy birthday Alice.

NOT a family reunion in Florida

We spent last week in Florida with Greg's family.  On a vacation.  It was NOT, I repeat, NOT a family reunion.  Just a vacation where most of his family happened to go at the same time to the same place and do basically the same thing.  This, however, was NOT a family reunion.  Yes, Baker family, I am making fun of you, because most people would just be honest about this and call it a family reunion.  But we'll stick to vacation just for you.

Rather than give you the play-the-play (which mostly consisted of covering everyone with sunscreen, carrying a bag of towels, a bigger bag of sand toys, an umbrella and a baby down to the beach every morning to hang out for a few hours, then moving to the pool, then lunch and naps at the condo, then back to the pool or beach until dinner), I'll take the Leigh-route and hit just a few highlights.

• Forgetting my camera every day until the last and then lugging it down to the beach with everything else only to realize that I'd taken the SD card out and the battery was dead.  The remaining pictures are from my phone.
• Southern California sand mixed with Atlantic warmed ocean.  (Greg thought it was weird that I grew up in California but only swam in the ocean like maybe three times growing up.  And then he went to a California beach with me and understood.  It's cold.  Really cold.)

• Greg making fun of my hat and sunglasses all week (the hat was a Target clearance purchase after being nearly blinded by the sun at the Provo Rec Center in August, and the sunglasses are knock off somethings from the dollar store because Target didn't have any that I liked so rather than spend $20 at Target for sunglasses I don't like, I spent $1 at the dollar store), but having the last laugh when I didn't get a sunburn and he's now peeling like someone who went snorkling for three hours while the wifey watched the kids.  I, by the way, don't think my daily beach outfit merited as much mockery as it got--I'm no Merick but it could be worse.

• watching Rex play with his cousins--all day

• mini-golfing at the same gold course the Obama's did when they visited.  It was, by the way, the nicest mini-golf course I've ever golfed, and that's saying something since I do play quite a bit of mini-golf.

• catching crabs--the animal.  I didn't actually catch any but Greg, Allen and Erick spent several days looking for crabs.  Then boiling them alive and eating them.  I couldn't do it.  I just couldn't butcher my own crab.  Allen, on the other hand, had no problem.

• paddle boarding.  This maybe my new favorite water sport--one day I will paddle board away and have a picnic on the ocean on my board because I love picnics and a picnic on the ocean sounds even better.  Alice and Rex warmed up to them around 4:30--just before we had to return them.  Children.
• Not playing Euchre every night because it's too competitive for me and Bakers don't cheat.  But Robins do.

• Greg's grandma.  We have a lot in common.  Also for family night she told us some pretty awesome stories. (Speaking of which, I started another blog as a place to collect family stories.  It's a work in progress).