A Pilot, a Superhero, and Rainbow Brite

Halloween 2014! Besides being super annoyed at how even Halloween has become a season --

Everyone, stop that! Stop with your pumpkin drinks in August, stop with your Christmas music in October, stop with the Halloween parties weeks before Halloween! It is ONE DAY. The children do not need to wear their costumes and do Halloween activities at three fall festivals and then preschool class and then dance class and then choir. No. Stop. By the time it comes around, they would be over it. A class party or school event, and trick-or-treating. That's it. I put my foot down at the other things.

-- I'm actually not a scrooge, just normal, and the kids and their costumes were really fun this year. Even though none of them were Elsas. In a year when everyone was Elsa! We are basically unamerican, I know.

Charlotte wanted to be a superhero, in the generic sense apparently, and so I googled for ideas and realized I could mostly put hers together myself: I dyed a onesie and printed the C in a superhero font on iron-transfer paper (I actually ran into some snags but those are boring so that's the gist of it). I ordered some cuffs and a belt from an etsy seller, and cut up some socks for her leg decoration. She already had the cape. Came out super cute, this little Super Booler.

(We decided her kryptonite is getting her shoes on the correct feet.)

Anneliese asked to be Rainbow Brite months and months ago and I kept deterring her, because it's 2014, not 1984, and that is not a costume you can just procure unless you want to spend a zillion dollars on ebay and I obviously don't. But after many repeated asks, and many sad faces, and my friend Jeanine convincing me it wouldn't be that hard, I decided to put a Rainbow Brite together as best I could. And it was totally good!

I ordered a clearance t-shirt dress from Old Navy, which was originally a light sky blue that was easy enough to dye royal. I bought some faux fur Santa trim and glued it to the hem. I found a bow and glued a star to it. And put rainbow leg warmers on her arms and legs. Jeanine made the red belt/suspender part for us because she is the best, and I ironed a cheap etsy patch onto it. I used leftover superhero onesie fabric and cut-up ribbon to make the chest piece, which I almost omitted because it looked sloppy, but then needed it to hold the suspenders up (it's just some iron-on velcro holding it together). Pretty good for a mom who doesn't sew, right?

And Nathan wanted to be a pilot (who also designs airplanes) (I told him that costume doesn't exist so he might have to dress like just a pilot, and tell people the also-designs-planes part himself) so I did the extremely crafty mom thing of clicking through to Amazon Prime. Be very impressed.

His shirt says pilote -- in Spanish -- and I have no idea why (that's not what was on the package) but we went with it.

All the costumes don't family coordinate, and Mark and I don't like to dress up, so I know we fail the internet when it comes to Halloween, but I don't care because they all had costumes they loved and I got to feel like a halfway-crafty mom in the process.

So yeah, it was a fun Halloween. The girls did their costume parade at school on Monday (Monday?!) and then for actual Halloween we did our normal trick-or-treat loop around the block, trying the whole time to convince the kids we were going to eat all their candy when they went to bed, and replace it with vegetables, which totally gets a rise out of Nathan (but not the girls) and amuses us. We're great parents, is what I'm saying.

Some Other September Things

Here are some other things we did in September (alternate title: let's take a journey through my phone's camera roll) --

One Friday night when Marky was working, the kids and I made popcorn and turned the lights off and snuggled on the couch and watched a movie together. We had never seen Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It was delightful.

I snuggled with Ali a lot. Because she is also delightful. She's turned into a super happy baby recently. I'll take it.

We took a lot of pictures at the bus stop. Some days, even in non-yellow shorts.

(Anneliese now has a carpool ride two days a week --
they pick her up from N's bus stop!)

Anneliese learned to brush her own hair and suddenly she's a teenager.

Charlotte did her first round of swim lessons. She can't swim on her own yet but she also didn't poop in her swimsuit at all, so that's a hearty win.

Nathan got a bad case of swimmer's ear (seven years! three kids! our first ear infection!) and we barely slept for several nights and he was generally miserable and in pain but it's over now.

I did some more preschool homework FTLOG.

Another Nathan came for a weekend to visit, he and Mark shucked some corn fresh from Minnesota and grilled dinner and we played with the kids and ran errands and it was all right and normal and good, and then we waved bye til next time.

Anneliese and I painted our toes yellow.

We set up Mark's old phone with Nathan's email so he has a way to text/call us (through google hangouts) and we can leave him home alone for an hour or so when we need to. One night he was home doing his homework and practicing, while I hopped over to church for a few minutes for preschool orientation, and Mark had the girls at dance. This is what texting with a seven-year-old looks like:

Anneliese's cutie friend Beatrice has been with us for a few afternoons, and as always, we love having her around. (Especially when she can pull some cheerfulness out of Anneliese these days.) We decided these two are competing for the best-dressed award at the weekday school.

Charlotte got in the habit of wearing a cape to go poop. Like you do.

Nathan graduated out of his first cello (from this eighth-size to a quarter-size, coming soon). He's very excited but I am mostly sad. His first cello! Aw. I will miss this tiny sweet thing.

At Home, Three Baby Girls

I'm at home with just the three girls -- Anneliese, Charlotte, niece Ali -- for a few more days, til Nathan's school is done and he makes our fourth for the summer (right now Ali comes a few minutes before he gets on the bus, and goes home a few minutes after, so I'm not doing a whole lot of juggling all four yet). Since my girls are done with preschool, and we are learning to work around Ali's naps, we have mostly just been home a lot for these past couple weeks. Which is... weird for us.

Anneliese continues to want to feed Ali at every chance possible:

Charlotte continues to insist for hours on snuggling with Ali, then hugs her for ninety-ish seconds, then is like, "okay thanks I'm all set, please give her back to mommy and Anneliese now." But it is cute while it lasts:

I continue to look for quiet activities for the big girls (whoa, is Charlotte one of the big girls now??) to do while the baby sleeps:

(Anneliese painted this to tape in Ali's crib upstairs, because she is the most adorable big cousin ever, yeah I said it:)

Charlotte continues to put on anything and everything she can get onto her person by herself, most often her cape which she wears while proclaiming herself super, which she pronounces soo-poo, and no one better ever correct her:

Some days are really fussy and I'm stir crazy, and some days are easier. And some days, this wee one gladly takes selfies and takes a bottle, and those days are pretty okay.

So yeah, we're figuring it all out.

Baby Hipsters

Sometimes, your kids all want to try on your glasses.

And then you laugh together at your baby hipsters. And it is a good evening.

Five Christmases in Five Days

Merry Christmas! Yeah yeah yeah. It was a month ago. But who's counting? We can still talk about the holidays, right?

Our usual rush of family visits was somewhat lightened this year because Mark was off work the whole week following Christmas. I mean, it was still five celebrations in five days, but believe me, that is less busy or stressful than some years past. And if you want to get all liturgical semantic (of course you do), we're supposed to celebrate for twelve days anyway. So basically five is easy.

FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS: At home with our babies and coffee and stockings and looking through what Santa brought (this year: a lego table for Nathan, a doll crib for Anneliese, and a push cart full of groceries for Charlotte). Oh and takeout Chinese. Because we're Jewish wannabes? (Nah, because last year I ruined the roast beast so I didn't even attempt anything this time.)

SECOND DAY OF CHRISTMAS: In Huntersville, at my dad's house. With three siblings missing this year, sadly (Ashley's family was sick, Collin was working, and Brad has that whole pesky living in the virgin islands thing). But all the normal Bumgarner stuff went down properly: Sean brought present wrapped in Bieber paper, my Grandpa snuggled with the kids so hard he fell asleep on the couch, my dad immersed himself in kiddie activities like puzzles and coloring, and of course it's not a Bumgarner Christmas til someone gets defensive and says third cousins don't count! Ahem.

THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS: In Huntersville, with Mark's mom. Y'all, this is what Christmas is supposed to be like. Simple and generous in the best most thoughtful kinds of ways. We ate snacks, we played with new gifts, Anneliese dressed herself as a doctor then planted herself in Uncle Nick's lap and refused to leave his side (you know, like you do). Very sweet evening.

FOURTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS: In Mount Holly, at my sister's new house! We opened approximately one bazillion gifts, the most bizzarre of which were a set of plastic sleds. Not one per family. One per kid. You know, because if there has ever been a child who needed a sled, it is Charlotte, the 16-month-old who can't walk and lives in North Carolina. (However, she did love sitting in it and rocking, so there's that. I guess it can be some new indoor seating for us. Good thing it's so... pretty?) Haaaaaaomg. (Love you mom.)

FIFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS: Back in Raleigh, with the very rare treat of having Mark's dad and stepmom for a visit. Charlotte made her first walking attempts, Nathan built legos with Opa, and Anneliese played with her new "computer" (leapfrog game) with Oma until they both cried from laughing.

SEVENTH THROUGH TWELFTH DAYS OF CHRISTMAS: We puttered around at home and on the playground, spent lots of time in our PJs, hit up the kids museum several times, got dressed up for a fancy new year's eve dinner downtown, made a mess of our kitchen celebrating Mr. David's birthday with cake and whiskaaaaay cocktails.

So. Merry (belated) Christmas and happy new(ish) year!

Happy Face for a Monday

I tweeted this picture of Nathan last week, and it keeps making me smile every time I see it.

Who wouldn't want to see this happy face on a Monday? (As Anneliese would say, you're welks.)

Your daily Nathan: happy.

(Yes, he loves my new scarf too.)

I Will Apparently Color Splash Anything

Remember how I fell in love with my new phone and my new Color Splash app last week?  Well you'd think I'd be tired of it (or maybe you wouldn't think that at all) but I totally am not. I am colorsplashing everything in sight (read: in my phone) and despite how the receiving end of my text messages react, I've been feeling shamelessly un-annoying about it.

First I colorsplashed this dinosaur because let's face it, you can't have a dinosaur hatching in a bowl on your counter for four days and not be tempted to colorsplash it. (Sentences I never knew I'd write.)

Then I colorsplashed my daughter. You know, like you do. (Ask me how thrilled Marky was that I un-oranged his beloved tiger paw shirt.) (We do not un-orange the things that are supposed to be orange! We make things orange! All of the things! Orange!)

Then we colorsplashed the other daughter.  She chose a great outfit for the day and her wardrobe choice was only made better by colorsplashing.

Then I colorsplashed Another Nathan.  He had a little acci-doo yesterday (yes he's totally fine and it was just a slick road and slicked up breaks and a small fender bender and we're not even calling it any bad names, basically his car just has a boo boo) and I took a picture of him in the office of a body shop. And colorsplashed it because it was a blue mood.

And then I realized that if I am colorsplashing my best friend's worried moments, I might need to stop colorsplashing.

And that's the story of how I became less un-annoying about my new Color Splash app. Thanks for coming along on this journey with me.

Nathan Dresses Up

Instead of offering my sister a sarcastic thank-you for allowing this monstrosity of a dress-up outfit to come into our house (wait...), I should just pose the question:

Which goes better with neon fringey pants and a sequined shrug?

... the boa?

... or the hat?

One doesn't want to over-accessorize, you know.

(We pretend that the dress-up bin is totally for Anneliese, but the reality is Nathan likes it just as much as she does his trains. Can you tell?)

Pink Toes

Besides her first haircut last week, Anneliese has also been begging for me to make her toes pink like mine.  So, we did.

Adorable side note: she thinks that when she puts on socks and shoes, her pink toes go away, and she wants me to make them pink again by taking her socks off. She should be well-versed in object permanence by now, which makes the whole thing a bit cuter.

Red White and Blue Day

Never one to be outdone, Nathan, like Anneliese, also has developed a love for a good hat. 

(Or a bad hat. You be the judge.)

The church preschool had all the kids dress in red white and blue for a presidents day singalong (naturally?) and this is how my children insisted on showing up.

Yep, we're That Family.

Baby's First Tattoo, Gone Public

Hey remember that time Charlotte had a croupy cough that finally got bad enough that I took her to the doctor and then had to explain* why she has a tattoo of a parrot on her thigh even though she's waaaaaaay too young for such spring-breaky nonsense? 

Yeah. Hashtag: MY LIFE.

Hey, also, remember that time my mom got a tattoo and I found out about it on facebook?  It's only quasi related to this Charlotte-parrot thing, but it's been a while so I thought I'd just bring it up again anyway.

*It's temporary. Stop freaking out. Nathan had them in his class valentines. So that night we all put tattoos of jungle animals on ourselves. (As you do.) Even Charlotte. Actually, Charlotte first.  You know, in case it hurt. (Big brother fail.)