Preview

Today we had the official photo shoot for our Halloween cards. It was a challenge this year. Evelyn is in this phase where she keeps this strange expression on her face, I call it her Lil Face (that's after a scene in a David Lynch film), basically she scrunches up her nose and lips and looks like she just ate a lemon AND is smelling stinky garbage or something. In summary, not the cutest expression to feature on a card, so I had that to work around and also the inherent stubbornness that is Evelyn. I was more stubborn than she is, combine that with the power to with-hold candy for three days and I ended up with some decent pictures I think.

It's no secret that Ev wanted to be Link from the Zelda line of video games and with the help of my Aunt Tanya we were able to do that for her. It's an awesome costume and I can't wait for it to be seen for now though here is a picture of the "real" Link and what we had to work with.....

This is a picture of one of the illustrations in the Nintendo Game Guide that Ev carries everywhere. She loves this little elf, he is her first hero of rock and roll proportions. We have also been letting her play the game, you know work the controls and make decisions about what to do next- she's pretty good.

Boat Rides and Movies

I am a poor blogger type and a bad Aunt. I forgot to grab my camera today before we headed out for a day of fun with the kids. (When I say we, I mean my sister and I).
I had this day planned, it was pretty good on paper and turned out to be better in real life, but I was a bit worried when we had to walk out of the movie. See, I planned a little Halloween movie and then a boat ride with our favorite sexy Coastie- great, good plan. Except that the movie was , ummm, obnoxious and we left. Okay, this was Spookly the Square Pumpkin, seemed harmless. However the first 35 minutes was nothing but long commercials for one PBS show after another and then the movie started and it was weird and dumming down the kids at the speed of light. I requested our money back and the theater manager was kind and understanding but wanted me to switch theaters and watch that Chihuahua movie, I think when I used the word "malignant"- he got the hint and refunded our dough.
THEN we drove over to the station where Les is on duty and we had a boat ride. A nice family boat ride out in the sun and fresh air. The kids got to "drive" and they loved it. I knew Ev would like it as she is a coastie-ette and we have her on the boats when we can and she loves every minute of it. I wondered about Brev but he , too loved it and now thinks Unkel Ess is the coolest thing. I wish that I had remembered my camera because the expression on B's face was priceless, he took it very seriously and did not smile one time, but he loved it.
It was a good day.

For Your Listening Enjoyment

Camp Out

We got lucky and scored some B for the weekend!

B as in Brevin.

We picked him up last night and brought him home for the kind of camp out we Dillon girls go for. The kind with movies and popcorn and pumpkin candy and staying up until mid-night then falling asleep on the living room floor and waking up with carpet burns on your face because only about 20 minutes was actually spent on the sleeping bags....ah fun. They were up at 9 this morning so that's not too bad. Right now they are downstairs listening to The Flaming Lips and playing some complicated game involving all of my couch cushions, two flash lights a cat toy and jumping- lots of jumping, oh! and roaring. I love hearing them together and watching them and hearing their weird conversations.

Last night, coming home in the car, I heard Evelyn say "Brevin. Brevin! Where is that penny I gave you? Did you swallow it?" pause "well, DID you? , then Brevin goes "No Beam I don dink so" ( for those of you interested I never did find out what penny or if he did eat one it was just beyond me at the time, I shall have to confess to my sister I guess). THEN I heard her say " these are my stick on ear rings. Boys don't wear these but, well, my Papa wears them sometimes, yeah you could wear some I guess. Okay just put them right there. NO! on your forehead, your not a Papa yet, you have to wear them on your face", then Brev says "oday Beam" and when I got them out of the car he has three shiny hearts on is forehead. Nice.

I am off to fuel them up for some romping at the playground.

Update: We went to the park and had a great time but, I think we spent about 12 minutes too long because they each had nuclear meltdowns over very minor and separate issues (he wanted ice cream and she wanted to stay) and cried all of the way back to the car. I mean we had snot and wailing folks. It was the walk of shame.

Just Pictures

My Cussin' Kid

Evelyn has learned a new and interesting word. "Bee-otch", yes the current colloquial mispronunciation of the word b-i-t-c-hum hum. I haven't been able to put a real stop to it because , well, frankly every time she says it, I laugh my butt off. I can't help it, it's so funny. Just think of that little voice yelling out bee-otch forcefully and gleefully. No. Really. It's funny. Eveln Leslie nearly blew out his Circle of Willis trying not to laugh at her and then he did not succeed and this was while driving and we nearly wrecked the truck because I was in no shape to grab the wheel. That particualr time she was just going:
E - "Mama?"
Me- "yes Evelyn"
E- " BEEE-OTCH!"
Me- "strangle gurgle snort"
E- "Papa?"
Les- "yeah baby?"
E- " BEEE-OTCH!!!!"
Les- "strangle gargel snort"
truck- veer bumpity bumpity.......
Then we both lost it and laughed out loud and then Ev laughed outloud and that has been it.
Now she says things like "Mama?- I'm hungry bee-otch!" and I laugh and feed her when I recover.
Clearly I am a bad mother.

October 1= time for Halloween

Every year I have to hold myself back for the Halloween stuff. I didn't truly make it this year, I like to wait until at least Oct 1 before I drag it all out, this year we have already been munching on candy corn and pumpkins for about a week and a half, I already have some little ghosties strung up across a bookshelf and I have bat mobile hanging up that I made by lantern light during the outage, also there is an amigurumi owl on the mantle that I just finished making.

And last night Ev and I sat down for our first screening of Hocus Pocus, I was surprised that she liked it, I thought it would maybe be too "freaky out" but she got into it. Ev was telling Les some about it today though and called Billy Butcherson a vampire but, umm, he's a zombie. We have some sorting out of the undead to do I see, she is my daughter after all and we just don't confuse our zombies with our vampires around here, that's a major no no.

In the spirit of the holiday to come here is a list of some of my favorite Halloween movies and tv. These are in no particular order.

Poltergeist
Hocus Pocus
The Lost Boys
Silver Bullet
Any Halloween episode Of Buffy
The "Hush" episode of Buffy
Practical Magic
Any Harry Potter Flick
The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Corpse Bride
Bram Stoker's Dracula
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
Monster House
Monster Squad
The Goonies
The Blade Movies
Something Wicked This Way Comes

Yeah, those should get me started.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/14640/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-halloween
http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=36870
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Corpse_Bride/70032593?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=921712368_0_0
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Silver_Bullet/60023007?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=480058525_0_0
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Lost_Boys_Special_Edition/70001895?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=737094639_1_0
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Poltergeist/864808?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=1137132487_0_0

P.S. I put all of these links on here, mostly for my sister's amusement but, check 'em out if you want to.