Luke and Leia

We’re all ready for Halloween already! I feel kind of proud of our homemade costumes this year. Star Wars merchandise is super expensive to buy so I got creative at home. These are way better than the matching kilts I made us last year. It was fun for all of us!

Cute little Princess Leia-Rose. For her dress I used our one and only old sheet. People are always saying, “just use an old sheet” for crafts and projects, but we’ve never had any! In our nearly 6 years as a family, we’ve only worn out one fitted sheet. That’s all. Now it’s been recycled into an ultra simple Leia dress. No more free white costumes for another 5 or 6 years now.

THE DRESS: All I did was loosely trace one of Rose’s other dresses and sew around the necessary edges. I did hem it and attempt a little neckband, but it’s shoddy, lumpy workmanship. Halloween is the one day that it’s ok to flaunt poorly sewn clothing and make true seamstresses everywhere CRINGE. [evil monster chuckle]

THE BELT: I cut a piece of felt and glued foil circles all around it. Easy.

THE HAIR: We got a ball of super-fat brown yarn and I experimented with different ways to twist it and attach it to a squirmy one-year-old’s head. Headbands, hats, bows, nothing would stay on! It was a tricky operation, but we finally landed on clip-on Leiabuns. That way we can acknowledge the fakeness of the yarn-buns without trying to make a yarn wig look real. Yarn wigs are NOT easy to make. I put Rose’s hair into pigtails and then added a bow-style clip on the back of each yarn cinnamon roll and clipped them to her pigtails. She called them pretties—they are more like floppy dog ears.

 

We need to work on Rose’s sassy assassin look, but other than that, she’s a dead ringer.

And now for this guy. I tried and tried to arrange that old sheet so I could get a Luke Skywalker tunic AND a Princess Leia dress out of it, but there was that pesky old worn out  holy part that I had to avoid. So I had to search for alternatives.

The answer dawned when I looked in Jay’s “still-a-little-too-big” clothes drawer. A size 5T button-up white Sunday shirt! And while we were at it, his brown Sunday belt! and hey, there was a pair of pale back-pocket-less khaki pants in the almost-too-small stack. SO:

TUNIC: We folded the shirt’s collar under and pinned the shirt into a v-neck. Then we put the belt on top and the pants underneath.

THE BOOTS: I got some khaki felt-by-the-yard at the fabric store, cut two long strips off of it, and wrapped them up Jay’s legs to the knee. Then I fashioned shoe-covers out of more felt, like the ones that come with store-bought costumes. I felt kind of genius while I was cutting, wrapping and taping felt to my child.

THE LIGHT SABER: Long ago, Grama Leslie gave Jay a little mini light saber, so he’s using that. The hilt was once filled with M&M’s.

    

No way was I  going to try making Jay some Mark Hamill hair. His natural blond buzz will do. I think Jay looks a lot cleaner than Luke. When I asked Jay to come over so I could take a picture of him, he said “I’m not Jay right now, I’m Luke Skywalker!”

After we finished piecing and pinning the costumes together, I followed Jay and Rose around, taking pictures, and cracking up at the hilarity of these two baggy whiteguys. Enjoy:

 

These costumes aren’t exactly durable…

 

 

woof woof woof

Grama Meri’s House

Three of us Whites drove up to Bellevue last Wednesday to visit the three remaining Browns (the manly 4th White stayed home and worked). Jay and Rose had a great time playing with Grama Meri and eating oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with Grampa Charley. We saw my sister Mel briefly a few times(she’s a junior in high school and it was homecoming week so she was ultrabusy).

I had a short list of things to do while we were up in the “big city:”

1. Spend time with my family and get OUT of town
2. EAT a LOT of GOOD food at REAL restaurants (E__’s fried chicken, a French Bakery with the best US-made chocolate croissant I’ve ever had, Thai Ginger, and of course, The Cheesecake factory, plus yummy food my Mom made at home).
3. Find a few things at stores (finishing touches for Halloween costumes and a dress for Rose)
4. Watch chick flicks with my Mom from her superb collection (we watched The Lakehouse and Kate and Leopold—time travel makes for wonderful romances somehow).
5. Take our travelworn Civic in for a makeover at the Honda shop. We actually weren’t planning on getting the car fixed, but our poor car has been roaring around for the past year—ask anyone in Grandview! So we acted when the opportunity presented itself. It was WAY easier to get a new muffler and exhaust manifold with my Mom to chauffer me around while the car was out of action—she was great!

Here are some fo-toes

Grama keeps quarters in her purse for when the grandkids visit. Weehaw! A random kid on the other car kind of smiled for our picture.

Jay and Rose loved Grama’s little stroller. It’s much more kid-sized than our big joggers. They took turns pushing each other around Joann Fabrics while I found supplies for their Halloween costumes.

We mean business.

Grama Meri’s famous story reading

While we were at Kohl’s one day, Jay became attached to a small plastic castle in the toy section. It was tragic when we left it there. My Mom is so clever! She made a sweet castle out of a cardboard box that she had at home. This castle was complete with a dragon—that purple balloon had a small plastic dragon head tied to the top. It looked hilarious.

We drove home on Saturday afternoon in a Seattle-Snoqualmie MONSOON. In our small car I had to slow waaay down at times to control the hydroplaning.

But when we got to the other side of the pass, a rainbow greeted us. It’s hard to take pictures while driving, by the way.

Then the sun broke through over Selah. It reflected off of all the water on the ground—the river? puddles? ponds? I don’t know, but it looked beautiful! Another picture taken at 70 miles per hour.

In spite of my reckless high-speed photography, we made it home at last to hug our favorite things. I hugged Jeff…

…Rose hugged ShainaBear and Bunny (or should we say Beh and Bubby).

Side note about the bear: My Grama Brown made this bear and her Shaina dress for me when I was little. I wish I inherited her sewing skills—ha. I’m glad Rose loves this bear. I can’t help thinking of Toy Story 3 when I see my kids love and play with my old toys…

…and Jay hugged all of his “kids.”

Visiting family is good. Coming home is good. Good food is GOOD.
Life is happy.

Alchemy

There’s this sauce that can turn anything into cake. I promise. Oatmeal, bread, you name it. I got the recipe for it from a beautiful food blog called Simply So Good, whose author named this magical stuff fat sauce. Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is!

Last week we had 4 black bananas on our counter. So I whipped up a loaf of banana bread. But I accidentally cooked it too long so it was kind of dry around the edges. Enter…FAT SAUCE!

Now, normally banana bread is yummy on its own, but this batch needed something extra. I tried butter. I tried cream cheese. Neither one was quite what I was looking for. But then I discovered some leftover fat sauce in the fridge. Oh man. That did the trick! It transformed my dry slab of B-bread into a moist, sweet, decadent piece of cake.

All I did was spoon the cold sauce onto the banana bread and stick it in the microwave for 30 seconds. As my brother Brad would say, angels sang when I ate it!

Here’s the recipe, in case you didn’t feel like clicking on it up above:

Fat Sauce:

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients into a saucepan. Cook over low heat until the mixture comes to a boil and the sugar has dissolved.

Yum. It’s real-life alchemy!

Speaking of unlikely transformations, I have to post a picture of a Halloween craft that Jay and I did last week:

They’re old jars (jam, baby food, artichoke hearts, and peanut butter) painted with a mixture of Elmer’s glue and water, and plastered with tissue paper. They look extra cool in the dark with tea lights burning in them. I mooched the idea from Our Best Bites, another fun food blog (click it for the “recipe”).

Jay loved painting the glue on and sticking tissue paper strips all over the jars. He even made one all by himself, although I did have to remind him to move from one step to another—he painted our whole bowl of glue onto his tiny jar (it made a big glue puddle under the jar) before I noticed and told him to start sticking tissue paper on. He proudly gave his ghost to Grama Meri when we visited her.

One more transformation to note…ME! I am feeling GREAT! Ok, well, I’m still wayyy out of shape (even lifting the milk gallon feels harder than it used to). I’ve been walking about 2 miles on most days for a whole week now, and I’m sore! Every night I crash into bed, exhausted from trying to live “normally.” I can’t wait to RUN again! I tried jogging for two minutes during my walk yesterday (pushing the 100lb stroller), and my legs (and arms!) were SHAKY after that long 2 minutes. That jog convinced me to wait another week or 2 or 3 to run. -Insert sigh of longsuffering-

Last week I went in for a checkup and had an IUD put in. My womb and I both need a nice long break. I hope that’s not too much info, but it really gives me so much peace of mind that I had to mention it. It’s nice to have something as effective as sterilization to allow my body to rest from…occupation. Ha. I wish I could be one of those amazing people who has 10 babies and barely blinks, but that’s not how my body works, and I’m ok with that.

Now Jay is begging me to go play with him, so adios for now!

Lentil-fest

We actually DID things this week!  Proof:

I WALKED this week—to the doctor one day and to the park another day. And around some stores too. It was great. I’m exhausted! For now, I’ll rewind to Monday and tell/show you what happened:

Looks fun, huh?

Background: There are SO many opinions and methods and ideas out there for what/when/how to do at-home preschool. Structure, alphabet, reading, math, science, sensory activities, motor skills, you know. These words make teaching a 3 year old sound so HARD and scary. I just want to have fun with my kids!

I’ve been kind of wondering if, (now that I have a little more oomph), I should tackle the challenge to DO a little bit more to educate and, you know, enrich Jay (and Rose too, but she’s harder right now). I haven’t come up with a definite plan because I like being flexible and just choosing what we feel like doing each day. No preschool curriculum, no daily step-by-step schedule, just fun with a little knowledge mixed in. Too much structure stresses me out (so does too little structure, so as usual, it’s all about balance).

I’ve been wanting to get a “rice box” for months now—my little brother Kyle had one when he was little, and we all loved it! It’s just a shallow Rubbermaid box full of rice and some cups and toys to play with. An indoor sandbox, if you will. Or a sensory development box if you prefer…

Kyle in his famed rice box. I love old family photos. Isn’t he cute? I can’t believe he’s off in Montevideo on a mission right now. Sniff.

Pardon me while I digress briefly:

Here’s Kyle (on the right) with his companion. They are financial guys in the mission office right now (hence the money). A few nights ago, when Jay was saying his prayers before bed, he said “please bless Kyle on his mission to serve someone and give some people money.” I was baffled—why did he say give people money? Then I was reminded of this picture that Kyle emailed us last week. Jay just remembered that Kyle was holding money. Hopefully Jay doesn’t think that service and missionary work only involve paying bills! I just realized that Kyle and his companion have matching ties in this picture. I wonder if the Uruguayans can tell them apart.

BACK to the rice box…I haven’t managed to get a tub and some cheap rice yet, so I had to improvise this week. I love improvisation with whatever is at hand. When it works, it’s awesome. When it doesn’t, you either laugh or throw it out the window. Or both. A year or two ago I tried making lentil soup. It wasn’t very good. On Monday I discovered the rest of those lentils in the dark depths of our pantry. I don’t know how they made it through the  purge of our move, but I was glad they did. Mostly glad…

Jay and Rose each got a sandwich container half full of lentils. I gave them some spoons and toys to play with in their boxes, and told them to leave the lentils in the boxes—no dumping or throwing—ha. Then the phone rang. It was my sweet mother, so I got distracted and stopped caring what was going on with the lentil-fest. Whoopse! 10 minutes later, 90% of the lentils were scattered across the entire kitchen floor. They’re hard to see in the picture because both the floor and the lentils are brown, but believe  me. They were everywhere. I spent a solid 15 or 20 minutes sweeping them all up. They even skittered onto the carpet—lentils can sure FLY when you kick them. Jay and Rose had a blast blasting those lentils around.

Cringe if you will, but after I swept our whole floor, I sifted the lentils out of the dust and crumbs and saved them for another day. The next day only about 30% of the lentils ended up on the floor. That’s a pretty good learning curve! Soon (hopefully) the children will keep ‘em all in the boxes. Then they’ll be ready to graduate up to a rice box.

Len-toes

I have a few other things to talk about from this week, but they will have to wait for a separate post because it’s Sunday after noon and I’m tired! Before I forget, I have to tell one more story about Jay: today during a hymn in sacrament meeting, he decided to sing along too. But he couldn’t read the words to the hymn. So he selected a Primary song from his slim repertoire and belted out Give Said the Little Stream at top lung capacity. He drowned out the people calmly singing the hymn all around us, and completely disregarded the breathing pauses of the congregation. Needless to say, Jeff and I did not get much singing done because we were laughing so hard.

The Elusive Balance

Yikes! another pictureless post! I’m breaking my own blog rule. Sorry, I posted all the week’s pictures earlier. I’ll take more soon, I promise!

Tonight I realized how much I’ve been “gushing” about happiness and cuteness and goodness here lately. Then I turn around and call my longsuffering mother to describe a challenge (aka moan) and get a pep talk (aka sympathy). While I certainly don’t think that anyone who reads this (especially other moms) is crazy enough to believe that everything is always happy and perfect around here [as long as I’m not pregnant], I DO want to be REAL. I want to comment on all aspects of life in the White House, good or bad, preferably with a positive spin. It’s a trick to balance the sweet moments with the tough ones, especially when both often happen all at the same time!

Here’s an example of the sweet/tough paradox: Jay and Rose would NOT go to sleep tonight. They kept jumping on their beds, turning on the light, and escaping from their bedroom. It was the end of a long day and parental patience was waning. But every time I caught them escaping and told them it was bed time in a firm, slightly irritated voice, they wanted hugs and their cute little faces peered up at me cutely. Yarg. Paradox.

Another example: I cooked family dinner tonight for the first time in a while. Every Sunday we take turns cooking dinner for the whole family (us, Jeff’s parents, and Steph and Jasen). Cooking that dinner wiped my current wimpy body out. Jeff usually rinses the dishes and I load the dishwasher. But tonight I just couldn’t face any of it. I started doing my dish duty anyways, though, but I was moaning the whole time. Jeff marched me over to my chair and finished doing the dishes alone. It was so sweet of him to do the dishes, but I felt pathetic that I couldn’t just push through my pathetic-ness and help without complaining! Paradox.

One more: I keep expecting my body to just suddenly bounce back to its “former self” and it surprises and annoys me every single day when I feel exhausted after a small normal task or throbby after a little while on my feet. It is so hard to let myself take it easy. I can force myself to take it easy but then I grumble and feel guilty about it while I’m sitting in my chair “taking it easy.” Paradox.

Physical weakness is SUCH a weakness of mine! If I have any kind of pain or hunger or fatigue, my defenses are down and I am prey to any flash of irritation or cranky comment or negativity. It drives me crazy!

Well this has become whiny in spite of my good intentions of a positive spin. There are so many things to be happy about. It takes constant vigilance not to let the little things like my weak body or my mischievous children swipe my good mood. Like President Uchtdorf said in his conference talk today (paraphrased and personalized): we don’t listen to a piece of music anxiously awaiting the final note! We savor the melody and harmony and all the notes mixed together. My challenge is to let myself relax in my chair to enjoy each note and not let the little boy and girl banging on the end of the piano distract me from how lovely the melody is.

Even their bones are lovable

Happy October! We’re off to a good start:

General Conference was inspiring—well, at least the parts that we heard through Jay and Rose noises. I admit to a few moments of complete irritation when Rose or Jay (or both!) stopped squealing and I heard the congregation laughing at some missed joke. Thank goodness for the Ensign. My favorite talks were President Uchtdorf’s about being happy now no matter what, and President Monson’s talk about not-so-simple, simple answers to prayers. Gold!

My 7-day throbby headache is finally subsiding into the background, allowing me to notice how sore my wimpy unused muscles are. A few hours on my feet at the store the other day wiped me out! It’s hard to let myself take it easy and build up my strength slowly. Ibuprofen helps, though.

Steph and I went clothes shopping for Jay and Rose on Friday. I’ve never done that before! We’ve always been blessed with hand-me-downs and gifts (ironically, my friend Shauna brought over 2 bags of clothes for Rose the night before we went shopping—see above picture), so I’ve never walked into a store and bought much more than a shirt or a pack of socks for my children (I did buy a few clothes online for Rose once, but that’s completely different).  It was new and FUN. Jay got a Darth Vader shirt. Need I say more?

I got my hair whacked off at last. No more shaggy Shaina.

Rose’s hair has been looking so long that I tried a new ponytail style on her this week. Her hair only grows thickly on the top, though, so gathering the side whisps into a ponytail proved harder than I thought it would be. Poor pink scalp.

I am COOKING again! Oh YUM. I love my tried-and-true recipes. I am eating what feels like a TON. It feels so good to feel good after eating. Based on past experience, that happy feeling usually takes a long time to wear off, so I’m in for a few more weeks of deeply satisfying meals.

Speaking of cooking, it’s time to make dinner.

Happy

Life is GOOD! The absence of sickly pregnancy hormones makes it so easy to truly enjoy the little joys! I’m still anemic and my head hasn’t stopped throbbing in a week, but I still feel SO MUCH BETTER than I have felt in over 2 months. If only my body could heal as fast as my mind. Jay and Rose help their invalid-mama smile all the time—they still have their moments, but then they have these cute times that cancel those mischievous ones out.

One day they were sitting on this box giggling together just for the fun of it.

While I was going through the emotional rollercoaster of miscarriage last week, I was also re-reading one of my favorite books, The Running Dream. It is a super story of hope and conquering challenges. The girl loses her leg and learns how to walk and run on a prosthetic. Her grieving and coping process mirrored mine quite well. Here’s one part that I really loved this time around:

“Going over the finish line must be wonderful.”
I laugh. “Especially if you’re the first one there.”
“But…it means you finished. You made it. Even if you don’t get a medal.”
I look at her. “You’re very philosophical about the finish line.”
She gives a thoughtful nod. “It’s symbolic…Because it’s also the strting line.”
For some reason this thought startles me. And I think about all the races where this is true—the 400, the 800, the 1600, all the relays—and it shocks me that I have never looked at it this way.
Maybe because of staggered starts.
Maybe because starting feels so different from finishing. At the starting line you’re amped, set, coiled. At the finish line you’re completely spent.
So the thought that they’re the same line gives me a very strange feeling.  
---The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, p.214

Ok, I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but this little conversation hit me because it just felt so applicable to my own situation. I started out that pregnancy amped, set, and ready for the discomfort. And even though the finish came before I wanted it to, I was still completely spent when it came! The contrast between how [bad] I feel when I’m pregnant and how [good] I feel when I’m normal is so HUGE that it feels like a fresh start at the end. Every end is also a beginning. Believe it or not, it’s so much fun to be able to do the smallest things for myself and my family, like hug my husband, cook dinner, do the dishes, and even change diapers. Even though those small actions still exhaust me and leave my head pounding, I don’t have that nagging nausea and disinterest that I did when I was pregnant. Right now I feel ready to LIVE and love it! It’s such a fresh, zesty feeling!

How could I not be happy?