Family

So, we had a little windstorm this week. Wednesday night I was down at Cottage for a meeting and it wasn’t windy at all. However, as my friend Julia and I headed closer to home after the meeting we saw the wind picking up. I remembered, when we hit the Hill exit on the freeway, that I’d read reports of high winds expected. I’d forgotten. As we headed up Hill, it was like a different world — trees had already fallen over into the street, debris was everywhere. As she dodged another tree, Julia said, “This is crazy. I’m expecting zombies to come running down the street at any moment.”

Turns out we had 80-100 mph winds that night, a very rare occurrence for us. They rattled our windows — blowing two of them open — and whipped outdoor furniture, branches, palm fronds, leaves, etc. all over the neighborhood. We fared OK in the end — a few branches came off one of our giant oaks, a few more came off our neighbor’s giant pine (luckily we had moved our cars out from under it) and we had quite a bit of debris around, but no real damage. We did lose power from Wednesday night to Friday morning and phone/internet/TV service was out until Saturday afternoon.

Here’s what the driveway looked like the next morning. The trash cans had quite an adventure.

A tree across the street broke.

Our patio furniture took a beating and the barbecue cover flew off.

Not all of our neighbors fared as well as we did. This giant tree is across the street from Julia’s house, two blocks away from us. It took out three cars.

The kids got into the act of helping with the cleanup. Here’s Ezra with Julia’s daughter, Sadie.

And Finn.

Ezra and I took a walk early this morning and took some pictures of the devastation. They’ve cleared a lot of the tree away, so now we could see the cars underneath. Pretty awful.

This tree about three blocks away from us was totally uprooted, as were hundreds of others around town.

It took out a block wall on the way down.

All in all, we are feeling extremely lucky.

While Finn was at Cottage doing Stone Soup Day, Ezra and I had the morning to ourselves, so I let him choose what we would do. He picked a movie: Happy Feet 2 (which is an interesting choice because we hadn’t yet seen the original Happy Feet). Anyway, he loved it and let me tell you, that boy has the music in him. He loved, loved, loved the “beat” from lead penguin Mumble and was desperate to recreate it all afternoon. He and Finn begged for pots, pans and sticks so they could have a drum-fest. Here are the results.

The start.

Starting to get into the feeling.

Getting serious.

And of course, I have video.

Soon, Finn was dancing.

And I finally got him to show off some of his break dancing skills.

Later we watched Happy Feet, which I’d recently recorded. Ezra loved it; Finn was terrified. Nothing new there.

Kind of unorganized here, but I have a few pictures to share. First, Finn loves to use the melon baller.

Next, Ezra perusing the New Yorker. (Well, actually, just the comic on one page, but I like to think we’re indoctrinating him early.)

And last, Ezra got to spend the day with Finn at Cottage on Monday. When I got there to pick them up, they were engrossed in story time with Teacher Art.

The latest science experiment at our house was how to turn a regular egg into one that bounces. The process: soak a regular, uncooked egg in white vinegar for two days. Voila. So, how did it work? Well, see for yourself.

Of course, after trying out the bounce, we had to break it open to see what it looked like. At least they let me put it in a bowl first.

Yuck.

While I was at Cottage’s Open House showing off our awesome preschool to prospective families last Saturday, Bruce and the boys were at Waldorf School’s Elves’ Faire with every other family in a ten mile radius. The boys reported that they had a great time. Bruce didn’t have a camera, but someone at Altadenablog captured them in the drum circle, so I’m stealing their photo.

Afterwards, all they wanted to do was practice (and talk about) the bows and arrows they got at the faire. I took a few videos.

It was a busy but not particularly exciting week around here, so I just have a few random shots. First up, Finn and his friend Amelia at Cottage. Amelia had accidentally fallen into the Lego box; Finn decided to join her. She has an awesome giggle.

Ezra was in full concentration mode working on the kids’ menu at Islands on Wednesday night.

I found some treasures in the boys’ laundry — it’s always an adventure.

This morning on the way to Aveson, I overheard this conversation from the backseat.

Finn [singing]: It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all …

[Pause.]

Finn: You know, it’s not a small world. It’s a big world.

Ezra: It’s a humongous world!

Finn: It’s our world.

We’ve been doing a little carpooling to Cottage this year. Today I had a full house and decided I should take a picture. What a bunch of cuties.

We got to see Jamma this weekend and the boys (and Bruce and I) were thrilled. In fact, on the way out there, Finn said, “Mommy, can you just drop me off at Jamma’s house?”

We had lunch at a local taco shop where Ezra peppered Jamma with stories and Finn chatted about the football game that was on the TV.

The boys did a little tree climbing. Finn needed some help; Jamma’s expression here mirrored my uneasiness with Finn being up in the tree.

Too short of a visit for my taste, but we get to have our longer Palm Springs weekend soon!

I’m out of order here, but Friday we had some Day of the Dead stuff going on. First, Ezra decorated a sugar skull at school — he’s very proud of it and doesn’t want anyone to touch it, lest it break.

That night we went with some friends to a Dia de los Muertos celebration in Pasadena. There were altars, dancers, crafts and activities, food, etc. Here are some pictures.

We had a great Halloween this year! We’d heard that our neighborhood is popular with the trick-or-treaters, and that is no joke! Here are the Jack-o’-Lantern and the Ghost as we started out.

The first stop was a house down the street with a couple of kids Ezra and Finn have befriended.

Ezra had a bit of hard time getting up the stairs in his costume and the pumpkin got heavy pretty quickly. Bruce carried it a lot. And sometimes he wore it.

The second house was super spooky (according to Finn) and the boys loved it.

What a cute little ghost.

After meeting up with the Goodmans, Fowlers and Carters, we hit this house on Michigan where the owner did magic tricks for the kids. As Ezra said, “That was SO cool!”

After about another block, the boys were done — Finn had stepped on his costume and ripped it, making it even harder to walk in. Ezra was tired of the heavy pumpkin. And they were both ready to start handing out candy at home. Here they are waiting for customers.

And here’s one of the many rushes.

They liked to inspect all the candy before giving it out.

We got lots of compliments on our spider and our jack-o’-lanterns. All in all a very good evening!

This year the boys wanted to take a different approach to their Halloween costumes so we took the homemade route. Inspired by his jack-o’-lantern style front teeth, Ezra wanted to be a pumpkin. Finn, originally slated to be a pirate, called a last minute audible on Saturday and decided he wanted to be a ghost.

I’ll start with Ezra’s costume. First, dismantle Finn’s old Apple Sale booth and cut it into strips.

First fitting.

Bruce pulls out all the stops — the glue gun and the clamps!

Second fitting.

Cardboard strips finished; time for the papier mache.

Ready for the spray paint. Safety first.

Second round of spray paint after first one didn’t cover.

And finally, voila!

Ezra then drew a jack-o’-lantern face.

Here’s the finished product — complete with a green cap so his head can be the stem.

And now, the ghost (a much simpler process).

First attempt just didn’t work so well.

He couldn’t keep the eye holes in the right place and didn’t like the weight of the sheet over him. We decided to go with a hood for the second try.

Much better. And even more comfortable once we added arm holes.

These boys can’t wait for trick-or-treating!

Cari and I took the kids to Hamilton Park this afternoon to ride bikes and scooters and generally just burn off some energy. When we got there we noticed that the sprinklers were on and the extreme sogginess of the field suggested they’d been on all day. The concrete area was full of water which we foolishly thought might hinder the kids’ bike/scooter riding. Not so much. Pretty soon they were mostly soaked, especially Ruby and Finney, who had chosen to sit down in the puddles.

About a half-hour later, Chapin ventured onto the field toward the sprinklers. Cari called out to him and he just cackled and kept moving toward the water. There was no use in fighting it — pretty soon all five of them were running and jumping and generally going crazy in the sprinklers. Here are some pictures.

Ten minutes later they’d all stripped down to their underwear and were warming up in the sun having a “pretend feast” with pretzels, goldfish crackers and whatever other snacks they could pilfer from our bags.

Everyone’s in various stages of colds here but on Sunday we managed to pull ourselves together enough to decorate the front porch for Halloween before we got ourselves kicked out of the neighborhood for lack of effort. It seems people take Halloween pretty seriously around here. But first, the boys needed to work on the landscaping plan. Ezra’s got it all figured out where the zip line will go.

Then, there was body art.

And finally we were ready for decorating. The plan was a big twine spider web, so Bruce started spinning.

Ezra wanted to add the spider web stuff we bought at Target.

.

Finn wanted some shade.

And finally, voila!

Now we need to get ready for what we hear will be a deluge of trick-or-treaters. I guess I better buy some more candy!

It’s hard to resist this plea, especially after a fairly difficult week, yet at first I did just that. And then Ezra pleaded with me and I gave in. Once again, I set the ground rules and they agreed. This time, Ezra wanted to make a list of the steps. Here it is.

Um, the spelling is a little hard to parse so I’ll help.

List of Mud
1. Make a desert.
2. Get the water.
3. Cook.
4. Serve.
5. Put mud sunscreen on.

And they were off.

Sadly, today’s mud day was not as successful as last time. There was lots of screaming and fighting, I think stemming from the fact that it’s a cool day and they were spraying each other with the hose.

So here’s where they are now.