Midnight musing

It is after midnight here and I am awake with my toddler. He hasn't been taking naps lately, but has instead has been falling asleep around 6pm only to wake up around 10:30pm. He wakes up confused and hungry. Tonight he ate some of the cold cereal I was having for a late-night snack, some popcorn from our popcorn tin, and a bowl of what we call mush (baby cereal - yes, he still likes it). Now Ryan is passed out on the couch and I am working hard to keep my eyes focused. My contacts are barely working. William is watching Blue's Clues - one of his favorites - on On Demand. And here we have to get up at 7:30 for church at 9am. Crazy kid.

I have neglected my blog and I was starting to feel a bit guilty. I have been busy and not up to snuff health-wise. Things are getting better since I've had this week to recover. Too bad it all has to start back up tomorrow.

I have a lot of pictures to share, but I'm exhausted. Goodnight!!

Fence Frenzy and Music

Two men and the power tools that help them bond.

Though I have piles of laundry waiting, I have decided it was time to post something. Claire just came to me asking me to read a book to her. I guess this should be a short post. Ryan and I have been working like crazy to finish putting up our wood fence. We have one little section by the house and the gate to finish. In order to finish those last three feet or so, we have to tear out a fully grown Japanese Yew bush that is not wanting to be torn out. I gave up and Ryan is now going to have to work some of his magic to get it out. Then we have to figure out how to build a gate. Other than that - it's done! It's almost 200 ft of fence - we had to measure and cut every single board (almost 400 of them) in order to keep with the city building code. The fence couldn't be taller than 4 1/2 ft because we're right on the road. Anyhow, we worked for several entire Saturdays and other full days here and there. We finished Monday night in the dark and cold (thirty-something degrees outside) - my body is still trying to recover from that - I can only turn my head to the left a couple of inches. To put part of the fence in, we had to tear out part of out lovely "deck". That alone took several hours one day - no one got hurt but we did break a sledge hammer in the process.



I just made a few purchases the other day. In my single days, I would occasionally buys CDs and books. I honestly can't remember the last CD I bought for myself until two days ago. I bought the soundtrack to "Garden State" - it is a compilation of rock and folk - a lot of it indi rock. It is a fabulous CD and I am listening to it any chance I get. It's funny that I am the classically trained musician in the family, but Ryan has more classical CDs than I do. I have way more "pop" music than him. And when I write "pop", I by no means mean Brittney Spears or Celine Dion. A lot of the music I have is either classic rock (The Beatles, etc) , indi rock or indi folk rock. The classical I do have is either clarinet repertoire or romantic/modern symphonic music (Beethoven, Brahms, Copland). Ryan has mostly piano and a lot of classical and baroque symphonic music (Vivaldi, Mozart, etc). In the end, we both like each other's music. I am learning a lot of Chopin and Ryan is learning a lot about The Beatles and HEM. Good stuff.

The other purchase I made was of a DVD that was just released two days ago - the move HELP!. It's a Beatles movie made in the 60s. It's a lot of fun and has great music - I've been waiting for years for this one. It's one the kids can watch too. Can you believe I actually bought a CD and DVD in the same week??? It's rare I buy both in the same year! I never buy a CD, DVD, or book unless I absolutely love it.

Well, laundry calls. At least I have some great new music to listen to as I work!

Halloween Pictures

Here are some pictures of the kids in their costumes. The first three were taken at the ward Trunk-or-treat party last Friday night. Claire chose to be a mummy. It proved to be quite difficult to pull a mummy costumer together. Sure it would have been easy to just wrap her up on the spot and use safety pins, but her costume had to be removable so that she could put it on at school for her class Halloween party. That's what made it difficult: it had to able to come apart and easily put on.

At this point, William was very tired. He needs his "Bee" (blanket) and he starts sucking on his bottom lip

This is Claire and her class doing the Beanie Baby/Bean bag dance. It was cute.