Sunday, November 29, 2009

Happy Thanksgivoween!!!

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I thought it was about time that I posted photos of our Halloween costumes (as promised). Yes, I realize that -except for a few lingering pieces of "reject candy" (i.e. smarties, tootsie rolls, dum dums, laffy taffy, etc.)- most of you have forgotten about Halloween by now. Well, I'm bringing it back. We're going to go on a little trip back in time to show you how Halloween went down here in the 'hood.

Disclaimer: I might have to do some fudging on the details since it has been so long and I have forgotten most of what we actually did. I will probably exaggerate and make things up. Now, if Kenta were the primary author of this blog, you would have already heard about Halloween in great detail at 10:30 p.m. on October 31. He would have covered such important topics as: what we wore, where we went, who was there, what the temperature was outside, the windspeed, barometric pressure, what time the sun set, what the trip meter was at in the car when we hit our final destination, the price of gas, our blood pressure, white blood cell count, and how many trick-or-treaters knocked on our door (oh, wait - I actually do remember that: ZERO).

I decided way back before we even had a baby that themed costumes were totally the way to go for Halloween. Naturally, I spent months thinking about a costume for three. After some brainstorming, I thought, "Yes!! I have it! We'll be Fruit of the Loom!!". Kenta, however, was far less enthusiastic about that idea and promptly shot it down (much to my dismay). So I continued to think: Alvin and the Chipmunks? The Three Little Pigs? Ariel, Sebastian, and Flounder? I just couldn't get excited about anything, until I had this idea:


ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS!!!




Thomas: "The Rock"



Group close up. (sorta). Thomas's shifty eyes and lack of mouth are hilarious in this picture. If you don't believe me, enlarge the picture. If you still don't believe me...we must just have different senses of humor or something.


As you can tell, it was way awkward trying to get a group shot when:
1) Kenta's costume was on his back
2) Kenta had to hold Thomas (otherwise the dowel rods at the top of my costume would poke Thomas in the face)
3) Some random dude at the Weather Center was taking the picture (I could have bossed him around and been really picky and made him take pictures over and over again until we got a decent one, but I didn't know him, so...whatever).

We met up with Kenta at work to take these pictures because this was like three days before his thesis defense when he was still "living" at the Weather Center. Thomas is obviously too young for real trick-or-treating, but we did attend a trunk-or-treat and managed to take no pictures (yeah...lame, I know), but we did wear our costumes a third time for - what else? - a 5k race!!

In 2007, I ran a 5k called the Monster Dash, dressed as a candy corn.

Last year I was out of town (and pregnant) for the event, so in 2009, I decided to make it a family affair. Kenta and I had made a goal this year to run a 5k together and this was pretty much our last opportunity. Naturally, I made him run it with a pair of giant cardboard scissors strapped to his back. It didn't help that some kids thought they were fairy wings, but he was a good sport about it (well...mostly, anyway) I pushed Thomas the entire 3.1 miles in the jogger whilst listening to Kenta complain about the scissors/fairy wings prohibiting him from running in a completely upright fashion. Luckily my sister, Maren, was also running the race (sans costume) and was able to document us in all of our post-race glory.


Back view. Maren's camera skillz are so amazing that it is actually almost entirely impossible to tell what the words say (it says "Runs with Scissors" haha...get it?)

This picture turned out much better. Thanks, Maren!

We finished the race in 32 minutes. Not a bad time, considering we were dressed as over-sized office supplies. Besides us, there was only one other adult racing in a costume. I'm not sure if we finished before or after Gumby did, but we chatted with him afterwards and he complimented us on our awesome outfits.

So that was our Halloween. Was it worth waiting to hear about?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Sorry, kids. Life got really busy and this little blog went by the wayside. Honestly, I didn't mean for it to happen. I had a post about college football awhile back that I didn't finish writing due to the untimely death of the 2009 OU football season. Then I went to Missouri for a week during Applesaucepalooza 2009. Then my husband neglected Thomas and me for a month while he lived at the National Weather Center finishing his thesis. Then Thomas grew teeth and decided not to take naps. Then...I can't remember. I'll just blame Kenta's thesis. it basically sucked the life out of our family for a few weeks. My creative juices were not flowing, thereby rendering me completely useless at blogging..

I've learned that blogging is a lot like flossing your teeth. You're really good and consistent at it for awhile, then you skip a day....then a week.....then a month...then you decide it's really not that important and quit altogether. You can't really see the immediate benefits of flossing. You don't really know if it's been worth your time until your dentist compliments you on your nice teeth at your check-up. The same with the blog. I put a lot of time into each post (don't ask - it's a little embarrassing how much time I spend) and wonder who actually reads it. So I get neglectful and people I didn't even know were reading it start asking me to update. I feel so loved. I solemnly swear I will never go AWOL again.

I mentioned we were busy. Kenta's been the busiest of all. He defended his thesis last week and PASSED. Huzzah! I now present to you:


Masters of the Universe


Master Yoda



Phil "Zen Master" Jackson




Master P


and the newest Master.....drumroll, please.....



.....Master Kenta


Doesn't he look so distinguished? That's what averaging 4-5 hours of sleep a night for six weeks will do to you. While Kenta was busy working on his thesis and not sleeping, Thomas was busy growing teeth and not sleeping. And, as usual, he was busy being very cute. I have pictures to prove it.

I realized on Halloween Eve that I had yet to take Thomas to a pumpkin patch for some pics. I'm a bad mom like that. Luckily there were about 4.5 pumpkins left for Thomas to pose with.

Caught by a huge gust of wind.



His hair is now long and plentiful enough to blow in the wind. Please take a moment to enlarge the picture and experience the cuteness for yourself.


I didn't have any snacks on hand, but Thomas found something else on his face to snack on. You might not want to enlarge that picture. Ewww...


Speaking of Thomas's face, here are the aforementioned teeth:

We are up to five now.

The obligatory "My Baby is So Cute in the Bathtub Picture":

( I may or may not have parted his hair that way)


And a bonus "My Baby is So Cute in the Bathtub" video:

The battery died after 20 seconds, which was extremely upsetting. He laughed for probably five minutes. It was the cutest thing ever and, of course, Kenta was at work when it happened and Thomas has not done it since.

You might remember that Halloween happened a few weeks ago. So as to not bore you with more blabber and self-indulgent Thomas pics, I will save our Halloween post for another day. But here's a preview:


to be continued.....