Gratitude

I've always struggled with teaching Dash to be grateful for his many gifts. It may, ahem, have a wee bit to do with all the coddling and spoiling and bending to his every whim. But, hell, they're all entitled little turds at this age, aren't they? No? Just mine. Well fine.

Anyway, during this season when gratitude is at the top of everyone's' mind, we decided to do a little something to show those who sacrifice so much for us just how grateful we are.

We live in a severely fire-prone area, and our firefighters work incredibly hard all year long to keep our community safe. So the Dash & the Verlaque kids decided to make them some cupcakes as a way of saying "thanks for not letting us burn alive in our homes!"

We started out with a plan. We had fire hoses made of red licorice ropes and water made from blue sprinkles. We even  had Red Hot candies to serve as the fires (get it? Hot? Like fires? We are hilarious).Well. Things escalated rather quickly. 

Samantha made an American flag as imagined by Lisa Frank.

Lucy was pretty serious about her creations.

Here's the card they made to go with the sugar bombs. Samantha drew that firefighter in his helmet on the front. That's a campfire in the top right corner.

And Lucy did the calligraphy on the inside.

Here it is on display at the station!

And because firefighters are some of the greatest of all the humans, they graciously accepted our terrifying cupcakes and took the kids on a tour.

Look how giddy Josh was!

They even let all the kids try on the suits.

It was such a great day, and such a meaningful way to talk to the kids about thankfulness and giving back. I think we should make it a tradition (maybe with cookies next time, though).

The Running of the Dummies

The Santa Clarita 5K is always our last race of the year (after early November our schedules just go completely bananas and it gets too dark for me to run after work because I'm afraid of zombies).

This is my favorite picture of Josh running. He looks like such a total bad ass.

And here's me, looking like I'm about to die (because I was about to die). BUT, I made a new personal record--beat my next best time by 15 seconds and beat my last time for this race by more than 2 minutes (granted, the last time I ran this race was just a few weeks after my Dad had died and I hadn't trained at all but I'm still counting it) now I'm all excited to get faster next year.

But really, none of the above is as exciting as what our beloved Sharon did. About ten weeks ago she was all, "la la la, I'm going to run a half marathon." And then she fucking did. 

I made shirts for our crew that said "Go, Sharon, Go!" or "Go Mommy, Go!" (depending on who would be wearing it) and we chased her all over the route (in our cars because we're not crazy) to cheer her on. Here she is somehow managing to smile just moments after finishing. I have no idea how. Then she went home & threw a 3rd birthday party for her twins. Now that, kids, is fucking punk rock.

Smell My Feet

I've said it before & I'll say it again--our neighborhood wins at Halloween. I have photographic evidence.

Dash was Finn from Adventure Time, and Will was a lighthouse. With a fully operational light. Last year he was a red British phone booth & the year before he was a tube of toothpaste. Will is definitely one of my top ten favorite humans of all time.

I made Dash's costume and accompanying Jake the Dog. Hat pattern was from here, backpack from here, Jake from here. The t-shirt came from Target & the shorts were a pair of navy sweats that I shortened.

Uncanny, yo.

Here are some of the kids in our trick-or-treat posse.

I have no idea who this was, but he was dressed as Deadmau5. Which, what? Since when do people in our tiny little suburbia know about progressive house music?

This was my new favorite neighbors' entire Halloween display. 

Prudence & Jordan brought their octo-baby. His actual legs fit into two of the tentacles, and the rest were stuffed, so all night I was freaking out that his legs were being splayed out in every direction. Very disconcerting.

I also have no idea who these people are, but I swear to God, if I ever see them again I will give them the biggest, most surprising bear hug of their lives. (Not pictured: her leotard had a thong back.)