TOTS day 2...

The lovely front desk ladies of today. Luigi, a pirate, and a cowgirl.

Even giraffes like trick or treating @ the museum.

Winnie the Pooh dressed as a vampire and protects our pumpkins.

The 3 little pigs, Farmer Luke, and Little Critter doing a Thriller Dance Party with the kiddos after the Little Critter story time today.

Super Grover! One of the best homemade costumes I've seen in a long time.

I gave some free passes to our old neighbors and they brought their son Christopher today. It was so great to see them and catch up. Christopher is getting so big. He still remembers me and still loves me. He played shy for a minute, but it wasn't long before he was taunting me and trying to get me to chase him into the tunnels. Mary got a good picture of the 2 of us together that I will post after she emails it to me. What a cutie!

2 Woodland Fairies.

The 3 Little Pigs. Straw, Sticks, and Bricks.

Monsters from the Mad Monster Lab aka the Ready Vet Go exhibit with monster dolls instead of stuffed animals.

Snow White (me) & Pinocchio (Luke). Disney characters unite!

Heather as Rainbow Brite so perfect.

2 days down and 1 more to go. Yesterday with the late start and the continuous blizzard we didn't even break the 500 mark on visitors, but today picked right back up with nearly 2,700 visitors. I'm sure tomorrow will be a record breaker since it's the weekend and things have really started to warm up around here. Most of our snow is melted right off.

Trick or Treat Street with a side of snow...

The living room window photo revisited the next morning.

I swear there used to be lots of big beautiful bushes in our yard. They were covered in pretty leaves that just started turning red.

The view from the front of our building this morning. :( No fair! nearly 2 feet of snow in the city, nearly everyone else gets a snow day, but not us.

Luckily Jesse headed out to the car with out me and scrapped her off and warmed her up. What a good guy. Reminds me of my dad.

Jesse attempting to scoop off some of the walkway. We both cleared a path behind the car, so we could get out of our parking spot this morning. We were definitely drifted in. Poor car. We wish you could stay a summer car forever, but sadly you are our only car and we live in Colorado and we don't have a garage.

The Museum van was buried too. Most cars looked like marshmallows all day and still do. Most people were smart enough to stay home and enjoy the day at home where it's warm.

A view from one of the museum's windows over looking the parking lot after they scrapped it. To bad it kept snowing all day. I'm still not sure it's stopped snowing.

A view on the museum's balcony. Please compare and contrast with yesterdays shot of nearly the same view.

With the big scary flu bug going around the museum has spared no expense in trying to stop the spread of germs. Healthy Habits stations have sprung up all over the museum in the last month. They seem to be loved by the public, because they are always being used and we've had no outbreaks of sickness, so far.

So today we decade day... Luke and Dana were real troopers and actually dressed up. Most folks didn't, because they had to face the storm. Please! I dressed up still with minor modifications to my outfit of course.

Sort of an 80s look. I was originally slated to be an 80s homecoming queen, which I am still hoping to be on Saturday for the Ideal Father's Party, but the storm had me making last minute weather adjustments to my outfit. I wore tight pants rolled up with my neon socks and funky tennis shoes from last year. I also wore some pantyhose underneath it all to keep in some warmth. I figured a dress and heals probably wouldn't work on a day like today.

My 6 bracelets annoyed me so much through out the day, but they really helped keep me in character. I also sported some dangly earrings and a big scarf wrapped in a giant bow on my head.

Peter came as Fred Flinstone. Well I guess he didn't come into the museum looking like this, but you have to give the guy props for wearing that when it was arcticly cold today.

The Monster Carnival was supposed to be outside on the plaza, but that idea was scrapped due to the weather, so they moved some of the activities inside. Like the monster bean bag toss.

Like I said very few staff dressed up, but luckily enough the front desk girls were showing their holiday spirit.

Little Critter was there to save the day. He is here all of TOTS and is supposed to be attending all the story times. Unfortunately today we didn't have any volunteers to bring him to life. Over 1/2 of them called in and enjoyed there snow day. Lucky for us we have an awesome new porter named Vanessa, who saved the day... I mean story time.

Some Monster Bats. One of the craft activities during TOTS. These are some of the examples kiddos made today.

One of my favorite costumes thus far. A mom mad this little puppy costume out of an old stuffed animal. It was hilarious, because the legs are so short and ever time he walked he waddled. The waddling made his bottom swing and his puppy dog tail wag. It was one of the cutest things ever. I actually took video of it, but my video quality is poor. I really just wanted Jesse to see what I was talking about. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

So far this little guy is my hands down winner for the cutest costume. He was a lawn gnome. He's a toddler and a total cutie. Mr. Personality to boot. The funny thing is... like his auntie said "If he wasn't wearing the hat with the beard you might just think he was a nerd." Love it!

Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow...

Jesse scraping off the car this morning. Minimal snow at the time.

The patio @ the Museum mid-day. The snow is starting to pile up.

The walkway to our apartment around 5:00pm. It's still snowing. Thank goodness someone scrapped the walk.

Even the power lines are thick with snow. It's a heavy snow and they're talking about branches on trees possibly snapping off over night.

The classic photo out our front window. It's supposed to keep snowing through the night and the morning tomorrow. Most schools were closed today and most businesses closed by 2pm. Not the museum or Jesse's work though. We did leave early than normal, but we got home by 5pm and normally we get home just before 6pm. Tomorrow is supposed to be the 1st day of the museum's Halloween celebration Trick or Treat Street. Hmm... they say we aren't opening late if we can help it, but most schools and businesses are already calling in the late start or closure. I'll be interested to see how the outdoor Monster Carnival does in 29degree weather with snow as high as the kids are tall. Wish us luck!

Crafting Costumes Continued...

Here's what the masks all started out as. I think we did a pretty good job transforming them into Day of the Dead Skulls.

Tissue flowers or tissue floor covering. You be the judge.

Floral Sombrero for Jesse's costume.

It takes roughly 10 flowers to cover the sombrero. We have 2 sombreros to cover & a million other flowers to make as decorations for the party.

The Blue mask is finally finished. When I purchased the masks there were only 3 and we of course needed 4. Jesse and I drove all the way to Arvada in hopes of hunting down the final mask, but returned empty handed. Imagine that all the Hobby Lobbies being sold out of make your own masks just before Halloween. Anyhow we completely lucked out when a co-worker of mine told me they lived near a Hobby Lobby and they wouldn't mind checking. Bingo! Luke saved the day. As soon as the paint and glue are dry we'll be shellacking it, so it's nice and shiny and all ready for the party next weekend. I can't wait to take pictures of all the guys in their get up, but unfortunately the party starts @ 5pm and I will be at work until 9pm. Hopefully the guys will all still be in costume and the costumes will still be intact by the time I get there with the camera.

*Either way there will be lots and lots of Halloween pictures to come.

Costumes...

I preparation for Halloween our living room has become an explosion of craft supplies. We've taken on the project of making hundreds maybe even thousands of tissue paper flowers in different sizes. We are also making the entire Ideal Fathers' their own masks. See the guys are having a party, but had no idea what to dress up as. They were leaning towards a group costume, but had no consensus on what to wear. Over the weekend Jesse and I were brainstorming and I came up with the idea of dressing up in the Day of the Dead theme. They all loved the idea, but then we had to figure out how to implement it. Basically everyone is on their own to figure out the outfits they will be wearing, but Jesse and I have took it upon ourselves to make all 4 masks. Here are the beginning stages of a few of the masks. More pictures to come once we have them all 4 finished. It's going to be pretty awesome. Each guy is dressing in a Hispanic cowboy theme. Jesse will be wearing a sombrero with flowers, a poncho, jeans, and some cowboy boots (which are Ralph Lauren & we scored them for a deal @ the Arc Thrift store). I think we're all excited to see who they will turn out.

Misc. Pictures...

My glass piece from the glass class my cousin Amanda & I did together while she was visiting us. It's not the best, but it's looks really beautiful when the sun shines through. I'm going to get a suction cup and hang it in our kitchen window.

This is Flat Stanley, for those of you who don't know... Flat Stanley is a character from a children's book. He's a little boy who gets flattened, folded up and mailed to visit family members in far off places. This book has become widely popular over the years, so elementary teachers everywhere use it as an assignment. The kids make their own Flat Stanleys and mail them all over the country or world. The museum gets it's fair share of Stanelys, so we try to go all out. In the directions it asks you to write a note about where Stanley visited and attach at least 1 photo. Well at the museum we make a book just about Stanley and his adventures with us. This photo is of the most recent Stanley we've received. He's taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. My personal favorite was the Flat Anna I received from Chelsea Bright (my dad's friend's daughter). I have tons of pictures of Flat Anna and me hanging out at the museum. We played on the playground together, played basketball, hid in the tunnels, cooked, went to the toddler program, and chalked on the sidewalk together. It was a blast.

Me posing in front of the Earth Balloon @ STEMapalooza on Friday. STEM is a new initiative in the Colorado area trying to promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math... thus STEM. The museum participated last year and we brought some prototype machines from our new bubbles exhibits which should be opening in Spring of 2010. This year we brought our 26foot tall Earth Balloon. This balloon is used in our outreach programs. We take it to schools to teach kids about geography and different cultures. It's pretty impressive and proved to be the hottest photo op @ STEMapalooza this year.

Our car's first dusting of snow. Of course it had to be on my day to drive. Saturday morning bright and early it's snowing and 17 degrees out. Yikes! What a vast difference a week makes, because yesterday it was 40 some degrees in the morning and beautiful all day. Today it's supposed to be nearly 80 degrees.

Our spice rack is complete. Well for now anyway. While in Houston we made a quick side trip to the IKEA to find more spice containers for our fridge. This has helped clear out an amazing amount of cupboard space in my tiny kitchen. YEAH! Plus they are nice decorative cover for the fridge and so much easier to access.

Jesse and the rest of the Fathers playing at Leela's last month. The show was pretty rough since the sound system was severely lacking and several of the guys including Jesse were feeling slightly under the weather. They've had a couple shows since this one that were vast improvements. They keep plugging away at practices 2 times a week. They're working on doing some simple recordings by themselves and hope to have them done before November. Their next big show is @ Mike P's (the drummer) Halloween Party. I'm hoping I will be able to stay awake to see them play. After 3 days 14hours long being in different costumes for work I may need to call it a night before the real party begins. I've already finished my 3 costumes and I can not wait to take pictures for everyone to see. Today we came up with a last minute idea for Jesse and I'm hoping we go out and get supplies to make it. This is going to be a really fun Halloween.

Painting pottery...

These are pictures of the chip & dip dish I made for Jesse's sister's family as a sort of house warming gift. I wanted to make them something, but wasn't sure what to do. I first thought a vase would be nice, but who always has flowers to fill a vase and I didn't know the colors of her new house. Plus she's got two busy toddlers, breakable vases probably not a good idea. I went for something more functional. I tried to incorporate all the colors of the rainbow and yet keep it more natural. I went with a giant sun in the sky and some pretty purple flowers growing out of the green grass. I hope they like it and it's useful to them. The kids sure seem to love chips, so I figure that's a good sign. It's also a cute piece to take to backyard bbqs at the neighbors. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.