PIXIES...

No, not that kind of Pixies.

This kinds of PIXIES. The one with Frank Black or Black Francis as the singer/guitarist. The alternative rock group from the 80's.
They're Jesse's favorite band.

Kim Deal, bassist and back up vocals, she was awesome.

We were in the 2nd row.

Kim waving to all the fans. The Fillmore was packed to the rafters.

Waving good bye to all the fans. This is when Jesse and I started to sneak out to the side. It was getting really hot in there and there wasn't really room to move. At one point I started to feel like I was going to pass out, so we snuck over to the side near a door. I sat down caught my breath and enjoyed the cool breeze for a minute before we headed out. We left during the encore performance, so we wouldn't get trampled in the mass crowd.

All the PIXIES together again. Taking a bow for their adoring fans.
You can check out their myspace and listen to their music by clicking on the link under this photo.

In September I heard the Pixies were coming and I knew I had to get Jesse tickets for his birthday. Only problem was I had already bought him presents and a trip to Texas to visit his family. I figured what the heck I would buy them anyway and tell them they were his early Christmas present. Luckily my parents stepped in and didn't know what to get him, so they helped me with the extra cost of buying the tickets. Jesse was pretty excited to get them. He's seen the Pixies perform once before, but still you can never see your favorite band enough and they are getting old. Who knows how much longer they'll be a band. Thanks again Mom & Dad!

From 1 holiday to the next...

My witches hat from Halloween (seen on Felipe's head in the photo) was a little flimsy after years of being stored in a box, so I bought a foam cone from the floral section of Hobby Lobby. As you can see in the photo it helped the hat keep that classic pointy witch hat shape.

I had no idea what I was going to do with said cone after Halloween, but I quickly came up with a plan after browsing the Hobby Lobby holiday section yesterday. I bought some ribbon, 2 berry picks, a small wooden plaque, and a mini tree topper. This is what I came up with. Voila! A Christmas Tree. I'm not completely finished fastening all the pieces down really securely yet though. I think I'm going to give it to Jesse's grandma for a Christmas present, since the woman collects holiday decorations (for every holiday) like a squirrel hordes food. Unfortunately we can't keep it, because we just don't have the room. We did however buy ourselves a mini-Christmas tree and ornaments that will be residing on our Kitchen table for all of December. I can't wait!

Arts Week...

Jesse's original sketches for the pen guy.

On night at the museum these Mexican Dancers came and performed in our theater to a packed house might I add. I snuck these pictures from the crowded entry way to the theater.

Mexican Dancers performing @ the Children's Museum on Night @ the Museum.

Jesse and I out on the town for 1st Fridays. Every 1st Friday of the month the art galleries in Denver stay open late for free. We've gone out and poked around at them before, but this Friday one of Jesse's friends had some paintings in a gallery in our neighborhood. We stopped by to check it out and then went for dinner and drinks with a few friends.

This Friday was the kick off to Denver Arts Week. This year they changed the Night @ the Museum event to Saturday night, bummer for me. I took Saturday day off and went into work around 4:30pm. For the Night at the Museum Event all Museum's all over Denver stayed open from 5-10pm for free to the public. They have a free shuttle service that drives you around to all the museums, so you can get the full Denver cultural experience. It's pretty cool. If you remember last year I helped plan the crafts for all the programs and got clay donated for our clay room. This year I did pretty much the same thing only we have more programs to plan for and I got over 600lbs of clay donated (double what we got last year). I'll have to post some pictures of the clay room as soon as I get some. I believe we served over 1,000 visitors on Saturday night, but I don't have the official numbers yet. I did have to play bouncer for a while since we had lots of adults coming to the museum wanting to play sans the kiddos. Yeah, that's not aloud. No Adults in the museum with out kids. We did give them tours if they were interested, but then we promptly sent them packing.

Jesse's work has commissioned him, so to speak, to draw up a character they can use as sort of brand recognition. They seem to be obsessed with Blue (the K-mart light bulb), but they want a pen. I'm not sure I understand why, because the company is called Red Book Solutions but who am I to judge. They are going to pay him $30 an hour for his time, plus the rights to the character. He's been pretty excited about this. He works on the drawings every night. He's got tons of sketches, but the ones above are the only ones I could get to upload right. When he finishes it and they buy it from him I'll make sure to pass on the finished rendering. He's doing a really great job when you compare his product to Blue, especially when you hear that Blue was developed @ PIXAR.

Dinner & a good night's Sleep...

I blinked. Let's try that again.

What is Moe doing? Let's try that again.

Great now she's laughing, because Jesse is laughing at how difficult it is to take our picture. Let's try it one more time.

Finally that one worked. I think Michon was over Monique & I ruining the pictures. Sorry Mish!

Last night we headed over to Pho 79 a Vietnamese restaurant that long long ago Moe, Ben, I all had lunch at. Moe & Ben were in town visiting since Monique had another hair class in Denver. They're always so busy when they get to town, so it was nice to be able to enjoy a tasty dinner date with them and Moe's twin sister Michon. Sorry we were party poopers and went home early instead of going out with you guys after dinner. It's been a long long week for both of us and we were pretty much exhausted. Maybe next time. Besides, I had to get home to form my new mouth guard. Yep! You heard me right. I have recently been informed that I have started to occasionally grind my teeth at night. I blame the stress and the other Wilsons, who apparently do this too. Thanks guys! It has been annoying Jesse and making my jaw occasionally hurt, so I figured I should do something about it. Especially since Jesse went out and got some breath right strips for his occasional snoring, so I wouldn't be annoyed. We boiled it down and molded it to my teeth after dinner, but it didn't seem to fit right. We reformed it and redid the fitting process. Thank goodness the 2nd time was the charm, because I wasn't about to go spend another $30 on something that may or may not work. I wore it to bed last night and it was a little weird, but I was so tired that I quickly got over the feeling. I think the weirdest part of the whole thing was waking up this morning and taking it out. I can't get over how odd it feels to be able to fully close my jaw and bite my teeth together. It's almost like the weird obsession you get with rubbing your tongue over your teeth after getting your braces off. All my fellow former braces wearers will know what I'm talking about. Bizarre! But... I did sleep great and my jaw doesn't hurt. I guess this will be a new nightly routine for me. I really hope I grow out of this phase. I hear it can be stress related which I fully believe mine is, so I'm planning on taking on some new stress relief techniques before bed time in hopes of relieving the tension. Rubbing Lavender oil on my neck and jaw, taking a hot bath, stretching (maybe doing Pilate's or Yoga), etc... This should be interesting. Wish me luck!

Kolache Addiction...

While we were in Texas Jesse's brother-in-law introduced us to the wonderful world of Kolaches when he bought a variety pack and served them to us for breakfast. They were oh so tasty and from that point on we were sort of hooked. Jesse more so than me, but I do love them too. Apparently they are big in Texas, but we had never heard of them before. Fast forward to just over a week ago. I was driving down Wadsworth Ave not more than 2 miles from our house when I spotted a Kolache Factory. I of course called Jesse right away and we decided that some day we would go there for breakfast. Well we did on Saturday before I had to head to work and apparently Jesse was so thrilled with his polish sausage Kolache breakfast that we had to go again this morning. Don't worry this will not become an everyday experience, but boy are they ever good. While doing a little research online I discovered that the Kolache Factory is a Texas based chain that has just recently started to spread it's reach through out the US. There is one in Colorado (close to home, yes!), one in Kansas, and one in Indiana while the rest currently reside in the state of Texas. Apparently Montgomery, Minnesota is known as the Kolache Capital of the World even though these treats are of Eastern European descent. For those of you who are curious Iowans I also found out that the Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa holds a big Kolache Festival the 1st full weekend in June. I highly recommend checking them out. Per my mom's suggestion I think I am going to look into making my own. Hopefully mine are half as good as the real deal. The local Kolache Factory also got some big props from our friends at Westword. Check it out... Kolache Factory Lakewood, Co.

IF Halloween Party...

Hanging out in the garage.

Mask after math. They guys played in their masks for the most part, but the masks got a little hot while rocking out, so they were lovingly ditched on the equipment.

Amber (Adam, the guitar player's girlfriend) brought their dog Isabelle with them to the party. Apparently earlier in the night she was decked out in her shark costume, but she was locked up in her kennel when I arrived, so she had lovingly ditched her costume too.

Amber and I were the 80's Ladies.

Jesse screaming away. I was so glad they provided ear plugs to the crowd. It was a tight space and Ideal Fathers are quite loud.

Crowd shot.

Adam's shiny head and Mike P rocking the drums.

Mike K in all his masked glory.

Group shot... sort of.

more screaming

Finally a clear shot of Mike P in his masked glory.

Shannon & Joel the best zombies at the party.

80's Homecoming Queen & The Day of the Dead Red Skeleton. I wish we had a more full body shot of our costumes, but unfortunately we don't. I wore black leggings with lace on the bottom, my amazing metallic lace covered 80's heals, the turquoise dress, black beaded necklace, black dangle earrings, my black lace fingerless gloves, a million bracelets, my sequined cover up, and the tiara complete with sash & flowers. I got lots of congratulations from other ladies at the party. Jesse wore the poncho with bullets, his sombrero covered in tissues flowers, a black t-shirt, blue jeans, and the awesome red Ralph Loren Cowboy boots that we scored from the ARC thrift store up the road. It's hard to tell in any of these pictures, but Jesse and the guys added LED lights to their masks, so when they wore them they were back lit with the colors of the mask. Jesse's was back lit red, Adam's was back lit blue, Mike K's was yellow, and Mike P's was green. It made them pretty awesome looking, but the effect was a little to hard to photograph.

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween.

TOTS day 3...

The fearless volunteers dressed up as crayons.

My favorite little brother and sister combo costume. They danced with me during the Monster Dance Party after story time.

Felipe looks shocked. He stole my hat, so I took his picture.

Bonnie as a Devil. She's the office manager and one of my favorite people.

We call her the office mom.

Dana the swimmer, me as a witch, and Mallory as Little Bo Peep.

The swimmer, the cowboy/sheriff, and Bo Peep

Gwen & Kim selling those memberships.

Cole as the Scarecrow. He's Bonnie's teenage son, so comes to volunteer a lot. He needed a costume, so I busted out Jesse's old Scarecrow costume from 2yrs ago.

The snow is melting the sun is out and the carnival has been restored

to outdoors where it belongs.

Amy & me as witches.

Me and my friend Little Critter after our story time together.

Compare and contrast... This is what Jesse had to scrap off the car this morning... minimal frost. Big difference form 2 days ago.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

The day is nearly over and we're almost to the 4,000 mark. Woo Hoo! Go Team CMD!