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.

Volunteer jobs...

Call me crazy, but I can't seem to get enough time helping others. It's been strange having this big break from my 2nd job with Catholic Charities, but I know it will be starting back up again soon. In the mean time I have been enjoying my time off and getting started with my new Volunteer Job @ Bridgeway. I may have told you all this before, but Bridgeway is an amazing organization that's a support and home for pregnant teens and teen moms. I started the intensive volunteer application process long ago and finally on Thursday was able to get to go meet the girls. Every month they have a Thank You writing class where they send personalized thank yous to everyone who has donated to them in the last month. I and another woman interested in being a bridger, sort of like a big sister or a support system for the girls, went over to the house to visit with the girls during their class. It was interesting to see. 11 girls live in the house with a house mom there to over see everyday activities. 4 girls have babies, 1 is due on the 20th of this month, another on Nov 3, and the rest are all between 4-6 months along. Some of the girls seemed wise beyond their years, because they've had to grow up fast. While others seem to have no clue what they were doing. I unfortunately wasn't instantly matched up with a bridgee, but I was told that the process can take a couple weeks. I will keep at it and Bridgeway will help me find the right girl to help. In the mean time I am completely satisfied with working with those adorable little babies. I got to play with a slobbery little 7months old who is teething and learning how to crawl. He was a real sweety. I also got to hold a very tiny 3 month old boy, who was the spitting image of his mom. They were all nice girls and the babies were, so sweet. I can not wait to really get going on this volunteer job. Since I can't come home for the holidays this year I plan on spending Christmas helping out the girls at Bridgeway. Every year they have a giant holiday party for the girls, their babies, and all the former graduates of the program. I can't wait to help share in this amazing organizations efforts to support these girls in bettering their & their children's lives. And honestly who doesn't love some good quality baby cuddling time?

Coincidences...

On Friday afternoon Jesse came home sick. He's never sick, so that was a shocker. I thought for sure he would cancel his show which was slated for 9:30pm that same night, but oh no not him. He insisted on going after sleeping the afternoon away in a medically induced coma like state. We show up to the cafe/bar named Leela's (which was my great grandmother's name and is one of my favorite girl names) around 9pm. We are the 1st ones there. As Jesse went up to the bar to get a drink I take a seat and start to scope out the place. I see a guy I remember from the Art Institute sitting at a table talking with 2 other people. I don't recognize the girl, but the other guy... You have to be kidding me? It was my old friend Elliot, who I haven't seen in ages. If any of you remember back when I first moved to Denver Monique, Elliot, and I were almost inseparable. He was a great friend, but as time went on and we all started on our separate paths we sort of lost touch. The last time I saw him was nearly 2yrs ago when Jesse and I 1st started dating. I had hoped to see him last year at a mutual friend's wedding, but I was told he was traveling in South America with his sister. I assumed he didn't recognize me and I didn't want to interrupt his conversation with friends, so I decided not to go bother him. Eventually he made his way over to me and said he had been staring at me across the cafe for a good 5minutes trying to decide if it was me or not. The short hair threw him off for a minute, but he said he knew it was me by my eyes. We chatted it up for a few minutes getting caught up on the last couple years of each others lives. He asked me if I had talked to Moe recently and I said not recently, but.... I didn't tell him this... I did text her as soon as I recognized him and asked her if I should go talk to him or not. He said next time she comes to town we should all get together for dinner. Great I'll mention it to her. I pull out my phone and there's a text from Moe. I'm coming to town tomorrow and staying with my sister for 2 days for a class for work. Uh Elliot? Would you like to go to dinner with Moe and I tomorrow night. Sure thing. How absolutely random was that? If Jesse had stayed home sick, I wouldn't bumped into Elliot, and texted Moe, and we would have never all had dinner together to catch up and reminisce about old times. Crazy coincidences! and the fact that the cafe/bar shared the name of my great grandmother and that I had never been there before, but apparently everyone I know has hung out there a million times was just too weird.

Saying goodbye & getting ready for Church...

Saying Goodbye to my new friend Aiden. He was all grins as always.

Taking a family photo for Brendon, Dan, Israel, and London.The kids were not really into cooperating. Good thing Uncle Jared was there to make funny noises behind me.

Jared, Brendon, and Jesse.

Brittani, Jared, and baby Aiden.

Jesse and I getting ready for church.

Jared and Jesse holding up Izzy. He was being a good boy sitting patiently waiting to pose in all the photos.

Playing with my new friend Aiden before church. I think he liked my necklace more than he liked me, but that's ok.

London taking on the cell phone before church.

Izzy posing nicely in his chair.

Brendon and the kids.

Miss London being grumpy, because mom put a headband on her. She ripped it out seconds before I took this picture.

On Sunday morning we all got up and had breakfast together before Jared, Brittani, and Aiden had to head home. The rest of us got all gussied up for Church. Of course we had to take that time to take photos of everyone in their nice clothes. Some were more willing participants than others.

Birthday boys...

The big point of our trip besides getting a way from it all was to celebrate Jesse and Jared's birthdays together. This was a tradition in their family and the boys haven't been together on their birthday in years, so this was really special. We all enjoyed Brendon's wonderful seafood dinner and then Brittani's delicious chocolate cake for dessert. Even little Aiden got to try a taste of the chocolate topping. Mmm... Mmm... Good!