Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Happy Halloween from my three Zs!!

My sweet chickpeas really surprised me this year with their Halloween costume choices.

Zayd wanted to be a werewolf. I tried to convince him to retrofit his grey wolf costume from last year but it turns out that werewolves are always brown. (So days Zayd.) We debated some ideas for fixing up last years getup but in the end, Zayd really need a scary mask. Like a really scary mask. He's been so funny this whole Halloween season. When we walk past people's yards he comments, "they put up decorations and didn't even try to be creepy!", in his most annoyed and exasperated voice. While I was in Baltimore, Sam and Zayd raided Target and acquired zombie arms that we have digging out from our yard, a giant spider that's hanging on our front door, webs, and a five foot long snake skeleton that Zayd treats like a stuffed animal. He's into it. My big guys have watched nearly the entire 1990s series Goosebumps all month long and the more recent movie more than once. Zayd diligently kept a calendar and marked off each day on our way to Halloween.

Zahra wanted to be Poison Ivy and honestly I had to Google it. She's a Batman villain with bright red hair and a green jumpsuit. She shoots ivy out of her hands as weapons. She asked that I sew her a jumper just like last years Lisa Frank leopard costume but green. When we went to Joann's we discovered that they had a green shiny spandex that was both leopard and reptile printed. While the animal motifs don't quite make sense with regard to Poison Ivy authenticity, they are 100% Zahra. So we got the fabric, whipped up an easy jumper this weekend and sewed fresh vines (passion fruit vines from our yard) onto her costume today. Mostly, every leaf had been ripped off before we started the candy hunt but we try.

Ziyan was the funniest. He has a couple Sandra Boynton dinosaur books that he LOVES and a stuffed Brachiosaurus fossil (from Nani) that he occasionally asks for and hugs around the neck. He especially loves to snuggle the saurapod while reading Dinosaur Dance. He's my only one year old to ever request a stuffed toy and it's beyond adorable. So, I thought a dinosaur would be perfect. I ordered something premade because... I've got the kids. It came and when we showed it to him he ran crying. Ran. With real tears. Both I, the kids, and Joe have made a concerted effort to get him comfortable with this outfit. It hung visible in his room everyday. We were all always running around in the hat, and Zahra had even been known to don the entire 12-18mo costume and show Z3 it isn't scary. This week he finally requested to wear the hat for about 3 seconds. We all made a big show of clapping for him and crossed our fingers for Halloween. He was none too happy with putting the belly on today but he didn't take it off. When I put the Hat on he freaked out but a lollipop soon solved the problem.

Check out these adorables. Each kid, including Ziyan loved handing out candy and trick-or-treating. And because I'm a math Mom I made the big kids graph their candy when they got home.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

My Z-ful weekend (the five day kind)

Sam was out of town for the last 5 days so the kids and I have had a myriad of opportunities to hang out together and accomplish tasks. We went to soccer, we went to gymnastics, we went to Dr Cevey's office to discover Zayd has strep throat again. We did brunch. We went to Siclovia and play dates and school and the Fall Festival. We all attended Zahra's parent teacher conference. One of us ran eight miles on Thursday. We went to the bank, the plant nursery, Target, and Joann Fabric, twice. I taught Zayd how to use eBay and I'm sure it was a mistake but I'm trying to educate him that buying the one Pokemon card he wants for $3 is better than buying the 60 card pack he doesn't want to get the one card for $14.  (Cleaning one card is also easier than 60.) We stayed up late and watched the Astros defeat the Yankees in Game Seven to make it to the World Series. We did sensory play, we had spelling tests, we did puzzles and we each wrote a book. I drew 100 Pokemon. Maybe 200. I read Ziyan just as many books. ("Firetruck!" "Police car!" "Duck!", Etc) Zahra told me repeatedly how much she loves being with me and I gave thanks to receive such love. I promised her that, since she's my daughter, we have a lifetime of awesome adventures to plan for. One day, we were having so much fun, we frequently discovered that we'd forgotten to use the restroom or eat a meal the way we normally would. As quickly as we discovered such emergencies, we fixed them!

Surprise, surprise, we were the most out and about four people in the world and I'm completely exhausted. But I think my kids had fun and I had a great time being with them. I let the big kids sleep in my bed all weekend and it was so snuggly and wonderful. Plus it enabled me to figure out that Zayd, who never complained, had a very high fever.

Here's a very few pictures from the whirlwind weekend we put together. Mostly the are photos of the awesome 100% student produced Fall Festival. Small hands of kindergarten through third graders made carnival games using force and motion. You'll see Zayd showing off the cool cardboard cell phone he got as a carnival game prize.  I'm glad I was able to take off work to attend Fall Festival at my kids awesome school. I'm also grateful to have kids who can rally for all the adventure I bring their way and then snuggle down to watch sports.

ZiZi got a big boy haircut

Oh my gosh! I finally did it. Sam has been insisting that Ziyan get a real haircut for a while and it seems like there are lots of people with opinions about it. (For the record, Nana is in the "needs a haircut camp " and Joe was in the "please don't cut his hair camp"...with me!)

I somehow remain still a little sad about it and completely in love with how he looks. He's just the best looking little guy I've ever seen.

Enjoy the before and after.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Zahra skipped school

And assigned herself some writing work.

Here we present "Zahra's Book About ABCs"

This little lady just tickles me pink!

(First you'll find the entire song... Then "The ABC is the awfbet (alphabet) and I luv the awfbet. Thank you, bye bye."

Zayd's Wiggly Teeth

For most of September, Zayd had two wiggly bottom teeth. His new adult tooth seemed to be pushing and had already created a gap long before his baby tooth fell out. He had one just naturally fall out after about three weeks while listening to a story in class. He reports that he heard it and then felt something in his mouth. Ha. I wish I could have been there. For posterity, I've saved the tooth in my earrings' drawer, which I presume is completely normal. I can't get over how tiny this little tooth is.

Here is Zayd and his little brother and sister enjoying a celebratory trip to lick ice cream.

Our lucky man also got two visits from the tooth fairy and Joe even saw her when she showed up in the middle of the day. ;) Zayd is the luckiest boy in the world.