jack the pumpkin king

the moment you've all been waiting for! this year, mr. jack dressed up as jack skellington from the nightmare before christmas.

he looked pretty much adorable in his outfit. [even more adorable? costume's price tag. those are old navy pj's and i made the hat. $15 for the whole thing.]

last night we went to our ward's trunk or treat and he clutched that little pumpkin all night long. he walked from car to car and let people throw candy in, but really he had no idea what was going on. then mom & dad got to eat all the candy! this is a brilliant tradition.

[jack and emery, bff's: ]

if you're just joining us, FYI: jack will be required to wear a jack-related costume until he's 12 and/or realizes he can pick whatever he wants. last year was a jack-o-lantern.

for some reason, halloween is always kind of a bummer for me. i always get REALLY excited about it and then our actual plans turn out totally lame. [see also: 2010 with a 3-month-old / 2009 / 2008] this year, our apartment complex threw a party on thursday night so the three of us dressed up -- jack: skeleton / me: witch / b: ghostbuster -- and showed up to find we were the ONLY adults dressed up. totally awesome. after that, b said he wasn't dressing up anymore this weekend. hence the lame cat ears / ute fan attire we are wearing. sigh. better luck next year.

halloween prep

it's halloween weekend! yay. b and i carved our first pumpkin as a married couple last night [ok, i drew the face, he did most of the hard work] and i have the seeds baking right this minute. we also tried to watch hocus pocus ["let's light the sucker and see the old broads." // "say whatever you want, just don't breathe on me!"] but both got bored 20 minutes in. sad, maybe tomorrow we'll try again.

jack got into the halloween spirit by covering his body with spooky stickers from grammie. too funny. [p.s. should i be worried about that giant gap between his two front teeth? granted, i DID have completely jacked up -- no pun intended -- teeth AND wore braces/retainer for 7 years but i'm really really hoping he didn't inherit those genes from me.]

last week, i threw a DIY halloween party -- a night of witchCRAFT, get it? -- for some crafty ladies here in seattle. my partner, marie from make & takes, is the best sidekick ever. read more about the party on my stationery blog.

so basically, i feel like it's been halloween for two weeks straight already, and it's not even here for two more days!! oy. come back on monday for a shot of our greatest jack-related costume yet.

canada eh

to celebrate our anniversary, we headed up to vancouver this weekend. to clarify: the THREE OF US went to vancouver this weekend. this is pretty much how jack felt about the whole thing:

until he was about a year old, i was all about taking the jackal with us everywhere. dinner, shopping, road trips, whatever. then he became mobile and i realized non-kid date nights were an essential for my sanity. for some reason that didn't translate over into the travel category until this past weekend. traveling with an opinionated toddler is HARD. i'm not saying we'll never take him places again, but i am saying this: no more kids will show up in our anniversary dinner pictures from now on. :)

anyway, canada was awesome! we'd never been before and i was especially excited about the border crossing. they asked us all these hard questions like "what do you do?" and "why are you going to canada?" and i felt like if we answered wrong we'd be detained in border-town jail [which is probably a lot like disneyland jail but way less fun]. luckily we made it! here's what the washington/british columbia border looks like in case you wondered:

vancouver is just a 3-hour drive from seattle, no time zone changes or language barriers or anything. plus, come on, it's canada -- the u.s.'s quiet little brother to the north. right? not really. i was a little surprised at how culture-shocked i felt as soon as we reached the city. vancouver felt more like frankfurt than seattle. it took a little getting used to.

friday we checked into our hotel, drove through stanley park, and tried to find dinner. starting a romantic anniversary weekend off in a foreign land is a lot more fun without a screaming starving one-year-old in the backseat. we were all a liiiiittle tense that evening. luckily, we ended up at a cute thai place, hit up a safeway for a half-gallon of whole milk afterward and made it back to the hotel by bedtime.

we stayed at the westin bayshore, right in downtown on coal harbour, and it rocked. they gave jack a little "kids club" backpack filled with treasures at check-in, upgraded us to a suite [for a small fee, but we'd booked on priceline so it was still a smokin deal] AND sent up a complimentary cheese plate our first night there. westin? definitely a do-again.

this was the view from our balcony:

saturday we went to breakfast and then checked out granville island. they have awesome shops and a cool farmers market, sort of like pike place but smaller. so many fun things to see, including dessert of course.

we went back to the hotel for naptime. i got to read on the balcony, take my own little nap, spend time with b -- it was glorious. once the kiddo woke up, we went for a long walk on the seawall overlooking the harbour.

it was amazing and gorgeous and probably my favorite part of the trip. we collected leaves, pet (petted?) dogs, talked to strangers along the path. we admired boats, seaplanes, ducks and city skylines. jack ran and jumped and threw rocks. it was perfect.

the leaves there were AMAZING. british columbia in the fall is just as incredible as everyone says. here's another picture i snapped on the street leading to our hotel:

that night we went out for our anniversary dinner at cardero's, which consisted of us trying to keep jack quiet and happy while also trying to enjoy our amazing meal. it was a little rough. but hey, at least it's documented:

having the monkey around wasn't all bad. i always love spending time with my little family, and i quite liked the quiet time that was built in to our day because of him -- it ended up being a pretty relaxing trip, which was just what the doctor ordered. sightseeing + relaxing = the best kind of vacation.

plus, jack looks really cute when he dances in puddles. i love this kid.

this morning, after checking out we went to church in a nearby meetinghouse [being mormon is great because you can find sunday services pretty much anywhere you go]. then we grabbed lunch and headed for the border, making it home to a sunny seattle by dinnertime. all in all, a great anniversary weekend.

FIVE!

today is our 5th wedding anniversary!

i was super nervous to get married. like, i spent part of the morning of october 20 2006 trying to talk myself out of running away. not quite sure why, since every day since then has been totally perfect. (with the exception of a few killer fights. eh. who doesn't have those, am i right?) i'm really glad i didn't pull a runaway bride.

b makes me laugh every day, and that's all i ever wanted when i used to imagine my future husband. well, not true, i also wanted a really handsome husband with good teeth. score! got that too.

five whole years. i really, really love you, b.

october 20, 2006 / 2007 / 2008 / 2009 / 2010

autumn weekend

friday night b and i had date night! i loooove date night. seriously. i think a weekly kid-free night should be mandatory for all parents. this week, we went to the seattle symphony.

they did a "sci fi at the pops" program, hosted by jonathan frakes of star trek fame. the orchestra played soundtracks from some of our favorite movies: ET, ghostbusters, independence day, star wars, star trek. it was so much fun. we also got dessert at gelatiamo...mmm.

then saturday, we went to a pumpkin patch! this is so much better than the way we got pumpkins growing up in southern california, which usually involved a grocery store. we went to an actual farm and picked a pumpkin right off the vine.

we saw farm animals, drank hot apple cider, took a wagon ride, ran through the dirt. or, fell in the dirt. jack couldn't quite figure out the whole walking-through-vines thing. but it was fun anyway!

such a fun harvesty weekend. washington keeps getting better!

get ready.

i haven't blogged in over a week! where does the time go? oh yeah, most of it gets sucked up by a certain adorable one year old, his handsome daddy, the new season of parks + rec, some play dates, some super fun projects, etc etc -- or, in other words, life. i'd been debating catching up with a zillion posts, but decided to just do it in one huge shebang. so here we go!

a. WEATHER & STUFF

it's been rainy + cloudy + gloomy for a few weeks now, with only brief appearances from the sun. i'm totally ready to embrace this, and we've been doing so thanks to the fireplace, homemade soup, snuggling w/ blankets on the couch, sweaters & scarfs, etc. BUT sometimes i start to really miss the sun. then out of nowhere we have a day like yesterday -- blue skies, sunshine, crisp fall air. it was amazing. washington is gorgeous. [however i've already rescheduled a family photo shoot FIVE TIMES (no exaggeration) due to inclement weather, so i'd really love to get a sunny weekday. is that asking too much?]

b. JACK

my favorite topic of course :) this kid is getting better every day. he understands what i say and i can't get over how amazing that is. you say "where is your ear?" and he points to his ear. you say "let's go outside!" and he brings you his shoes. you say "can you bring me the remote?" and he walks clear across the room, grabs the remote, and brings it back to you. you start cutting strawberries and he sees it and signs "please" to you from his high chair. [granted, it's not exaaactly the correct sign, but it's close enough.] life with a one year old is more miraculous and fun every single day. i am SO lucky to be with him each day and watch his little brain develop.

plus he's got some pretty kick-A rainboots :)

c. OUTINGS

last weekend we stayed close to home, watching the general conference of our church. yes it was 8 hours long [10 hours long for b] but there is NOTHING i'd rather have been doing. my soul soaked up every word and every song and i loved it. all the inspiration + motivation i need for the next six months was right there. [and did you watch two brothers??]

but anyway. between sessions we snuck out and visited the salmon days festival, the biggest thing to hit issaquah every year. or so i'm told. basically it was a bunch of artisans & food vendors, and these cute little tap dancing ladies:

jack was obviously thrilled by the whole thing. mostly he just liked the bites of elephant ears that we snuck him.

the whole festival happens because of, obviously, salmon. every fall the issaquah creek fills up with ginormous salmon trying to swim upstream. or, something. i'm not really clear on the whole thing, but i DID get to see some salmon!

the actual salmon sighting was a few days before the festival -- jack & i went to check it out on a little play date with friends. [YES! it's true, i am making friends!!] here's jack with his new friend rose. and yes, if you're wondering, i drew the titanic connection the day i met rose's mom. JACK AND ROSE!! meant to be.

we went on another random sunny day. i miss the sun. look how much we're squinting! ha.

yesterday we got to tour our local fire house at a community open house. jack has a little fire truck that he loves to push everywhere, so i thought maybe he'd connect the REAL fire truck with his toy...but alas, he did not. wasn't too impressed with the whole thing and even made me wear his hat.

d. CELEBRITY

i hung out with one of my idols, grace bonney, at a private craft night + book signing in seattle last week. i was reallllly excited. read more about it on my stationery blog.

and that's a wrap. hopefully i'll blog a lot sooner this time around :) thanks for making it to the end!

two brothers

last friday night, b and i had a real live date night!! with a babysitter and everything! it rocked and i think we need to do that way more often. i was in a good mood for the rest of the weekend just because we had such a fun time.

[tangent: another recent revelation of having a 14-month-old is WE NEED DATE NIGHTS. we've been dragging jack along to movies, restaurants, museums, etc ever since he was born -- but holy cow, now that he's more mobile and more opinionated, it's so much more work. i still like to bring him places with us, but when we do both b and i are so focused on / distracted by jack that we hardly ever talk about anything else. now i know why parents say non-kiddo date nights are a must.]

we had dinner at lot no. 3, a swanky comfort food restaurant in downtown bellevue [i had a gruyere & carmelized onion grilled cheese, b had chicken & waffles -- yum!] and then we drove to seattle to attend a private screening of a new documentary, two brothers.

two brothers is part of the 5000 days project, a compilation of yearly interviews with hundreds of kids over the past 10 years. the director, rick stevenson, hosted a small group of us in his gorgeous sound-front home as a sneak preview and i loved hearing about his experiences in filming. mr. stevenson focused on these two mormon brothers -- luke and sam -- for this film, which debuts on BYU-TV this sunday at 4 p.m. MST right after general conference.

i LOVED this film! it is so touching to see the lives of these two boys unfold -- the bulk of the movie is about sam's mormon mission in chile [during which they had that huge earthquake] and luke's pursuit of getting a spot on BYU's football team. it's not technically a "mormon" movie -- the director isn't even mormon -- but more of a documentary of the lives of two boys who happen to be mormon. such great messages about faith and commitment and family. i seriously loved it.

in particular, all the footage from sam's mission was especially touching. mr. stevenson got permission to film sam IN the missionary training center (a big deal, since that place is typically locked down better than fort knox) and on his mission in chile. there are interviews with his companions, his mission president, families he taught. sam even kept a video diary. all of this combined creates such a unique, personal look at his mission, something i don't think we've ever been able to see on film beyond a corny "called to serve" music video if you know what i'm sayin'. i think EVERY person who's served a mission for the mormon church would love to have their work documented in this way, or at least will be able to relate to sam.

here's a peek at the trailer:

i TOTALLY recommend setting your dvr to record this film on sunday -- or you can watch it online here.

two brothers

BYU-TV

sunday, october 2

4 p.m. MST