I think I'll go to Boston

GIRLS TRIP!!  That was the concept anyway, but it ended up even better.  

I desperately needed a get-away, after Hyrum was gone for 6.5 months, so Jenna and I planned to go visit Courtney in Boston for 3 days.  (Amie was very pregnant or else she would've come.)  Originally, my Mom couldn't come, but their plans changed around. Oddly enough my mom ended up being in Boston for the first day of our trip, and my dad was there for the last day.  (They were both there together before we arrived, but then my dad went to a work conference and my mom flew home.)  

Jenna and I both flew Friday night on red-eyes, so we could get the most out of our Saturday. I only slept about 3 uncomfortable hours on the flight.  (It wasn't as long as I'd hoped.)  Plus it was delayed.  But regardless, we made it to Courtney's apartment, woke my mom up and laughed our heads off when she tried to sleep on a 3 ft sofa, slept a few more hours, and hit the ground running because that's what you do when Jan Hatch is involved.  (We made the decision to fit in as much 'touristy' stuff the first day because crowds are not my dad's cup of tea.)

First stop: Salem.  Peter only almost-killed us once when he was trying to drive and eat candy simultaneously.  Unfortunately, New England didn't get the memo that it was fall, so it was still hot.  We saw a few leaves changing color as we drove out of the city, but Boston was still in Summer mode.  With Jenna's good parking vibes, we got a great spot (to Courtney's surprise) and walked around Salem trying to figure out what there is 'to do'.  Being the month of Halloween, it was super crowded so we didn't linger.  But we went to a museum (probably not the best one, but also not the longest wait) and saw the cemetery where they have a memorial for the accused witches.  We also did what we do best: we ate a huge, delicious plate of cheese fries and fried dough.  

Then we drove into Boston to walk half of the Freedom Trail.  Again, thanks to Jenna, we got a good parking spot.  We went inside the North Church and listened to the little tour.  Despite previous visits to Boston I hadn't ever gone inside.  I had also never been in Paul Revere's house, so we spent $5 to walk through that, too.  When in Boston.

Then perhaps the real highlight of the day... Giacomos.  It's an Italian restaurant where people wait in line for hours.  Courtney and Peter volunteered to stand in line while we toured the Paul Revere house so we got in about 30 minutes after it opened.  (It's tiny!  Which explained the long waits.)  But it's also delicious and fresh and we really enjoyed being able to try five different dishes, plus an appetizer.  And we washed it all down with Cannoli from Mikes Pastry.  I literally thought about those pastries for months before our visit, so while Courtney and Peter were trying to figure out which one they wanted to share, Jenna and I were making our list of all the ones we wanted to try. Mikes Pastry is always crowded with only semi-formed lines that don't move at a uniform speed.  One of the ladies behind the counter said, "Who's next?  Don't any cute guys want to come order?  Come on up!"  So Peter kindly walked up, ordered our stuff, and saved us another 10 minutes in line.  (For the record, the real cannoli winner ended up being a combination of Nutella and peanut butter... one bite of each.)  After all the eating we walked around Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall before I was too grumpy and declared that I was so tired I wanted to die.  Headache and all.  So we went home.   (But only after a quick run around Bunker Hill.)

Sunday morning my mom flew home bright and early.  It was pouring rain, so Courtney and I got soaked on our walk around her neighborhood.  Eventually we went to church then came home to make dinner.  (Actually, Peter mostly already made it.  We were just making garlic toast.)  Jenna said she would burn them, so some one else needed to be in charge of taking them out of the oven. Courtney ignored that, and I didn't know they'd gone into the oven, so round 1 was charred.  We tried again, and they were okay.  Then we ended up waiting quite a while to eat so they weren't the highlight of the meal after all.  Peter was out looking for a parking spot for my Dad (street parking in Boston isn't great) so us three sisters had about 45 minutes of girl time to talk about all kinds of embarrassing stuff.  Then my Dad arrived.  

We didn't have much of a plan on Monday except to finish the Freedom Trail.  And enjoy good food.  Unfortunately, it was raining on and off all day, so we didn't get soaked but we also looked a bit ratty.  We saw the Granary Burying Ground and Courtney's nearby office building.  (She had off work for Columbus Day.)  Then we saw the Boston Massacre sight.  And then we got distracted by shoe shopping before it was time for lunch.  We ate at Sweet Green, which has fancy salads.  It was delicious, and I came home and made this copy-cat recipe.  As we were leaving, we noticed a cupcake shop next door and thought, "Why not?"  So we did.  We had that same mentality when we saw apple cider donuts and another pastry somewhere else.  Carpe diem.

For our entire lives, my dad has been answering the phone (calls from my mom) with the phrase, "Joe's bar and grill." No one knew why (we still don't) but we almost died when we saw this restaurant.  Courtney had just been talking about that phrase the day before.

We found "Joe's bar and grill" while we were out shopping.  After lunch we didn't have anything pressing to do, and it was raining, so we shopped.  After a few hours we were carting around quite a few bags with jackets, sparkly shoes, and sweaters.  Shopping is an interesting dynamic; Jenna loves to shop, Courtney is in denial about loving to shop, and we can all easily persuade each other to buy almost any item.  And my dad was happy to 'shop' anywhere, as long as there was a bench for him to sit on.

Jenna and I had matching stripes all day.  (It was bound to happen.  We were surprised Courtney wasn't wearing stripes.)  We also both bought this same blush sweater while shopping earlier.  We ended the night with fancy seafood.  Delicious.  And relaxing and dry.  

I'm sure our last evening involved games... because Courtney and Peter are game people.  And food, because that's obvious.  And laughing.  We woke up well before dawn to fly home.  And when I got back to Denver my car had snow on it.  (That always happens on my trips!  Even when snow is seasonally ridiculous.)  Unfortunately, Hyrum had to work on Tuesday, so I got home to get the girls out of day care and jumped right back into mothering.  I'd like to say I was ready for it, but...

Boston was a great break.  (And I repeatedly thought to myself how nice it was to walk around a big city and public transit without a stroller!)  But now I'm dreaming of a next vacation! (And trying to lose the 3 lbs I gained.)

Our Jolly Halloween Holiday

Over the summer I started brainstorming what the kids could dress up as for Halloween.  (You know, while I still have control over it.)  My brain stopped for a few days on "Princesses and Prince Charming" then fortunately moved along to "Mary Poppins."  It would be harder to pull off, but then again, I had 3+ months to figure it out.  And once I got going, it was quite fun.  

(Last year, Tiago had a cute Colombian costume, but had a melt-down on Halloween night where he didn't want to wear any costume.... so there was a makeshift farmer costume last minute out of regular clothes.  I was afraid this year the kids wouldn't actually want to wear the costumes in the end, but on the contrary they were all so excited about their costumes and told people for weeks before Halloween that they were going to be Mary Poppins and a chimney sweep.)  

So let's start with regular Mary Poppins.  I hit the thrift store a few times in the course of putting together their costumes, and my first perfect find was this 'carpet' bag.  It was the most expensive thing I bought ($6 or $7) but it was too perfect to pass up.  The white shirt was Tiago's, I made the black skirt out of an old skirt of mine, and the last touch was the hat.  I went to the store to buy cardboard for it, but saw the foam board and knew that would be perfect.  There were also discount bunches of flowers and red berries that matched the real Mary Poppins hat perfectly.  Initially I wasn't sure which girl would get which costume, but when Siena realized the accessories that came with this one she claimed it as hers.  She is a purse (and lipstick, necklace, etc) girl.  

Mila dressed up as "Jolly Holiday Mary."  I was looking for a white dress at the thrift store that I could sew red bows onto.  But when I told my mom to keep her eye open at their store (Centerville DI is the best thrift store around) she decided to just whip it up herself with cheap curtain fabric she'd found instead.  With her sewing skills, it looked like exactly like the real dress.  She also had little white gloves on hand that we added.  

Tiago's costume ended up so much cuter than I originally thought.  I figured he'd just be the side kick, but he was completely adorable and really owned it.  (He even chose to wear this to school instead of being a monkey or Buzz Lightyear.)  The pants were from his closet, the shirt and vest were from the thrift store.  I found his hat there, as well.  It was a women's hat, and I had to dye it darker and put a patch over obnoxious stitching that said something like, "Feisty" or "Delicious".  But it looked perfect.  I also dyed red fabric for the scarf and constructed a chimney broom out of foam board and a wrapping paper roll.  A little black eye shadow soot all over his face completed the look.  [He even taught me the correct way to carry the broom, like Bert does in the movie.]

(We already owned the two mini umbrellas, which my girls used to call "Poppins" when they didn't know the word umbrella.  They made it into the pictures, but that's it, because these costumes were accessory-heavy.  I now understand the beauty of a one-piece zip-up costume.  When we went to our ward trunk-or-treat--where I didn't take a single picture--I felt like my hands were full of costume pieces all night.  But worth it!  Every one thought they were adorable.)

Last minute my mom sewed me a Mrs. Banks costume.  It fit in perfectly, even if it made me look 20 lbs heavier.  :)  At Hyrum's work event a guy asked what my sash said.  I told him, "Votes for women."  And he said, "Okay, cool.  Right on."  Obviously completely clueless.  But some people knew exactly who I was.  Those are my people.  I'm fairly certain I have 50% of that movie memorized from the thousands of times my kids have watched it.  My favorite line from yesterday, George says he wants the piano tuned when he sits down at it.  "But dear, you don't play."  "Madame, that is entirely beside the point!"  

Moving on.  My parents were able to join us for Halloween night, and my mom wore the costume I originally had in mind for myself-- a simple penguin (from the scene of dancing penguins in Jolly Holiday.)  My dad stayed behind and handed out candy while the rest of us trick-or-treated for about 30 minutes.  Then my kids were too cold and tired to do any more so we came home and they ate nothing but candy for about 3 days when I told them I'd had enough wrappers on the floor and constant "I need candy" declarations.  But it was a fun evening.

And of course, before trick-or-treating, we ate pizza and donuts, because it's tradition.  

For the record, taking pictures of 3 kids is kind of a joke.  No single perfect picture, but collectively, they're great.  

Parenting lately

Sometimes kids are the worst.  They pee on you even though you've just told them 100 times that they should use the toilet.  They scream and carry-on in the library because you're sitting in the wrong spot. (Had we been 5 seconds slower in leaving we would've been invited to leave.)  They don't eat the food you make them.  Worse, it will probably end up half-chewed on the kitchen table.  And they spill milk between the oven and cabinet so you have to pull the whole oven out to clean it up.  Gross.

Luckily, sometimes they're not the worst.  Tonight my kids pulled out about 50 wipes and started cleaning all the surfaces in sight.  "Does that make you happy, Mom?" 

But so many things have been driving me crazy lately, probably because they're all in the age-range for irrational tantrums.  And the twins are starting to give up naps so they're constantly tired.  And potty-training and defiance and 2-yr molars.  Mixed in with a lot of back pain that makes me impatient and irritable.  And a husband whose job ensures he is never home. 

Halloween wasn't even a week ago and the candy situation already pushed me over the edge.  Yesterday day, I declared it was all disappearing overnight.  And it did.  (It disappeared right into my stash of candy to use for potty-training bribery.)  No more candy wrappers on the ground.  No more tiny hands constantly handing me pieces to be opened.  No more little voices whining, "I need candy!"  Well, they may still whine, but now they have to work for it. 

Oddly, 2 or 3 weeks ago I was thinking about how much I was enjoying this stage of parenting.  I love that we can go and do things without much planning or difficulty.  It wasn't the end of the world if our normal schedule was interrupted.  My kids walk around places with me.  (No stroller!)  They can all finally communicate, even if it's just to say, "I need candy."  They play together. 

But now as I sit here and write this I'm exhausted and want my not-tired, not-hangry, not-teething kids back.  And if the diapers were gone, too, that'd be great.