Another warning to parents everywhere

November 3, 2012 By

My dad and brother Jade are middle-of-the-night eaters. I am not.

However, I recently had an extreme lapse in judgment as I trudged to the bathroom at 2 a.m. We had eaten a light dinner and I spotted the kids’ candy bags, which we were erroneously storing in our bedroom to prevent them from snacking.

And at 2 a.m., Snickers sounded like a really good idea.
I partook of the forbidden fruit and within minutes, I was BUZZZZZZED. And on speed.

So, consider yourself warned: Snickers Really Satisfies…All. Night. Long.

P.S. Today is my brother Jade’s birthday. I dedicate my late-nighter unto him.

Filed Under: Family, Humor

Halloween 2012: The Slime Bucket, Digging for Eyeballs and the Pumpkin’s Celebrity Encounter

November 2, 2012 By

This year, Jamie was delighted when The Great Pumpkin had an encounter with celebrity. TaRhonda Thomas of 9News fame was at our house interviewing me for an unrelated story and was flabbergasted with what she found when she pulled up to the house. And unlike some broadcast journalists I’ve worked with in the past (read: snobby), she’s every bit as fun and lovely as she appears in the picture.

One of the bonuses of having kids at different schools is they had their Halloween parties at different times so I was able to give each of them my undivided attention. I started with little B. The volunteers were divided up into different stations. The Room Mom asked if I wanted to do the craft.

“Err, no thanks,” I politely declined.
“Really? You look like the crafty type,” she responded.

I assure you that’s the first time THAT has ever happened.

I instead volunteered for the messy slime bucket, which was green jello that was refrigerated with plastic body parts. To demonstrate, I stuck my hand in it and pretended it was getting devoured. What’s Halloween without a bit of traumatizing?

For Dorothy’s party, she was thrilled she was the kid who got to put the finishing touches on her teacher’s mummy wrap and did a muzzle over her mouth.
I’m sure she was thinking, “That’s for all that miserable math homework.”

They did plenty of crafts and games and once again, I volunteered for the messiest of them all (sensing a pattern here?): Searching for eyeballs (marbles) in a mass of brains (spaghetti) with their feet. Disgusting. Especially when the brains got accidentally flicked down my shirt.

That evening, we met at our fire station where they handed out drinks, cupcakes, cookies, free HarperCollins children’s books and then a fire truck led a parade.

From the archives: 3-yr-old Bode at the parade. #Love

Our neighborhood pretty much rocks Halloween.

This is the first year we’ve been able to carve The Great Pumpkin because it’s usually rotting down the driveway. Since the weather was so nice (it’s been 70 degrees), we sat on the porch to hand out candy and could hear the stunned reactions of the trick-or-treaters. A large crowd was usually congregated around the pumpkin to take pictures. The Pumpkin Man was in his element.

Our neighbor Steve told us his wife Angella took a picture of their family with The Great Pumpkin. She’s a pharmaceutical rep and made it into a card to hand out to various doctor’s offices and clients. He said it was an awesome conversation-starter and opened a lot of doors.

Next year, I’m demanding a commission.

Filed Under: 9News, Bode, Hadley, holidays, Humor, pumpkins Tagged With: ,

Mother of the Year Advice: How to comfort a child

November 1, 2012 By

On Sunday morning, I found sweet Bode melted down in a pool of tears in my bathroom. I had sent him in there to scrub off his Mario mustache from our ward Halloween party the previous night. His attempts were in vain.
“I CAN’T GET IT OFF, MOMMY.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Sweetie. You won’t be the first 6-year-old to go to church with a mustache!”

Filed Under: Bode, Humor Tagged With:

Apple Dunking and Halloween Bashing!

October 31, 2012 By

Saturday was our ward’s annual Halloween party. The youth were in charge, which means as a youth leader I was a part of the planning and implementation.
Pretty much, I have the best calling ever working with these beautiful young women.

Jamie and I wore our annual costumes. I was the pumpkin widow dressed in black (see my shirt) and Jamie was (what else?) a pumpkin.
It’s like art imitating real life. Every. Single. Day.

We just finished reading the 100th Anniversary edition of Wizard of Oz that I bought as a souvenir in Coronado Island. Much to my delight, Hadley shunned the pop culture costumes of many of her peers and opted to be Dorothy.

Bode, on the other hand? He spotted a Mario costume at the thrift store and the begging began. “Bode, you were Mario two years ago. Don’t you want to be _______” and I listed off a number of costumes. Obviously, I lost.

Blurry action shot eating doughnuts on a string

We had a spookiest appetizer/dessert contest so I whipped up a graveyard 7-Layer Dip. I got a ton of compliments on it but it was a result of improvisation. We didn’t have any refried beans so I used Madras Lentils (my fave wintertime lunch) and layered sour cream, cheese, green onions, salsa and guacamole. For the graveyard, I cut and baked some red chile tortillas into tombstones, a cat and a ghost.
I thought I did a pretty good job until I saw my friend Wendy’s entry.
Overachiever.

The young men were in charge of a haunted grove in the forest behind the church.

Teenagers with a real chainsaw = terrifying.

The young women stayed inside and oversaw all the carnival games.

Best. Bean bag toss. Ever.

And then there was the most unsanitary game of them all: bobbing for apples. In sixth grade, I had a Halloween party that will go down in infamy as The Best Party Ever and I still wear my Queen Apple Bobber Badge proudly. When the young women taunted me to do it, I rose to the challenge.

Or rather, bent way, way over for it. Haddie and Bode joined me and I dove in preparing to leave them in my salivated-apple-bobbing wake. When all of a sudden, I was being submerged way way way under. I flew up sputtering, only to realize my own husband dunked me.

It’s a good thing we drove separately; otherwise dude would have walked home.

Haddie ended up being the winningest apple bobber of the night. As it turns out, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Literally.

Filed Under: Bode, Foodie, Hadley, holidays, Humor, Jamie, LDS, pumpkins Tagged With: ,

Duct Tape Man Does Hurricane Sandy

October 30, 2012 By

**READ NEW ADDENDUM**

Between Jessica Ridgeway’s horrific murder and Hurricane Sandy, I’ve been watching a lot of news lately (in fact, CNN is currently playing in the background). My heart goes out to all those impacted by this storm.

My brother Jade lives in New Jersey and was one of only five people who showed up for work yesterday (common sense obviously does not run in our family). Further evidence: When he was Duct Tape Man for Halloween. I’ve been following his Facebook wall to see how he waged the storm. His latest update:

Many years ago I successfully repaired a light fixture I broke in my parent’s bathroom with black hockey tape. I used this knowledge obtained from youth last night as my fence laid broken in two during the storm. Instead of reaching for the tool bag I grabbed the hockey bag instead once again and patched it up with some hockey laces! It withstood the storm, a valuable lesson to all.

Lesson learned.
=====
ADDENDUM: After publishing this on my blog, my brother posted the following new profile picture on Facebook of him waging a battle against Hurricane Sandy. Monster: created.

Filed Under: Family, Humor

How to carve a REAL pumpkin

October 30, 2012 By

I’ve been watching all my friends post pictures of their carved pumpkins on Facebook.

How sweet.

Now, let’s talk about how a REAL pumpkin is carved. Many people ask us what we do with The Great Pumpkin after the weigh-off. The answer is simple: I make Jamie showcase it on our driveway until Halloween. It’s a community attraction and I catch the most random people marveling at it. Last week, it was the garbage man who moved the garbage can beside it  and took a picture. “I told my wife it was as big as a garbage can and she’s not gonna believe it.”

Another sweet man talked to Jamie and then, as if it had given him a new lease on life said, “Thank you sooooo much for growing it.”

Could The Great Pumpkin be as good as therapy?

Though it generally lasts until Halloween, it ain’t pretty after a month of baking in the sun. Pumpkin guts are usually oozing down our driveway, making it a veritable horror show. But this year was different. Jamie’s pumpkin “Christine” has miraculously not shown signs of rotting out so he resolved we were going to carve it for the first time. Have you ever carved a 837-pound beast? Neither had we. Please excuse the blurry pictures; they were taken at night with my iPhone.

We made an event of it by inviting some friends over for FHE. Cookies and hot chocolate with pumpkin spice marshmallows are essential.

Then you get out the power tools. When that doesn’t work, you try a shovel. Once you finally break through the top, you get your first glimpse inside and it was miraculously not rotting out. This almost made Jamie weepy. It was like he was gazing into some fantastical cavern.

Next, you dive in, scoop out the guts and separate the seeds. To those blasphemous people who ask if we eat them: they are dried, sold or traded with other growers.

Entire children were almost lost in the process.

From there, we carved out the face–not an easy process when the skin is almost a foot thick. In fact, the eyes took so long to carve out that I mused to Jamie, “maybe you should make the mouth smaller because the eyes are taking so long. He took one wavering look at me, then back at the pumpkin. “She’s gotta have a big mouth.”

It was like music to my ears.

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie, LDS, pumpkins

A warning to parents everywhere regarding Halloween candy “taxes”

October 29, 2012 By

I have some bad news for parents who claim a “candy tax” by taking a portion of their kids’ Halloween candy: THEY ARE ONTO US.

On Saturday night, we went to our church’s Halloween party and my kids came home with bucket loads of treats. For the most part, I let them have at it but started putting on the brakes the next day. After all, they have to save their gluttony for The Main Event on Wednesday.

I made a healthy dinner with the one thing my 8-year-old daughter abhors most: eggs. She usually chokes them down but we are entering the tween moody stage (hurray!) and she suddenly thinks she should have a say.

I don’t know when she started thinking this was a democracy, not a dictatorship.

My husband and I have never forced our kids to eat everything on their plates but usually have a bare minimum. If they choose not to eat, they don’t get any food the rest of the night. Period.

So, I gave her our usual ultimatum that she needed to eat five bites and told her I’d later throw in some candy for good measure. But, she’s a stubborn little miss and declared she’d rather go hungry.

That’s when I pulled out the big guns.

I grabbed her bag of candy and started deliberately and methodically eating it. Steam started erupting from her ears and her temperature rose as fast as a thermometer in boiling water.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she spewed.

“Taking candy taxes,” I calmly responded. “For every minute you sit here, I’m going to have another piece of candy. Oh, look–Butterfinger. Isn’t that your favorite?”

And then her clincher. “YOU KNOW EATING THAT STUFF IS EXACTLY LIKE…STEALING!”

Let’s keep her little revelation just between us.

**The featured pictures is 2-year-old Hadley stuffing her face with suckers at her Halloween party. Girl loves her candy.

Filed Under: Hadley, holidays, Humor Tagged With:

Just when you thought pumpkin season was over

October 26, 2012 By

People frequently ask me what Jamie is doing with all his free time now that pumpkin season is over. Here’s the thing: it never really ends. These days he’s obsessing about soil samples, what seeds he’s going to use for next year and once he cuts the pumpkin up next week, he’ll be composting it back into the patch.

There are also the frequent reminders like a friend who sent me this article on SEO: Business Lessons From Pumpkin Hackers because she knows Jamie works in web development and initially wondered if it was authored by him. I forwarded it off to Jamie and got this response:

“I would never refer to myself as a ‘geek farmer.’”

“The Pumpkin Man” is so much more dignified.

Then last night before bed, he did something  I can’t remember him ever doing: he was reading at length on his iPad. If you don’t know his history with reading, he spends all day deciphering  code at his computer so the last thing he wants to do in his leisure time is read. He once said, “I don’t have anything against books. I just don’t like reading them.”

So, last night I was justifiably curious. I queried, “What cha reading?”

“Teaming with Microbes.  Weathering, oxidation, reduction actions of iron and managese minerals and the biochemistry of the decomposition of organic matter are the primary factors influencing soil color.”

“I’m sorry I asked.”

Filed Under: Humor, Jamie, pumpkins

Steamboat Springs: Highlights and Lowlights in Colorado’s Coolest Outdoor Town

October 25, 2012 By

I’ve only been to Steamboat Springs, Colo. a couple of times in the summer but this recreational Mecca is chock full of memories for me. Mind you, not all of them good:

*There was my infamous hike with friend Kristy 13 years ago wherein we attempted to hike the Rabbit Ears, got lost and never found the summit. On a positive note, Kristy introduced me to “bear sticks.” She was disillusioned to believe that tapping two sticks together would scare bears away. I countered they were more like the bears’ dinner call. Fortunately, they were never put to the test.

*Then, there was my family’s trip four years ago when we had THE BEST TIME at the popular rodeo, only to come back to the car four hours later and realize we had locked the keys in the car. When it was still running. Go here for all the sordid details.

Yampa River

I was recently invited to be on a panel of the Colorado Governor’s Tourism Conference in Steamboat and decided this was going to be my trip of reckoning and that nothing would go wrong. Mind you, it almost did when I started on my 2.5–hour drive and shortly after I got on the freeway, I realized I forgot my mountain bike and had to turn around.

Fortunately, that was the only misstep in what became a glorious three-day trip the Yampa Valley. Unfortunately, I had missed the peak of the fall colors but the weather was glorious, crisp and clear.

Yampa River Core Trail

The vein of Steamboat Springs is the 7-mile Yampa River Core Trail. I’ve walked portions of it with my family but resolved to bike it end-to-end and back again (14 miles for the math-deficient). I started on the south side of town at the Ranger’s Station and headed north.

It was the perfect way to discover Steamboat Springs. I wound through beautiful groves.

Past the Rotary Park boardwalk, which extends across the marshes adjacent to the Yampa River with  informative interpretive signs.

Along the Yampa River Botanical Gardens and the Bud Werner Memorial Library (behind which were play structures for kids and fantastic boulders to check-out the Yampa River). I cut right through the rodeo grounds and various park sites (Steamboat has 28 of them) until the trail dead-ended at the local skate park.

As I headed back to town, I realized I was famished so stopped at Bamboo Market–an organic deli overlooking the river. I should have been tipped off this was not your average market when the products that greeted me were Mugwort Herb, Horehound Herb and Horsetail Herb.  It was right out of a Harry Potter wizard’s spell book.

I sauntered over to the deli and ordered the least suspicious thing on the menu: a turkey sandwich on pumpkin seed bread. Or so I thought.

Dude behind the counter: “Do you want mustard and vegenaise on that?”

“I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”

“Vegenaise.”

“That’s what I thought you said. Sure, why not. Just put it on the side.”

Trying vegan mayonnaise? Now that is risk-taking.

I nestled back on the outdoor patio feeling very outdoorsy-yuppy-vegan hanging and started eavesdropping on the outdoorsy-yuppy-vegan peeps the next table over. The woman was talking very loudly to her phone.

“Yes, we’re here in Steamboat and eating (long pause)….organic stuff.”

Nice to know they were as clueless as I was.

My next Steamboat Springs resolution: ski there this winter. And here’s for hoping that trip goes just as smoothly.

Stay tuned for my adventures at Upper Fish Creek Falls!

 

Filed Under: biking, Colorado, Humor, travel Tagged With:

Welcome to my new blog!

October 22, 2012 By

Thanks for joining me at The Mile High Mama! It has been over a year since I switched my Twitter account to @TheMileHighMama and I intended to do the same for my blog. Problem was my web designer was too busy and said I wasn’t paying him enough.

Husbands these days.

Last week, I resolved I was going to revamp my blog, even if I had to pay. And so I received some bids from graphic designers. When I made my decision to go with a good friend, Jamie and I did research on templates and backgrounds to send to her. He started playing around with everything on Photoshop and before we knew it, he had designed it himself.

Get this: I didn’t even mean to manipulate him!

Of course, this site is a work-in-progress. I’ll still be writing about my family’s misadventures (click the tab Mommy Blogger for all those stories).

I will also occasionally be adding a new element to this blog: recipes. I love to cook and Pinterest has reignited my desire to experiment. My recent foodie post was about our dinner party on Sunday where we indulged on grilled pizzas (one of them strawberry balsamic chicken), apple cider floats and we made caramel apples for dessert. Click the links for recipes and the stories behind them (like when I infected my entire family with my caramel popcorn).

I’d say I’ll try to post a recipe a week but that’s waaaaaay too committal for me.

So, welcome! Be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed if you haven’t already or enter your email on the sidebar to have my posts delivered to your inbox. Please be patient because we’re still configuring everything.

And for next time? The highs and lows of my recent trip to Steamboat Springs and why you need to remember to bring a mountain bike in order to go mountain biking.

Go figure.

Filed Under: Humor
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