Too Much To Write About

I can only pick out things to write about when nothing really has happened, otherwise everything becomes a giant muddle in my mind. So instead, here's a list. 

Last Week:

• ooTunes drops in rankings. A competitor has come out with a much sought after feature. Woo works furiously to catch up and improve upon it. 
• Ruby becomes more affectionate. Starts telling us she loves us at random times, and snuggles sometimes. 
• I buy a bed frame for our bed for the first time. "We look like we're rich now!"---Woo. "Your bed looks nice, Mom!"---Ruby. Moses is no longer able to climb up by himself. 
• Woo's parents come to visit. We make them take us to Costco immediately after picking them up from the airport (we're out of toilet paper and maple syrup). 
• The kids spend the entire weekend stacking toilet paper rolls into castles and buses and boats. 
• Moses spends the entire weekend avoiding Grandpa (not an easy task). 
• Grandma shows the kids how the "Barnyard Dance" is done. 
• We attend the Pagedale Thanksgiving dinner... lots of soul food. Afterwards we're treated to some gospel tunes and "praise" dancers. Herbie is obsessed with the red robes on the choir. 
• We go to the science center. Ruby and Herbie talk about the robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops exhibit for days after. 

This Week:

• Woo's laptop with EVERYTHING on it dies. We take it in; they say 3-5 days. 
• We take Woo's parents to the airport. 
• Woo buys a new computer and gets everything on the laptop transferred to it. 
• We get the laptop back. 
• Moses begins to give unsolicited hugs---so sweet. 
• I go to New Moon with a couple of girls in the branch. I haven't done something like this in years... 
• Woo's MTC companion invited us to his family's Thanksgiving dinner. Best Thanksgiving we've had here in St. Louis. Great food, and very relaxing (for me :). 
• Woo submits his update to Apple---finds a major bug a few hours later---resubmits late last night.   
• Ruby has a lesson on the sacrament. Later, (very concerned), "Mom, I don't want Dad to sacrament (sacrifice) me." 

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for you all!

For Sale!

After two weeks of sunny, clear weather "dirty man" finally finished painting the trim. I have never seen anyone work so slow, plus he would ask for a $20 of the total sum every 2-3 hours of work. I'm half scared that he's going to continue to come around asking for a loan of $20 for this or that, since he apparently barely lives from twenty dollar bill to twenty dollar bill, and we've been a source of money for him before.

We put the sign and flyers out in the yard, posted the house on Zillow, Craigslist, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Riverfront Times, put up flyers around Wash U, and we've received exactly zero calls. I suppose we'll find a realtor after a couple more weeks.

I'm less stressed about when we sell the house since I finally found a midwife I like here. I did have a midwife earlier, but we dropped her due to FTI (Failure To Impress). This new midwife is pretty much my ideal: late 50s-early 60s, very experienced, very courteous and professional, had all the right answers to my questions, qualified assistants, etc. I think it took me so long to find her because she's in a different county than us, even though she's only 20 minutes away.

The school district here held a "Fired-Up for Kindergarten" evening. We decided to go, even though I really hope we've moved before Ruby starts kindergarten next September. Woo was hoping for food, and I was hoping for a fire truck for the kids to inspect up-close, but we were both disappointed.

We were the only family to show up at our school, and they just tried to sell Woo and I on what a great school it was---completely ignored Ruby.

One thing the principal repeated (like it was some huge selling point) was that we could drop our school kids off early in the morning, and they had productive after school programs for the kids until 6pm. I couldn't imagine anything more horrible for a 5 year old.

They were surprised when I asked whether they had full-day or half-day kindergarten (full-day), and were shocked when I asked if we could opt out of that.

"We've had full-day kindergarten for 10-11 years! Every school in the district has full-day! Everyone does it!"

Apparently they don't realize what a huge turn off that argument is for me. Does it really work on most people? And are all the kindergartens in the country now full-day? I really know nothing about it.

Anyway, the good news is Ruby is already doing all the stuff that they said their kindergarten kids can do by the first quarter.

Mildly amusing:

Ruby: I'm going to be Santa Claus! Moses can be Mrs. Claus! 

Herbie: I want to be Brother Claus! 

Also, whenever they play Peter Pan, no matter how many kids there are, they always make Moses be Captain Hook---the most nefarious kid in the bunch, I guess.

Woo's had a rough, rough week. Sick, tired, stressed out. Maybe he needs a vacation? We're excited for his parents to come visit this weekend. I'm sure that will cheer him up a bit.

Talk to you all later!

Fridays O'Fun

Happy Halloween

We did the double-whammy again this year: Trunk-or-Treat at the branch on Friday and Trick-or-Treating on Saturday. We only spent about an hour doing each which was perfect... more than enough candy, and the kids got to traipse around in their costumes.

Ruby finally, finally, got to pull on her white shirt, suit and tie. Woo found her a briefcase type bag for collecting candy, and I slicked her hair back. Her costume was a hit at the branch, but decidedly less so out on the street.

No matter how close she got to people's faces and shouted, "President Uchtdorf!!" They continued to look confused.

They'd look up at Woo who would say, "President Uchtdorf," and they would smile and nod as if they knew exactly who he was talking about.

Herbie ended up being an elephant. We took a trip to the party store, and he was immediately smitten by the elephant trunk. I spent about a half hour tacking ears and a tail onto a grey sweat suit on Friday, and was pretty pleased with the results (especially for the amount of time and effort I put into it).

Herbie enjoyed himself at home in his costume, running around making elephant noises, "I'm an elephant!"

On the street was a different story. Herbie got very, very quiet. Woo thought that maybe the trunk was making it hard for him to breathe, and moved it to his forehead, but really Herbie had just discovered that a lot of people try to be scary for Halloween, and he was pretty uneasy about the things he was seeing.

Moses' costume elicited the most comments from random people walking past us:

"Oh, look at the baby!" (women and girls) 

"He's a computer!" (the technically challenged) 

"He's an iPod!" (those in the know) 

"An iPod! You guys are so creative!" (those of superior intellect) 

A half hour before the Trunk-or-Treat, I finally thought of a pregnant woman costume that I like: a boa constrictor that had recently swallowed a goat (or maybe even a human baby... it is Halloween after all...), but I didn't have the time or the supplies to pull it off. Instead I went with a my original plan: a vampire. Not original, I know, but I've never been one before, and it seemed easy.

The kids thought I was funny, but Woo couldn't get over how "terrible" and "awful" I looked. It must have been terrible and awful in a good way because I won the costume contest.

At the very last second, Woo donned a jumpsuit and hat to be a mechanic. He's never given much thought to his costumes, but he mourned the days where he could just grab some random clothes out of the trunk of his car and win any costume contest around.

I guess his single, glory days are behind him, now that he gets upstaged by his wife! (Although, some might argue, that the only reason I won was because he cheered so loudly for me.)

He did get lots and lots of laughs when he truthfully said, "This is what I wore to my wedding."

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed yourselves this week. Woo has some pictures on his phone. I've put in a request to share them, but I can't make any promises.