Snow White Gets the Axe

Well Snow White is out. For some reason I wasn't thinking about how Capri had already been Snow White - the first costume mom made. I guess because we didn't dress up as any other characters in the movie it didn't process in my mind. Or, and this is highly possible, I could just be losing my mind altogether.

Halloween: Past and Yet to Come

Here in the Runyan household we take Halloween very seriously. We think all year about what we are going to be, get really excited about it, and then make my mom do all the work.
See my mom is an EXCELLENT seamstress. She is also very kind. And every year, save our first Halloween with Capri when were stupid enough to turn down her offer, she has sewn the kids Halloween costumes. This has resulted in some AMAZING costumes. Jeff and I are responsible for our own, meaning they aren't nearly as good.

The first year mom sewed for us she made Capri a Snow White costume. Halloween was on a sunday that year so Jeff didn't really want to dress up. But Capri still knocked everybody dead in her dress.

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The next year we had a circus theme and Rome and Capri stopped the show in their elephant and lion costumes.

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Next we chose The Wizard of Oz. You wouldn't have believed how much attention Capri and Rome got. Especially since Capri, being as comitted to Halloween as Jeff and I are, wore an incredibly cute wig I found with curls and pigtails.

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Last year we decided to do Alice in Wonderland. Again, mom's costumes stole the day. And Capri "wigged" it up once more.

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Literally the day after last Halloween we started talking about what to do this year. Yesterday we came up with two really viable options: Peter Pan and Snow White. Nothing has been decided yet. As mom put it while we were visiting in Cali, "If there is a pattern for it I can sew it. But there MUST be a pattern." Also, it must never, ever be something as tricky as that elephant costume was!

We Survived "The Magic"

We've just gotten home from sunny California, where the kids and I have spent the last 10 days soaking up the sun and trying to forget the long hard winter we've had in Kansas City. Jeff, unfortunately, had to stay home and get maced.
The point of this trip was three-fold:

1. To visit with Grandma, Grandpa, and "the Uncles".
2. To go to Disneyland.
3. To see Dan off to England for his mission.

Visiting With the Fam
My kids LOVE visiting with relatives. They are both totally in love with grandparents in general, and it's like a neverending parade of people to play with who AREN'T boring old mom and dad. I, as most know, have 4 younger brothers. My kids refer to them all collectively as "the Uncles". My brothers like this name a lot. Maybe it makes them feel like some sort of underground syndicate, I'm not sure. None of them are married or have kids yet (they know my feelings about this already) so they aren't worn out from taking care of their own families and have the desire to actually play a ton with my kids. And of course they think my kids are the CUTEST kids in the world, and I tend to agree.

Disneyland (Or as I like to call it, the most magically exhausting place on the planet)
About a month and a half ago Capri saw a commercial on tv for Disneyland. She of course immediately decided that she HAD to go to Disneyland right away. I told my dad this, who being a big fan of Capri's decided that she SHOULD go right away. So when it came close to the time for Dan to leave for England Dad invited us to come and see him off with the added bonus of a promise to make it to Disneyland.
We got up early last monday and drove the 2 1/2 hours to Anaheim. The kids were great in the car, and we arrived in good spirits. Our spirits were a little dampened however when it took us 1 hr. 20 min. to get from pay to park to actually parking. The line was atrocious. The line to buy tickets was equally as bad, it took us another 30 min to buy them.
But after all that we finally got into the park and headed for the Pirate's of the Caribbean ride. The kids had been looking online at all the rides for weeks and decided that this was the ride they wanted to go on first. One of the days priorities was getting the meet the characters, especially Ariel and Mickey Mouse. And my mom bought an official Disney autograph book for Capri. Right away we saw Mary Poppins and Capri wanted to meet her. But that woman moved like she had rockets on her shoes. We'd discover during the rest of the day that meeting the characters wouldn't be as easy as we had thought.
We got the the pirate ride and it was just as fun as we hoped. Capri and Rome have never been to Disneyland (Capri did for a few minutes after we went to Disney's California Adventure years ago, but it was too dark to do anything). And I haven't been for years so everything was pretty much like doing it for the first time.
After Pirates, Capri went on the Big Mountain Railroad with grandpa and Mom took Rome off to find some rides he could get on. I of course was on baby duty but was happy to see my kids go off with their grandparents so joyfully.
Even though it was a non holiday monday Disneyland was of course VERY crowded. This made for long lines, but not as long as I'm sure they get. But we went on as many rides as possible. We TRIED to get to meet some characters but they don't really walk around the park anymore. All the princesses are hidden behind a large wall and you have to stand in a HUGE line to meet them. Mickey is in a house and again it's a line. And not like a 10 minute line, more like an hour. The only character we saw walking around - except for Mary Poppins and her rocket shoes - was Goofy. He was literally doing everything he could to keep from having to stop and visit with kids. I am not joking. Kids were RUNNING after him trying desperately to visit with him or get an autograph. Finally after spotting him for the third time and not being able to get him to stop I swooped Capri up in my arms and RAN after him myself. I stood right next to him and yelled at Grandma to take the picture. But then the coolest thing happened. I put Capri down and suddenly Goofy's attention turned right to her - even thought there were literally a dozen other kids around. He knelt down, hugged her, took her face in his hands and blew her a kiss. He signed her autograph book and then like a flash was off again.
Our only other character encounter was after we got off Space Mountain - yes Capri rode and loved it. Capri got to meet Minnie Mouse because Grandpa, Uncle Josh and Uncle Rob had the presence of mind to jump in line to meet her while Capri and I were in the bathroom. Unfortunately we never got to see Ariel or Mickey except in the parade. As a parent this was tough for me. It's hard to see your kids be disappointed, but Capri took it like a trooper and we declared "next time we WILL stand in those lines and meet them!"
So Disneyland was on the whole a grand success. We had a ton of fun, didn't lose a single kid, and were exhausted by the end. Rome fell asleep as we were exiting the park and didn't wake up til about 4 hours later when we were back at the house and put him in his bed. He said he was hungry, ate some food, and then said he wanted to go back to bed.

Dan to England
Hallelujah!! After quite a long wait after getting his call, my littlest brother Dan is off to Birmingham, England. I seriously could not be more excited for him. It is going to be an amazing experience, and I've got to admit I'm a bit jealous.
To see Dan off at the airport we all had to get up BEFORE the crack of dawn because his flight left at 6:00am. Fortunately Spencer's roommate was willing to come over and crash on the couch so that I didn't have to wake and take Capri and Rome. But Sable had to come and she was such a champ. She pretty much slept the whole time, even though it involved a noisy car trip there, breakfast at the "Celebrity Cafe" in the airport, hugs and sniffles when we said goodbye to Dan, and a raucous car ride back involving Josh, Spencer and myself laughing hysterically about Josh wanting to be an astronaut and the use of the word mathmatics about 157 times. Everything is funnier when you are SUPER tired of course.
Actually I didn't cry at all when I said goodbye to Dan. I was too happy for him. I know that he made the right choice in going and that he is never going to regret it or the work ahead of him.
The sunday before the goodbye was Dan's "farewell" at church and Dad, Josh and Dan all gave great talks. I'm not usually all that impressed by the boys in my family (wink, wink) but that day I was.
Dan sent an e-mail from the MTC in England the saturday after he arrived and it was a really wonderful thing to read. Keep it up Dan, we love you so much!!!
This was also the day when Jeff got maced. He was a tough guy and lived through the awful experience. He said it was better in some ways than he expected and worse in some. The burning in his eyes, though really bad, wasn't as bad as he imagined. But the breathing, or the lack thereof, was far far worse. They filmed all the EOs (Entrant Officers) and Jeff said that he was happy he didn't look like a big baby - like some of the others. He just did what he was supposed to do, fighting a guy and then calling in on the radio. I know he's OUR hero! Capri always feels a little better at night when she's scared knowing "my daddy is going to be a policeman".

We had such a great trip and were very sad to leave. But the kids were PERFECT on the plane ride home and we were so happy to get to see Jeff. He said it was very lonely being home all alone, but he got to take a bunch of naps so that was good!
We're so grateful to my mom and dad for buying our plane tickets, and giving us so many amazing memories. We love you!

Smooches, hugs, and luvs for all!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!! Love and kisses abound! There is chocolate EVERYWHERE!!! Ok, it might not technically still be Valentine's day but there IS still tons of chocolate in the house, my Valentine's rose is still alive and I've yet to take down any decorations. I figure that as long as it's still february it's ok.
So travel back in time with me and I'll regale you with what was "The Runyan Valentine DAYS celebration."
Wednesday the 13th: I was up till 4:00am AGAIN trying to get the scrapbooks done. I did finish Capri's and got about 1/3 of Rome's done. I had enough done for his that he could at least open it up and see what it was going to look like.
Thursday the 14th: I had invited 3 little girls over for a Valentine's Day party. I cleaned all morning knowing full well that my house would be DESTROYED by the end of the party. They played, made valentines, played, made pink necklaces, played, and decorated cookies with 10 tons of candy. They also ATE 10 tons of candy. By the end, my house was a wreck and they all had sugar highs. They all had fun to the point of exhaustion. And, I, amid all the chaos forgot to take a single picture.
Later, we all opened our Valentine's gifts and the kids really loved their albums. And Sable, who got an empty album, really loved eating the paper it was wrapped in.
Friday: We shared some love at Wendy's gobbling down chili, and fries, chicken, burgers, and frostys. Then we headed over to "the big fruit" which is a play area at our trendy outdoor mall Zona Rosa. The big fruit consists of a large plate with a knife and different fruits on it. It's made out of some kind of foam and covered in plastic. Kids jump and play and pretty much go nuts on the big fruit. And we have played there an estimated 14 million times since we've moved here. No really, we probably have been there at least 100 times, I'm sure more. This time however, at the end when everybody was gone except us, Jeff and I found ourselves playing on the big fruit too for the very first time. It was actually a lot of fun. But it left us both wishing we had young small bodies that can jump and slide and fall without getting hurt. Our big dumb bodies are so heavy and cumbersome!! Jeff however can still jump like a madman and was wowing the kids with his skills of being able to jump up and over almost anything.
Saturday: Thanks to my mom and dad's generous Valentine's gift Jeff and I were going to go on a date, alone! We were, needless to say, VERY excited. We opted to not go to a movie because frankly there is nothing to go see right now. So instead we did what we both truly love to do, eat. While we waited the 50 minutes for a table at Bravo! we headed over to Barnes and Noble so we could buy an LSAT book for Jeff. Now he can have lots of fun preparing for the test in June. When we finally got seated at the restuarant we ordered an appetizer, a pizza, 2 entrees, a lemonade and dessert. It was awesome to say the least. The only non-awesome part was the entree I ordered. It came out and had a really terrible smell to it. I was bummed and thought it was the bacon on the pasta. One bite proved otherwise. I couldn't even swallow it, it had some kind of toxic taste and I knew there was something wrong. Jeff smelled it and refused to even take a bite. He thinks it was Lysol - the one in the brown can. So we sent it back for something less chemically. And voila! A perfect Valentine's dinner. Afterwards we walked around Marshall's and talked. On the way home we got a movie from the Red box. It was a great date! Really, that was the best gift mom and dad - thank you so much.
Sunday: Church was cancelled because of bad weather. This has been one tough winter here and we are anxiously awaiting the end. We dubbed the day "family fun day" and played tons of games and stuff with the kids. That night we got to watch the movie we rented the night before. It was Rush Hour 3, no plot at all but a bunch of funny parts.
So that just about wraps up our Valentine's festivities. I hope, we hope, that you all had great celebrations yourselves. We love you all so much!

Fried Brain and Diet Canada Dry

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and of course I am still not finished with the kid's gifts. In fact I haven't even started Rome's. What are these gifts? What has kept me up till 4:00am for the past two nights? What could possibly be so important that my brain is now fried and I've overdosed on Diet Canada Dry?
Their baby books! The most important books in their little lives! I'm being sarcastic of course, if I wasn't then you would all know that I had TRULY lost my mind.
But I do think baby books (meaning all the stuff plus pictures from their first year) are important and fun to have and I've been wanting to put them together for years. They were supposed to be done for Christmas, but I didn't even get the pictures picked out for them by December 25th. So now my goal has been Valentine's Day. But I being the procrastinator that I am have now left it off to these past couple of days and tonight which is guaranteed to be another 4:00am headache.
Why do I do this? I actually really like to scrapbook. I have enough scrapbooking materials to build a mountain high enough you'd need oxygen for the climb. But for some reason, and this has been my life story, I can't get creative or really productive till the last minute. If I were to ever actually write one of the half dozen books that have been sitting around twiddling their thumbs in my mind for the last decade, I'd be finishing it the second before the editor snatched it from my fingers.
My mom can testify to this. All through school it was "Don't procrastinate, start now, DO It!!" Of course I never did. I'd always get my work done, but sometimes (ok most times) it was done the night before. And I don't mean like the finishing touches were done the night before. I mean the WHOLE project, WHOLE paper, WHOLE great wall of China was done the night before.
So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it is 3:30pm the day before Valentine's day and I am just now about to finish writing this post so I can pick out the pictures for Rome's book, have them printed at Walgreen's and then at about 11:00pm tonight get cracking on the darn thing.
I better pick up some more Diet Canada Dry too.

Kaleidescope Craziness

Yesterday we decided to set out and enjoy the craziness that is downtown Kansas City. We called Jeff's brother's family and had them join us in this endeavor.

Our destination: Kaleidescope (a kid center run by Hallmark)
Our team: 4 adults, 5 kids, 1 baby
Our mission: To have fun, not lose any kids, and not lose our minds.

Kaleidescope is a fun place where kids can do all kinds of arts and crafts in a very kid friendly space. They can use whatever supplies they can find to make whatever they want. You have 40 minutes in a session and that's it. This means you and the kids run around like crazy people trying to make as much stuff as you possibly can in that short amount of time. Kaleidescope is also free. THIS means that during your session you are surrounded by approximately 3,000,000 other parents and kids doing the same thing.
Regardless, it's a lot of fun and Rome and Capri really like it.
After we braved the kid chaos we headed over to Crown Center (our downtown upscale mall) in search of even more kid chaos. This of course is because we as parents are nuts. Period.
We found this chaos in a revolving exhibit area now called "What Do You Want To Be?" Again, this is a very cool exhibit full of hands on stuff for kids, and again it is free. Jeff and I must be particularly nuts because we actually braved this last weekend as well. But our relatives hadn't seen it so we tromped on over.
Fun was had by all, crankiness had by some, and we didn't lose a single kid.
Next saturday?? Jeff and I have already gotten the babysitter. It'll be dinner and a movie. No chaos in sight. Unless you count the chaos I'll create if I don't get to hold my sweetie's hand for at least one and a half hours in the dark.

My Life

Right now I am deeply immersed in what I like to call "Potty training heck". This involves me trying to potty train Rome.
I'll start by saying that I LOVE the results of potty training. No more diapers, no more wet sheets because of leaky diapers, no more mountians of stinky trash because of all the diapers. But I HATE the act of potty training. It, to put it simply, is horrible. And I am horrible at it.
So because of potty training, and also because I have an infant, my life right now revolves around pee and poo. I can't put it any nicer than that. Take the other day for example. After several leaky diapers from both Sable and Rome I walked into the bathroom and stepped in a big puddle. This of course was where Rome had peed on the floor. Or take yesterday, when Sable leaked in her bed twice and had a blow out in her diaper. This resulted in 3, count them, 3 baths. Or the other day when Rome had 2 baths himself for obvious reasons. Or today when Rome peed in his pants and also leaked in his bed.
Sounds fun huh?
So that's my life. Want to trade? No? Well fine.
At least I get ten tons of slobbery kisses from Sable and "I'm sorry mommy, I love you too" from Rome in return. And that may not sound like a lot, but to me it's everything.