Levi photos

I finally got some shots of Levi when he came over the other day. I really like having him over to play with Luna. It gives me a chance to work on her social graces. She sure is a bossy little kid. Her way or the highway. No idea where she gets THAT from... anyway, back to Levi. He's the grandson of the bartender I worked with at Club Massive and lived with a time or two since then. They're both 5. He's in the VPK at her school and gets out at the same time she does.

Brrrrr and babble

We bust out Luna's Yo Gabba Plex hat due to the cold. I look at it and can't help thinking "Dang, the boys would lose anything that wasn't superglued to their bodies, but the girls keep up with their crap..." I'm pretty sure she has the matching Plex mittens around here somewhere. I know Luna has worn her bones gloves, I washed em on Thursday.

I took her outside to get some photos of her new sweater next to the firecracker bush. The close ups came out way better than the long shots. I'm fighting the battle of the blur, folks. She looks like a Hobbit with that backpack on. Wow, the only thing she's wearing that cost more than $4 is her backpack - lol. Her school uniform is that blue polo with the school name on it and khaki bottoms. So glad she likes blue, but darn. I do wish that if a school was gonna go uniform, they'd peek at the Asian school uniforms. Those things are seriously interesting. At the last PTA meeting, they said that 70% of the school population is under the poverty level. Yeah. As always, when the question is "why" the answer is "money". From what I hear, lots of moms are complaining about having to buy khakis. I really like the uniform thing, tho. Even with it, Luna is starting to ask questions about fashion. We're doing our best to keep her from being influenced too heavily by fads and crap. Right now, she's at that "if I see it in a commercial, I want it" stage. Makes me sooooo happy to have a dvr. Record what she's allowed to watch and zoom past the commercials. My goal with child rearing was to be able to create her tv programming and keep her out of the stuff that is bad for her brain and development. The disney channel is horrible with all the stuff they have for kids that gives them totally unrealistic views. I'm all for fantasy, but not fantasy masquerading as reality. Little kids can't really tell the difference sometimes. Every so often, Luna and I play the "real or not real" game about the shows we watch. Wonder Pets - not real. Jon Stewart - real. Sesame Street - not real. Unbeatable Banzuke - real. Iron Man movie - not real. Underdog movie - not real. Morning Joe - real.

The school photo reshoot is on Wednesday. I haven't been doing her hair in bops lately. It's all I can do to drag us all out of bed and get us marginally pulled together in time. Gonna have to muscle it through for the photos, though.

Luna and Natalie

Luna went to Natalie's 5th birthday party. She had a wonderful time. She really does love her cousin to death. We got to meet Natalie's mommy and her Abuela and Abuelo. It seems that the planets aligned to give Natty an art birthday. Everything was dress up or art stuff. That little kid is so beautiful. Wow. Like, wow. I think Mike and Kyle are gonna be spending time at the gun range together in about 5 years. (If Pat was closer, it might be an all boys outing or 10)

My camera is crap, so I didn't get a single useful photo of the girls together. Waaaa!~

There was a bouncy house, which was the absolute hit of the party. The family cooked like mad for the party so there were lots of yummies to be had. It was a really nice time. I'm glad we went.

Abuelita would love to have Luna over to visit with Natalie, but I'm a little worried because it really is a long haul from here. The shortest distance involves about $10 in tolls to go both ways on one trip- not to mention the gas. I'm worried that we'd get her out there and she'd bug out and wanna come home. We'll find a way to handle it, it'll just take some time and logistics planning.

Getting Fancy

I went ebay shopping and found a wonderful leather jacket for Luna. As luck would have it, the lady had a beautiful holiday dress as well and was willing to combine shipping.The jacket is a little more beat than I'd expected, but it's ok - leatherish gets like that. It's a beautiful unique piece that will keep her warm this winter, so happy happy.

Isn't the detail amazing on this thing? Chaaa! $6 jackets rock!

She modeled her dress for Uncle Claude on Skype and kept saying to him:
"Uncle Claude, am I styling? This is my fancy dress, I look fancy! For a party!"
I gotta add that the 1950's groove this thing is rocking is divine on the kid. It even has this odd crinoline in it to keep the skirt poofed out. The dots are a velvet flocking and it has a velvet ribbon and bow at the waistline, with a crystal geegaw in the center. Super cute!

Yeah, I got this dress for $1 plus $2 shipping added onto the jacket I'd fallen in love with. In case you're wondering, she's wearing my stilettos.


Luna and her favorite kitty Skadi.

Luna and Levi

Lou - my mentor from Club Massive days and I still talk. Her daughter has a son Luna's age. He missed the birthday cutoff date, so he's in VPK and she's in K. I've been taking Levi from time to time afterschool until Missy can come get him.

They're both really digging it. Luna's not the nicest kid to play with. She throws a fit if things don't go her way or are all about the Luna. Having him over is a really great way to fix that crap. She also seems to have some separation anxiety issues. I'm assuming it's from the split of the houses. She cries when he leaves. Luna was on the potty last time Levi left and she had an epic. Missy said that Levi wants permission to call Luna on the phone. I gave it. They're going to be moving at some point, so this isn't a forever deal. Luna knows Levi is moving, but I'm not sure she gets what that really means. It's fun watching them. He likes coming over to a girl's house and having action figures to play with instead of girly stuff. Luna's been invited over to Mimi's to hang with Levi and give me a kid break. We'll get it scheduled out. The last time he was here they played games on the computer. That's new for him. I do want him to learn the computer, but they're active kids who need to run around and have fun. (Read: wear each other out for the sake of mommy's sanity)

Again with the photo promises...blah, blah...coming soon...blah, blah, blah.

SpiderLuna did what?

I bust out Luna's Spiderman costume yesterday. This Halloween is going to be the last time she gets to wear it before she grows out of it, so it's time to put some mileage on it. She squeed when I pulled it out and let her wear it. We got out the Lighted mask and the single glove as well. (Yay, we now have two gloves!!) She ran the house in this getup, happy as a clam. Except for the bitching about the mask sliding until I adjusted her hair and the velcro strap. Then happy as a clam again. She showed off for Oupa and spent some time in the mirror.

From there it was SpiderLuna riding Roscoe the Stick Pony up and down the hallway. I truly wish my videocamera would shoot in low light. It was a sight.

I'll try to amend this with a photo and/or a video. I'll shoot something once she gets home from school.

And then there was soup...and the soup was good.

Cold Snap! Time for Soup! Time to bake! Yayyyyy!

Luna loves making soup with me. The main problem is I have to put it into the crock pot before she comes home from school and she doesn't get to help. I think if we do it the night before and toss the crock into the fridge, I might be able to get away with it. Here's hoping!

So far we've made:
Chicken and Dumplings
Beef Vegetable
and Potato Soup is in our very near future.

Pops is digging on the soups, but he can only go 2 days on a soup before he gets bored. Luna isn't into veggies right now, so that's making the soup experience a bit rough. Thank goodness for the Apple & Eve fruit/vegetable juice boxes. They're 20 cents more than Juicy Juice, but they have veggies in them, which is what she's lacking.

Also, been going mad with the beans, rice & cornbread. Biscuits with the soups, cornbread with the beans. Luna's all about using the crank sifter to sift the dry goods and using the biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits. I recently saw a tv show that had this 14 year old boy who was complaining that he didn't know how to make his own dinner. Uh, what?!?! Dang! At 14, Luna is gonna be making this stuff by herself and be completely at ease doing so. I'm working on getting Mike a little more proficient in the kitchen. He's gonna start making cornbread and biscuits with Luna real soon. If I can lay paws on a hook for the Kitchen Aid, we're gonna start experimenting with bread. Pops wants me to find a bread maker. I'm not sold. Those things make tiny loaves and I know he can eat a whole one without breathing heavy. (And with some help from Molly) So if I'm gonna be doing it, I need to be able to do at least 2 loaves at a time.

Luna's asking for beignets again. *sigh* Those were such a pain in the butt. I know it's just that I'm working on theory and odd recipe alone. With some practice I'm sure I can get it down, but I'd love to have somebody in the kitchen showing me what the heck we're supposed to be doing. Little Miss is all about getting down with the powdered sugar on the beignets when we make em. It's fun to watch, hell to clean.

And so winter comes...

It's starting to get chilly outside, so I went through Luna's winter clothes. All I can say is Candace got one heck of a wardrobe from it. We were only able to keep two shirts, her Big Bird hoodie and her zip hoodie from last year. Thankfully, Grandma stuffs Luna into pants that are way too big from time to time, so I have 4 pair of jeans that fit her now.

Ebay and Goodwill are saving my bacon. I just got Luna 2 pair of school trousers, 2 pair of jeans one pair of Clone Troopers nightclothes to replace the Star Wars pants she got from Steele that don't fit her anymore - but she doesn't really wanna give em up. All that, plus a new frying pan for Pop's hash - $13.50 I was also able to find a matching Spiderman glove to go with the lighted mask and glove I got from Kris. New The Children's Place sweater that's in her school colors with appliqued flowers on it, $4.50 and a lovely Yule dress and Embossed pleather jacket for $9.83 via Ebay. I hit Walmart and got her long sleeved tees to go under her uniform shirts, the selection in the boys section was better than in the girl's section and since all you see is the arms it's not like it matters what gender they are for. Honestly, if I can find her four more pairs of trousers and two more sets of nightclothes, she's done. The shorts I got her for this summer are big enough that most will transfer to next year. I'm really glad we have a cousin so close by that can use Luna's outgrown stuff. And a Mom who appreciates it. I do need to invest in some more of those multi-skirt hangers... I've used up all the ones I have with her school pants. It makes it easier for her to choose which she wants to wear.

I have a bunch of boys cargo shorts/pants for Luna. Then brilliance struck. To keep her from looking too boyish, I think I'm going to sew trim and appliques on them to girly em up. Not too much, just something that keeps them from screaming "Future Lesbian of America" (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but kids are mean about stuff). My other goal is to finally fix her Marvel shoes so the tongues don't rub on her foot scars through her socks. I got her thick socks and it still chafed a boo boo on one of her feet. Thankfully, Grandma sent me some thick red fleece fabric, so I've got the tools, I just need the time and inclination.