Hello.  Allow me to frantically put up some random pictures of children doing cute! things! so we can end my cyber humiliation in the preceding post.  Yes?

Look!  It’s like King Arthur and the legend of the Sword in the Stone except the sword is made from duct tape and PVC pipe and the stone is from Z Gallerie.

Why do we own a sword made from duct tape and PVC?  The Mister made it to complete Mikey’s St. Boniface costume for his Saints Day presentation earlier in the month.  The same presentation that required me to tap into my slightly mutagenic crafty gene and sew a 16th century monk’s robe.  Thankfully, Larissa from Rejoice! Bags seems to have all her alleles in order.  I went to her studio for hand holding and sewing lessons.  We did not hold hands while sewing, but we did manage to make a costume that, thanks to my superb pattern picking gene (also mutagenic) made Mikey look like a Samurai.

I have been sitting on these pictures because I wanted to include the video, but my techy gene is in far worse shape than my crafty gene.  I asked The Mister for help, but it turns out his techy gene isn’t any better.  No, it appears our helixes in that area are twisted whirlpools of frustration, disdain, and outright stupidity.  Our children are doomed for a life of abacus pushing.  However, since the gene for retaining rudimentary information from college biology classes seems intact and dominant, Santa is bringing the boys a microscope and matching centrifuge for Christmas this year.

I have a rule about the appearance of my car.  I don’t fuss about it too much since I have to park it outside and have small children, but I always like to get it washed when I am going someplace where I will meet people, even if it’s just my sister-in-law.  Much like leaving the house in clean underwear in case you are in an accident, I wash my car before events because you never know who might park next to you or suddenly need to climb in your car for something.  Hey, it could happen.

It rained last week, leaving my car extra dirty.  I didn’t have time to wash it and, as insane as I am, I contemplated a solution for this breach in protocol on my way to etnies.  If I showed up early enough (and I always show up early) I could secure a parking space in the far reaches of the lot.  No one would see me exit my dust bowl and slip into the building.  As for going home at the end of the event, I was banking on being too tired to care (as much) about windshield wiper tracks outlined by southern California smog and dust.

True to form, I showed up 15 minutes early.  That much went as planned.  What I didn’t count on was a parking lot the size of a postage stamp and three young, hip etnies employees standing outside to cordon off the available parking for the “mommy bloggers.”

I quickly rolled down my window to confirm I was at the right place and hide the dirt on one of the eight windows on my Soccer Mom-Beige Expedition.  Naturally, the youngest and cutest fellow from the bunch approached my car, a boy named Erin who appeared to be the same age as a cardigan I have in the back of my closet.  My memory isn’t perfect, but I think his outfit (black skinny jeans, checkered shirt, and Wayfarer Ray Bans) is the same one Ricky Schroeder wore when he gave Grandfather Stratton lip on that one episode of Silver Spoons.

He asked me twice if I was a mommy blogger.  Erin, if the extra 40 pounds and dirty SUV haven’t made that abundantly clear, I don’t know what to tell you.

Once inside, I freshened up and took a look around.  The corporate culture at etnies is exactly what you would expect from a skateboarding/action sports footwear and apparel company: young, hip, and conscious of trends while remaining true to the demands of the sport.  Everyone there is or was a skateboarder.  The owner, Pierre Andre Senizergues, is a professional skateboarder from the 80s and a pioneer of the sport.  Despite feeling every single extra pound and wrinkle, I had a wonderful time.  Everyone on staff was ridiculously nice, as were the rest of the twenty or so bloggers in attendance.

{Dan Brown, VP of Marketing}

I’ll be honest, I almost didn’t go.  At first I thought the invite was a request to do a giveaway on this blog and, frankly, I do enough giveaways on The Bright Side Project, ya’ dig?  But, much to my delight, there was no giveaway request in sight.  Instead, it was an invitation to learn more about their new Grow With Me toddler shoe program and tour the headquarters and labs.  Tour a lab and learn what goes into making shoes?  My nerdy little heart was a flutter.

{Pierre Andre Senizergues, Owner of etnies and former pro-skateboarder}

Since this was my first time at the rodeo, I made a couple of rookie mistakes. Namely, I wore heels and didn’t bring a digital recorder or notebook and pen for notes. The flats I regretted after 3.5 hours of standing and walking a fair distance to the lab. I didn’t beat myself up about the recorder or notebook because, let’s face it, I wasn’t at a U.N. convention discussing plans to acquire Iran’s supply of low-enriched uranium. I would like to think my memory is strong enough to remember the finer points of toddler footwear.

And, what do you know, here it is the next day and I remember much of what I learned!

The first thing I learned is actually something I already learned in kindergarten: don’t judge a book by its cover. I’ll bet if you saw this boy eating a burrito at Chipotle’s you wouldn’t assume he has a degree in bio-mechanics and kinesiology and spends his day researching and developing safer shoes for skateboarders in one of the world’s only R&D labs for skateboarding. Yeah, me either.

His presentation was actually quite interesting, and not only because I took kinesiology classes in college. I had no idea how physically demanding skateboarding was as as a sport.  I learned a professional basketball player will exert 7 times his body weight on the bones of his feet when he performs a slam dunk or other move that requires jumping, while a skateboarder exerts up to 17 times his body weight when performing tricks.  That’s an appreciable difference, yes?  On the other hand, all that pressure on the bones promotes calcium production, giving skateboarders some of the strongest bones in sports.  Oh, and my favorite quote of the day came from his presentation, too.

“When you are simply standing on your feet, you are exerting 1 times your body weight in pressure on the bones of your feet.  In my case, that would be 150 pounds.”

Le sigh.

Part of the testing they conduct requires wearing special gear that allows computers and cameras to track your movement and measure the force you exert on your body when you land on a platform sensitive enough to measure the activity of an insect.  This teen age boy was priceless.  You could tell by the look on his face he felt like a piece of fresh meat in front of a pack of hungry cougars.  I can assure you this cat was not on the hunt, and I doubt any of the other ancient 30 year-old moms were, either.  Ahem.

I also learned etnies put quite a bit of research into their toddler shoes.  It wasn’t until the very end that we learned about the Grow With Me fit system, and I have to admit they have a smart product on their hands.  Inside each of the toddler shoes (up to size 10) is a very thin, white insert under the foot bed.  When your toddler begins to outgrow the shoe you can remove that insert, adding just shy of an additional size to the shoe.  Most toddler shoes last about 3 months before the child outgrows them, but this adds an additional two months to the life of the shoe.

After a good question and answer period, everyone started taking pictures with Dan Brown and Pierre Andre Senizergues. I did not. First, I felt weird asking for a picture because, um? Most skateboarders are very thing and lanky. They’re like male waifs. They’re maifs. The thought of a picture of my short, squishy frame sandwiched in between two maifs (one of them not much taller than me) was enough to have me eating salads for a month. Secondly, the presentation lasted longer than anticipated, and I was getting perilously close to missing Mikey’s Thanksgiving play at school.

I ended up skipping the lunch. I couldn’t stand the thought of missing Mikey recite his Thanksgiving poem, so I left after we walked back to the corporate office. The entire way back I walked and talked with Pierre Andre, who was so nice. Really, a very nice guy. So nice, in fact, that I completely forgave him for weighing the same as my left thigh.

Before I left for Mikey’s school, I drove to the store (located across from the lab we walked to earlier) and quickly did some shopping with a gift certificate I received from the staff when I arrived. (I bought the boys and The Mister some shoes.) As I was heading towards my car, I bumped into Erin, this time struggling under the weight of a skateboard and a pack of waters. I smiled and gave my goodbyes as I kept walking.

And then he said, “Hey…”

I stopped and looked back at him.

“Can I ask you a favor?”

I looked at the skateboard and waters and felt my stomach start to sink.

“I was wondering…”

Oh God, please no.

“If you wouldn’t mind…”

This has to be a joke.

“Do you think you could give me a ride in your car back to the office?”

Kill me now.

“Um, I didn’t wash my car.”

“What?”

“Sure!  Climb on in!”

While he was struggling with the waters (hey, he was young and strong!) I was tossing into the back seat piano music sheets, google maps print outs, my purse, my camera, a dinosaur, and a sandwich bag of popcorn kernels.  I couldn’t reach the books and school supplies on the floorboard and didn’t have time to chuck the headband, lip glosses, gas receipts, and religious icon wooden bracelet my mom gave me because she donated money to some monks living in Uruguay.  With my face the color of a tomato, I watched Erin gingerly step around my “mommy blogger” accouterments.  Then we were off to the office, each of us saying very little as we squinted through a dirt streaked windshield.

Which brings me to the final thing I learned that day, which should be obvious.  Always wash your car before events, even if that means spraying it down with a garden hose and driving fast to dry it off.

etnies created an exclusive holiday shopping promotion for those of us who attended to share with people who read our blogs.  $10 off every $40 you spend on etnies.com plus free shipping.  The promotional code is “ETNIES FAMILY” and runs from November 17 - December 4.

Mikey didn’t have school today, so I was determined to make it fun for him. Unfortunately, all the museums were closed. We improvised. We baked the Versunkener Apfelkuchen (German Apple Cake) from The Joy of Vegan Baking.

{The way Nico closed his eyes as he took a drag of warm cake aroma cracked me up!}

The we went to the library. It’s one of their favorite places to go.

And when that library didn’t have the books we wanted, we went to another one.

First we ate lunch in the parking lot. I harassed them from the front seat. No, I’m not wearing makeup. Thanks for noticing.

Then we went inside. They played while I looked at old movies and picked up some books I had on hold.

Then we came home, read books, napped (Nico) and started on dinner. Wait until I tell you about dinner.  I’ll do it tomorrow when the chef is in school.

It was a really nice day.

On Friday I spent most of the day in a panic thinking Mikey’s blister was a cold sore.  I was confident he had a case of herpes like some scraggly Parisian street urchin from the 18th century.  Luckily, I was wrong–just a water blister from a hot fever and mild dehydration.  He is doing so much better today–better than I have seen him in weeks.  That blister is almost gone, too, thanks to his specially made vitamin E (+ a few other things I can’t recall) lotion we received from the homeopath.

On Saturday I met up with a reader and received my first sewing instruction.  It wasn’t so much an instruction as it was hand holding while I made Mikey’s saint costume for his next oral presentation.  Of course, I screwed up right from the get go by getting the wrong yardage.  The pattern gave me yardage for 45″ and 60″.  The bolt of fabric I had was 54″ and I mistakenly though it would be okay if I got the yardage for 60″.  Nope.  The pattern, when laid out, did not fit.  So, his costume kinda sorta doesn’t have sleeves.  Kinda sorta meaning it absolutely does not have sleeves.  That’s okay, Mikey is presenting on St. Boniface, a Western European saint born in the year 675.  Back then,  I assume sleeves were optional, unlike filth and pestilence.

Oh, and this should make the sewers reading this collapse in laughter at my expense:  I made Mikey’s costume from linen.  Sewing with linen, as those with sewing brains know, is akin to sewing live snakes.  I knew the fabric would be slippery, but it wasn’t until I later sewed Mikey’s cotton sash that I fully appreciated the difference between the fabrics.  The cotton was so easy to work with I debated putting a chair leg on my sewing machine pedal and running errands while the sash completed itself.

All I have left to do is add some ribbons and tassels (I think those are called notions?) and work on a couple of props.  I will humiliate myself publicly and display my handiwork sometime in November.

On Sunday we celebrated my mother in law’s 60th birthday with a trip to the San Diego Zoo.  I fulfilled my exercise quota for the year 2010, so I am feeling good.  We walked up and down these ridiculously big hills (mountains!  they were mountains!) for five hours until I thought my legs would come apart at the joints.  Since I only exercise when I am being chased or running to take Nicholas to the urgent care, it was a big day for me.  Due to the extensive hills and large crowds I was not allowed to touch any strollers.

Today I am running errands.  I need to go to the store for paper towels and the thrift store for a book and a sword.  I’ll leave you to guess which errand is for Mikey’s saint costume.

There is massive fall hysteria going on right now.  People are writing about it online,  walking around in long sleeved shirts in 100+ degree weather, and staring up at tree leaves, willing them to change colors and drop. Our house, on the other hand, seems to have skipped early fall and headed straight on through to Halloween. I found that spider web right next to my car door this morning, stretched between two of the orange trees that line our driveway. When I got back from running errands it was gone. Gone, as in I could not find a trace of it anywhere. Spooky.

Speaking of spooky, we have a ghost in our house. It started with a vampire themed video of Scooby-Doo given as a gift by his Bu and Papa (my parents) aka the King and Queen of We Will Give You Everything You Want and Enable You Later, Too. Then a few trips to stores dripping in Halloween merchandise further fueled the obsession. The topper was a class trip to his school library. He brought home The Berenstain Bears and the Ghost of the Forest and since then his goal is to make a ghost costume and scare unsuspecting family members in the forest. Because that is exactly what Papa Bear tries to do until the Cub Scout leader and Mama Bear get wise and, in the end, scare the overalls off Papa Bear.

We are not a family of bears living in a forest, but I still couldn’t resist cutting up a sheet for Mikey today.  And, yes, that is a perfectly serviceable sheet that I cut up.  And you know what?  Cutting it up felt as awesome as I anticipated.

Well, I’m done.  All that hand wringing and stress is over with.  In celebration, today I am light headed and have a migraine.  Oh, and I’m recuperating from Shingles, which I had the honor of contracting 2 weeks ago.  What can I say?  My driven, perfectionist personality likes to over achieve in everything.  If I’m going to stress out, by God I’ll stress out into complete immune system shut down.

And, yet, despite the migraine, dizziness, and white hot knife tickling my bra line, I feel fantastic.  I’m done!

Before I return to obsessing about my weight, I thought I might share some pictures of the shower for those who like this sort of thing. (For some reason I love looking at pictures of other people’s parties.)

First up, the invitations…

I wrote the invitation copy, in case you didn’t know I do that sort of thing.   I had absolutely nothing to do with the design.  I simply emailed my extremely talented friend, Cathe, and gave her a link to Rachel’s nursery bedding and let her do her thing.  Cathe is like me and hates to waste paper, so we made use of the blank space and created a small thank-you flat for the mom to be. The entire invitation suite (invite, registry insert, thank you card) fit on one 8.5×11 piece of paper that you could run through your home printer and cut out at your leisure.

Cathe and I have worked together on many, many projects, and if you are looking for custom invitations of any sort, I really can’t recommend Cathe and her shop, Feterie, enough.  She’s also on etsy, for those of you who, like me, love to shop indie.

Rachel loves green but is not a fan of pink.  I told her, very nicely(!), too bad.  Actually, I told her I would keep the pink to a minimum, but in looking at these pictures, I might have broken my promise. Thankfully, she loved it. {NOT my house, by the way…}

The arrangements caused a bit of a problem, but turned out okay. My original plan was a pave of roses, but the vases I purchased from IKEA had too large a mouth. They looked woefully empty even after I stuffed them with 2 dozen roses. Thank God Trader Joe’s is open past 8pm and has a flower department. That’s all I have to say about that.

Cathe also did the favor tags, which I printed out on my printer and cut to size. I used a pink wire ribbon to tie them around a simple 49¢ flower pot from IKEA that we filled with a plant whose name now escapes me but cost $1.69 for 6. I don’t think the favors cost more than $1.50 each.

The party was supposed to be outside, but when the weather report predicted a triple digit weekend, we said, Oh, Hell no. I knew it would be hot, regardless, so I weeks before the sun decided to descend upon our desert town I planned a menu around food that could sit outside and would be tasty warm, room temperature, or cold. (And also wouldn’t make people sick if it sat out in the sun.) Tarts, salad, and a fruit platter to the rescue. I should have put the strawberries where the pineapples are, but I didn’t plan out my fruit in advance. Live and learn!

My sister in law!

And, of course, the cake! Chocolate ganache, white cake, strawberry mousseline filling (fresh strawberries and a firm buttercream-like mousse). I also served lemon bars on the side since she has craved lemon her entire pregnancy and made use of the fruit left over from lunch by moving it to a smaller platter while everyone played games.

Sorry for the dark image, but you get the idea.

And that is it!  After the cake and presents, we cleaned up and I went home.  When I got home I (1) took off my shoes, (2) put my hair in a pony tail, (3) scrubbed off my makeup, (4) grabbed my glasses, and (5) read books three and four of the Sookie Stackhouse series.

The end.

My friend and business partner, Miss Tristan B, is at it again. She recently started a new flickr group called Souvenir Foto in hopes of breaking Photo Block {when you have a camera but never use it} and curbing her tendency for procrastination. She rightly figured everyone else had the same problem so she opened it to all who want to play. Each week we get an assignment meant to inspire (re: force) us to pick up our cameras.

I, for one, signed right up because without an assignment or deadline, I’m pretty much worthless. The Mister bought me a new camera for Christmas (Nikon D60) and do you think I have taken advantage of the free photo classes that came with the camera? Of course not! That will soon change. I finally called about the classes and it looks like one is starting in July. Until then, come join me at Souvenir Foto. This week’s assignment was to capture sunshine. I’m pleased with the way the pictures (2 of over 100) turned out, and even more pleased that I did something with my Sunday afternoon that I would not have normally.

I’m terrible about capturing light on film, so I went for a figurative approach to spare myself the humiliation. Mango Popsicle = yellow = sunshine, right? Right.