Baby Belly Blessing for Mary

My sister is about to have her second little one anytime.  A small group of family and friends gathered to celebrate and recognize the coming of this new baby.  Mary looks radiant and excited as she starts this season of her life.  Just in time for this baby's arrival, it has become possible for her to stay home with her two kids while Sean is a firefighter in San Rafael.  I am thrilled for her as she goes into this next phase of life.

 Chatting with an old friend.  So glad you made it Melinda!

 Eating delicious food and sipping champagne.  Eva hosted the event at her house and it was so lovely and comfortable.

Here we are tie dyeing baby socks.  Since Mary and Sean are waiting until this baby's birth to find out the gender we prepared for both.  Tie dyed baby sock are so cute!!!

Sisters and mom...the Burtt Gals.

They came out so vibrantly colored!  Can't wait to see these on the toesies of my new nephew or niece!

Thanksgiving

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving twice.  On the actual holiday we went to my parent's house for the traditional hike before dinner.  My mom did an amazing turkey and Cathy Summers did her usual yummy green beans and stuffing.  Here are pictures from the hike up on the ridge.

 It was a beautiful, warm day for a hike.  The kids are great hikers. Judah still isn't able to go as fast or as long as the rest of us but he wants to and has a great attitude.

 Who is that way up there?

 

It's Emma and Grace!

 Little rock climbers in the making.

 On Saturday we had a reprise of Thanksgiving at our house for the Hoffman family. (Ava had been out of town and Hannah had been working so we postponed things a bit.) This was to be my first turkey.  We ordered an organic bird from Whole Foods and when I picked it up I was surprised just how big a 20 pound turkey was!  I have come to learn how to cook and bake from who I believe are the experts.  My gurus are Alton Brown from Good Eats and Christopher Kimball, editor of Cooks Illustrated and host of America's Test Kitchen.  I have to brag, the turkey came out great!  I also got recipes for pumpkin pie (from fresh pumpkin) as well as my new favorite pie dough recipe with the special ingredient of vodka!  Along with my Grandma Dorothy's recipe for cranberry pineapple salad, the food was very yummy!  We had a great meal and spent a pleasant afternoon chatting with family around the table.

 Thanks for the wonderful family holiday guys!

Visiting Grandpa in Movieland

I took the kids to visit my dad at Lucasfilm Ranch for the first time.  I have been there countless times throughout my life and even remember walking through the Main House while it was still being built and watching birds fly through the structure of the entry hall staircase.  It is a special place and not many people get to visit it as security is pretty tight.  My kids have absolutely no grasp on what my dad does for a living.  They know that he was the voice of Wall-E but other than that, they know him only as "Grampa-man" (the title he chose for himself) who plays drums at church and who loves to tickle them and stir up their silliness.  I know my dad loves them and loves being a grandfather.  It occurred to me that they seemed old enough to visit him at work and get to understand a little of what he does.  My dad and I are close but don't get to visit with him too much these days so it seemed like the perfect plan and we arranged it for the following week.
It ended up being a chilly but sunny autumn day as we drove the country roads to get there.  Coincidentally, Benny, who also works at the ranch, had invited my sisters Mary and Emma to meet him for lunch too.
First we met dad at his office.  This is a newer place that I had not yet been to. The room was huge and had a sort of living room area for guests and producers to come and watch and discuss the project he is working on.

 Here is dad's set up.  I can't show pictures of the screen but you can just see a corner of it.  This screen shows the picture and dad edits the film and then adds layers of sound and music to what's going on in the story.  This is a much smaller console than the ones he was working with on Star Wars etc.  Computers have made this process more and more streamlined over the years.

Judah is here holding a door creaking sound maker.   Behind him Darragh holds the whoopie cushion.  If you asked any of the three what their favorite part of the day was, it would without a doubt have been the whoopie cushion that they played with in the first 15 minutes.

Dad showed them how to adjust the volume of a specific sound effect as it was added to the mix.  Judah would listen for the command and when dad would say "now", Judah would bring up the volume of an airplane etc.  

 Behind the screen was a soundproof room to record dialogue and other sounds effects in.  Judah went in and made as much sound as possible with bells and shouting...though we could see him, we couldn't hear a sound!  Wish I had a room like this at my house!


All of the buildings are filled with art from movies throughout film history as well as dozens upon dozens of film memorabilia and models etc.  There are even original Norman Rockwell sketches and drawings.  I'm not sure what the kids thought about this place.   I tried to see things from their perspective and could only imagine that they see this place as a sort of "movieland" where all movies are made.

 Darragh and I as we walked to another building for lunch.

 There are bikes all over the property for people to get from one building to another.  I grabbed this one to ride up to the Main House on.

 Just a typical gorgeous fall day in Marin County.








Judah pretty much held Dad's hand the whole time.

My brother Ben in his office!  When we first arrived at the ranch he came down to greet us and the girls ran to him and he picked them both up in a double hug.  The girls were both wearing oshgoshes that used to belong to me...the image almost seemed like looking through a window into the past.  He looks so much like my dad back in the day with his mustache and the girls looked like Mary and I.  He is participating along with some friends in a fundraiser called Mustaches vs. Cancer.   

Posing with Uncle Benny.

I think he looks great!
We had a wonderful time and it was so nice to be together as a family.  Mom stayed home with Oliver and while she was missed, it was great that Mary got to have a few hours to hang out and lumber around in her about to burst 9 month baby belly.  Whenever we would pass one of Dad's coworkers he would introduce us...all his kids and almost all of his grandchildren.
It was a very pleasant afternoon and I told the kids in the van on the way home how proud I was of their behavior.  They were obedient and never fought or caused a scene.  They ate politely and conversed with anyone they met.  They listened as adults spoke and gave the appropriate social response (ie. laughing or oohing and awing etc)  They didn't touch or break anything.  They deserve my bragging about them.  I felt blessed to spend such a nice afternoon visiting with my family.  Thanks Dad and Benny for taking time to visit with us!

Random Fall Evening

Just took a couple pictures of the kids before bed.  They were watching our go to favorite Kipper and for the first time, all four were sitting on the couch together.  I usually think of myself having three kids and a baby.  Seeing them together reminds me that I have four kids!

Brothers!

My baby and me.

Call me Rosie

So my mom found an Xbox 360 in the trash at Charlotte Drive.  Back up....she owns an apartment building and the tenants frequently throw items away that are perfectly good.  She started putting out a big box designated for things that people don't want but are still good.  As a result, she ends up with piles and piles of clothes that she then washes and gives out to people or donates.  I appreciate her thriftiness but it is a big time suck in my opinion.  However, she came up with a computer sort of item which she brought to me to see if I wanted.  It was an Xbox 360, a video game console.  John and I had talked about getting an Xbox or something like it to stream movies from Netflix onto our tv when we get rid of cable.  I took it home and set it up but when I turned it on three red lights began to blink.  I looked this up on the internet since I sensed this was not a good sign.  Sure enough, this indicates "the red ring of death" meaning that a fatal error has occured (for one of many reasons) and that the computer is broken.  One can send it in to be fixed but for a hefty price.  So....here is where my silliness begins....or maybe it began when I first brought the thing home.  I looked up how to fix it myself.  John was so excited to see me watching tutorials on how to fix it that I became even more determined to do it in order to impress him.  I needed a few tools that one must buy from an electronic store which John picked up for me. (go into a store filled with tons of tiny, obscure items packaged and hanging on the wall floor to ceiling with 4 kids? Um, no thanks)  It took about an hour (mostly to take it apart as there are a million screws) but I replaced the parts that needed replacing along with more steps too tedious to explain and when I put it back together...it worked!!!  I was blown away to be honest.  John went right out and got games and I picked up some controllers from someone on craigslist.  That night, we played some fun games and I have to admit, it was really fun but also nice to be spending time with John doing something that we used to enjoy so much together (we used to be WoW addicts).  After about 5 days, the red rings of death returned again.  Using a theory I had about that the problem was, I modified my 2nd fix to include pennies with my own personal modification. (shhh, its a secret!)  My 2nd attempt has worked so far...we shall see...

 

 

 

 

Indian Summer

So it is 6 weeks until Christmas and here we are getting tan in our tank tops and some of us are even running around naked!  The weather is lovely and I was telling John after walking Grace to school in the very warm (I had on a t shirt!) morning, that every day like this feels like a gift.  He replyed "That is why they call it the present!" Anyone who has seen Kung Fu Panda as many times as we have would know who says that:))
The day was beautiful and the kids ended up playing outside until dark.  I even sat Henry out there in his little chair without a shirt on.  He loves to sit and watch his siblings play.  Every once in a while one of then will come up to him and hold his hand or give him a toy (I can see all of this from the kitchen window where I am making dinner).  Once he has Henry's full attention, Judah almost always sing Jingle Bells to him in the sweetest, silliest voice.  Henry of course watches Judah in awe and then kicks his feet vigorously and squeals in response.
I needed to take a few pictures of the family to show some friends and this came out pretty good for being on the spur of the moment.  

Halloween Events

So we had a crazy Halloween weekend. Friday night was the church pumpkin party which was very fun for all involved. Saturday was the school Halloween jamboree and Sunday was the actually "holiday" however we hosted 60...yes 60! people including 25 kids for our Octoberfest celebration.  I have never been a fan of Halloween (though I loved trick or treating).  When Halloween was over I would always breath an inner sigh of relief.  Something about all of the evilness and darkness just bugs me.  I would rather focus on the coziness of the indoors and the shorter, cooler days of fall. I love that our family does Octoberfest...beer is something I can celebrate:)

Here Judah dressed up all by himself as a knight while watching a fairy tale.  He very much identifies with the lead male role in most stories and movies.  After this he decided to be a knight for Halloween. However, as you will see, he ended up not liking the knight gear as it was too cumbersome when playing games at the pumpkin party and he chose a different theme.

As you can see the knight is down to his sword and scabbard only.  Face painter Aunt Hannah added the beard since she knows that Judah wanted a beard like his Papa.  When the kids filed past the microphone and told the audience what they were dressed as for Halloween, Judah, who knew he was no longer in his original costume, said "Um....I'm a....I'm a....bad guy!"

Princess Jasmin (Grace) took a turn doing face pain on Aunt Hannah.

This requires serious concentration.

A princess.

Beautiful girls.