I Was Such a Baby, What Happened?

My parents had Angry Toddler overnight on Halloween. Angry Husband and I both had to work early this morning. We had an exciting night of putting together our new kitchen table, eating pizza, and handing out candy to greedy teenagers from our garage. My mom said that Angry Toddler had a blast and that they took him to a local neighborhood. We had already done Disneyland twice this month, the Pumpkin Patch, and a school party, I'm ok with not trick or treating on Halloween night. Does that make me a horrible parent? I hope not. So that is why you won't see any trick or treating pictures from us, because sigh, my mom still can't work her digital camera after two years.

But I've been trying to organize things on my desktop. I had some new/old Halloween pictures on there from this post. YIKES!!!! What happened to me? I found a picture from 2005, where Angry Toddler was five months old. I was 29. I compared it to this year's picture. It looks like I've aged ten years! I think I have aged for the better, for the most part, but yikes, scary to see in pictures...my youth, oh my youth!

Angry Toddler Growing Up Via Costume

We've had several variations of Halloween costumes throughout Angry Toddler's short life. We've gone from the oh my he's soo cute, to this year, his choice, sigh. I used to agonize over his costume. I would jump on the computer in July, and have his costume ready, months in advance. This year, well, we went to Target. I chose several things in his size, and said, PICK! He pretty much picked what I thought he would.

But let's take a little tour of costumes past and present:

And this year, he's Jango Fett!

What and who is a Jango Fett? I know, most people are not Star Wars Freaks like the boys in my family.

Jango Fett was a renowned human bounty hunter, assassin, mercenary, and the "father" of Boba Fett, a genetic clone of his, whom he raised as a son. A Human from Concord Dawn, Fett was adopted by Mandalorian warriors following the murder of his parents and the disappearance of his older sister Arla in 58 BBY. Years later, he would go on to lead them through much of the Mandalorian Civil War. After being imprisoned by Jedi, Jango was responsible for destroying the Death Watch, a Mandalorian group who killed Jango's mentor, Jaster Mereel.

Jango Fett information from the Wookieepedia.

Orange County Fare: Pumpkin Muffins

I'm a member of the Junior League of Orange County, CA. We had a new cookbook come out last month, Orange County Fare. I was finally able to get my hands on a hardbound copy of it, a few weeks ago at a general meeting. This is the second recipe that I've made from the cookbook. I made the Raspberry Oatmeal Bars last year, when I received the recipe as a preview.

I made a complete mess in our kitchen as usual. I could not locate any of the proper tools. We do have some cooking utensils. I had to improvise, but they turned out AWESOME! I made Angry Husband try the first one. He's my test dummy...I mean victim...I mean taster. He said they were very good, but sweet.

Makes 18 to 24

Ingredients for muffins:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups canned pumpkin
3 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Ingredients for Orange Glaze:
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons grated orange zest

Muffins
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl. Combine the pumpkin, sugar, eggs, and oil in a mixing bowl and beat until smooth. Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Bake for 20 to 23 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the muffins pans for 15 minutes and remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Glaze
Combine the confectioners' sugar, orange juice, and orange zest in a small bowl, stir to mix well. Place waxed paper under the muffins on the wire rack. Spoon the glaze over the cooled muffins, letting the excess run down the sides. Garnish with additional walnuts before the glaze becomes firm.

Disclosure: This recipe is from the Junior League of Orange County's Cookbook, Orange County Fare. I'm a member of the JLOCC. My opinions and rants have nothing to do with the JLOCC, but they have a pretty swell cookbook that I paid for, with my very own checkbook. Oh yea, that's right, I wrote a check.

Wordless Wednesday: Dia de los Muertos at Disneyland

El Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), a Mexican celebration, is a day to celebrate, remember and prepare special foods in honor of those who have departed. This display was located in Frontierland at Disneyland.

Sunday Afternoon Car Shows

Yesterday, my parents took Angry Toddler to a car show at our local Ford dealership. Actually, they had a car entered in the show. My first car, well technically my second, was a 1966 Ford Mustang. This was my car, since the first car I had was a hand-me-down. When I was in high school, my parents were very involved in the car show scene. I got dragged to them every weekend. They have a 1956 Ford Thunderbird also. Well, they still have my their Mustang. They occasionally put the Mustang in shows still. The car show was hosted by the Orange County Mustang Club. I headed over there for a little bit and took some pictures, cause that's what I do. Of course, I did not take any full pictures of our car. Cause I'm lame like that and the sun was beaming on it, creating havoc with my camera.

My dad told me to take a picture of this car. I think he's a tad obsessed.

Shiny new cars. Aren't they pretty! Just a little advertising for the dealership.

Angry Toddler and my parent's car. He's "Jango Fett".

Target practice?

Angry Toddler was "shooting" at this.

And at the end of the day, I picked Angry Toddler from my mom's house. He shouted this from the backseat, "Momma, I won twenty bucks in the costume contest. You need to take me to Target and buy me some toys." Ahhh, I'm soo proud! He won first place! But seriously, proper English child, it's twenty dollars!

The Pumpkin Patch, Then and Now

We've gone to a local Pumpkin Patch with my best friend, Stacey, and her daughter, Stella, since the kids were about a year and a half old. Angry Toddler and Stella are two months apart. Looking at the pictures, you would think there was a bigger age difference between them, but there's not. Stella just has extremely long legs. You can't tell from this year's picture, but she's several inches taller than angry Toddler. I took a million pictures last week when we went to the Pumpkin Patch. But I really, there are million "patch" pictures on the blogs this week. I thought I would you show you our little tradition. Oh, and Stacey and I compared the kiddos from that time.

2006-The kids would not sit still. They wanted to explore everything. They loved the train ride.
2007-The kids were umm, bitchy. They refused the train ride and cried.
2008-The did not want to sit still, again. They did not want to be bothered with pictures. They wanted us to buy every pumpkin. They rode the train, but wanted to climb out.
2009-The kids posed for our pictures. They wanted to ride the train. They wanted to ride the train, multiple times. They sat together, without us.

THEN

NOW

Costume Hunting

We had a exciting Friday night as a family. What did we do? We went to Target. I've been a total slacker this year and did not get on the ball for Angry Toddler's Halloween Costume. Usually, I organize his costume July-ish. No joke! One of my main reasons is that Angry Toddler kept changing his mind about costumes. He's sooo picky. Why can't my son be something simple like Peter Pan?

We headed towards the Halloween section. Gosh, it was slightly picked over. I heard two women flipping out at an employee about the lack of traditional candy corn. I laughed, then had to butt in as usual. I said, "Umm yea, the good candy corn is usually gone in early September."

We headed towards the costume section for kids. Unfortunately everything that Angry Toddler wanted was for much bigger kids. I had to kept telling him, you are not tall enough for this. I finally just grabbed anything I could find in his size and let him pick. Of course, it was Star Wars related. I gave a little hint in the photo above. He's not going to be Darth Vader, but someone else from Star Wars.

Angry Toddler was very excited by all the decorations. I was not too impressed. I was trying to look for some new stuff for our house. I did not find anything that I had to have.

Oh, and as usual we made it into the toy section. You would think Angry Husband would know by now. You AVOID the toy section!

P.S. I don't sew, so no crafty costumes. Unless, I commission one of my crafty friends. Maybe next year.

Happy October...A Few Days Late

Today is the 6th of October. It is finally starting to cool down here in Southern California. For the past two days, Angry Toddler has worn jeans. That's a big jump for Mr. OCD. He transitioned easy. Now that the fall leaves are starting to change and a certain chill is in the air, I'm thinking about some fall decorations. I have a tote of stuff in my garage, that I'm going to have to pull out. That is, if Angry Husband has our tall ladder available.

I'm going to attempt something new in the next few weeks. I have a cookbook put together by my crazy aunt with family recipes. I'm going to try to go through them and pick some out. I will make the recipe at home, and umm test it on my family first. Then I will do a little post about it.

Meanwhile, check out these goodies I found online. They are all about Halloween.

Halloween Pancake Molds from Williams-Sonoma

Castle Bundt Pan from Sur La Table

Pumpkin Cookie Cutter Set from Crate and Barrel

*Photos from Williams-Sonoma, Sur La Table, and Crate and Barrel, and MomDot.

HalloweenTime at Disneyland

Sunday morning, I got a text message from Angry Husband, "You wanna do Disney after work?" I replied "yes". Of course I wanted to go. I knew that Disneyland had already been decorated for Halloween. I also saw some tweets on Twitter from Suz and Kelly about Disneyland. They had attended an event on Saturday.

So at about 4pm, we packed our stuff, got in the car and headed that way. I noticed that Disneyland was quite busy, as we waited in a line in the parking structure for about ten minutes. We then parked our car and headed towards the tram. I had an incident with my stroller, and took a gash out of my thumb along the way. I was trying to nurse my injury with a napkin. Angry Husband told me to stop being a baby. As we headed towards the main gate of Disneyland, we realized that the tires were somewhat flat on the stroller. Angry Husband headed towards the stroller rental for a fill-up and I headed towards first aid for a band aid.

We headed straight towards Space Mountain, otherwise known as Ghost Galaxy during Halloween. We saw that there was a 90 minute wait, but we decided that it would be worth it. Plus it was Angry Toddler's first time riding Space Mountain. We ended up in lanes 1 and 2 in the car for the ride. I ended up in space 1, obviously. I told Angry Toddler to close his eyes, if he got scared. I did not know what to expect from the ride, but Kelly told me that it was awesome and that her son, whom is Angry Toddler's age rode it. Well it was dark and scary for sure. I saw lots of flames. I just keep worrying about Angry Toddler. We ended the ride and I turned around. I asked Angry Toddler if he liked the ride, and he nodded "ya". Nothing scares this kid.

Angry Toddler was getting tired, so we headed down Main St., to hang out for a bit. I like to look at the decorations and the parade was heading down Main St. We had a great view while walking. We stopped and watched the parade for a bit and headed towards the main gate. I suggested going over to Disney's California Adventure for a bit. We casually strolled through DCA and enjoyed the calmness. We headed towards the construction for The World of Color. Angry Husband and Angry Toddler wanted to see the progress.

We stayed in Disney's California Adventure for about 30 minutes. We people watched. We checked out the changes. We then decided it was time to go home. Angry Husband and I had both worked earlier in the day, and had to work the next day also. We got Angry Toddler a churro and went on our way.

We know that we will be back several times during HalloweenTime. We didn't get to experience everything while we were there. I love how they decorate the Haunted Mansion. Plus, I NEED to see the fireworks show. I've heard that the fireworks show is a must-see.

This is only my view on HalloweenTime at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. Check out my friend's blogs for more stories. Plus, some super cool videos.

Alive in Wonderland
Just Spotted
Peace, Love, and Momminess

Oh, and I also did a whrrl story while I was at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. You can find it here.

You, Too, Can be a Parenting Trainwreck for Halloween

In the past year, I've seen way too much media coverage on ordinary families whom just happen to have multiples through fertility treatments. One family has their own TV show and the other has been all over the news.

While running with my friend, Pesha, yesterday she mentioned her Halloween costume. I almost lost it, when she told me that she ordered a "Kate" wig. I thought it was a perfect costume for Pesha. She said that she was going to be Kate Gosselin for Halloween and that her husband was going to be, Jon Gosselin. She said that she ordered the wig online and that it had already shipped. We then went onto discuss what Kate, I mean Pesha would wear.

After thinking about it today. I wondered, how many people would dress up this year as Jon and Kate or the Octo-Mom? Well, of course I went looking online for costumes. I should have known better, because it seems like every online Halloween site has costumes or wigs dedicated to Jon and Kate and/or the Octo-Mom.

The "Kate"

The "Jon"

The "Gosselins"

The "Octo-Mom"...look at the convenient sling...

I can't wait to see Pesha's pictures. She better take pictures.

Now what shall I be for Halloween? I saw some costumes while out with my BFF, Stacey, today. But really that's a whole other post.

But really isn't it Halloween every day for these families?

Oh, and these costumes can and were found at Buy Costumes.

Mickey's Treat at Disney's California Adventure

Angry Husband's family was in town last week. We did 3 days at Disneyland. I didn't want to spam my blog with pictures. So I thought I would post a few at a time. We went to Disney's California Adventure "Mickey's Treat" last Wednesday. This was where we did our Trick or Treating for Halloween time.

Angry Toddler hanging out with his pal, Adonis

Baby John as Pluto. Poor thing, he hates his stroller right now. I wish I could have people push me around in a stroller. He doesn't realize how good he has it.

Pointing out some paw prints on the nature trail

Trick or Treating

Isn't he adorable. Look at those eyes.

Hanging out on the Tram on the way to go home

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween Everyone!!!

We are off to Disneyland, Day 3!!

Angry Husband's Grandmother and Family are in town!!

I will be back tomorrow with lots of pictures!

I hope everyone has a great day and gets lots of treats!

Halloween Par-tay!

I attended (2) Halloween parties this past Saturday. I wore my flapper costume. I was quite conservative compared to some of my counterparts. I thought I would share some of my pictures. I'm including one of Monqiue and I. Mo is my running pal and I have posted pictures of her before. I could post a ton more pictures, but you know, working in law enforcement and such...some people are actually undercover.

At the beginning of the parties!


Getting my drink on!


Ok, so I had a few drinkee-poos!


We all had some good times!!! I haven't drank like that in a long time and I definately felt it the next day.

Halloween Costumes

Well we finally decided on Halloween costumes. Angry Toddler has changed his mind about 50 times since August. That's what happens when you are 3. I had to purchase costumes for Angry Toddler and myself.

I decided to go to the local Halloween store last Friday night. I had the full intentions of not walking out of there without a costume. I had to also buy a costume for me since I will be attending a party on Saturday, the 25th. Actually, it seems that I will be attending 2 parties now. I'm going with friends from work. Angry Husband is going go to stay home with Angry Toddler, cause he really doesn't like to hang with my work peeps. Hanging around with a bunch of cops kinda gives him a headache.

I tried on this Tinkerbell costume first. I really wanted to be Tinkerbell. I thought it be cute with my short hair. I was going to spray some glitter in it. After trying it on, I realized how see-through, it really was. I would have to wear some kind of nude colored bodysuit underneath. I'm trying to be frugal with my costume. I don't need to keep adding all these extra accessories on.

I then tried on this Dorothy costume. It looked cute in the package. Well the skirt was really super duper short. Plus, there was this itchy petticoat underneath it. I then went to tie up the bodice, and there was lots of space. Very sad, my boobies did not fill up the front.

I settled on this Flapper costume. It was perfect. It went with my short hair. I could sit down in it. I could actually move it in. Plus, it was under $40. I got some fishnet tights to go with it. Now, I just need to find some black heels and I'm set.

After I was done trying on all my costumes in the fitting room, it was time to look for Angry Toddler. I called Angry Husband at home. I gave told him to ask Angry Toddler what he wants to be. I told him that I would call back in 5 minutes looking for a decision. Angry Husband promptly came back with a Jedi. That was a good and very easy decision. We already have a light saber. There's no hat. There's no mask. PERFECT!


I will be sure and post pictures once the costumes are worn!

Halloween at Williams-Sonoma

I get snazzy e-mails from Williams-Sonoma probably every day. They like to spam like Pottery Barn. Gee, I wonder, they are from the same parent company. I unsubscribed from Pottery Barn's e-mails a couple of months ago.

These have these items featured for Halloween. They look yummy. I don't know though. I worry about the freshness of the items. Has anyone ever bought their pre-made goodies from online or through their catalog.

I love Williams-Sonoma though. I would buy more stuff from there, but I don't cook enough, I mean cook. I couldn't justify all the great stuff.

Pumpkin Patch

Angry Toddler, Angry Husband, and I went to the Pumpkin Patch on Saturday. We went with my BFF Stacey, and her daughter, Stella. I think we are starting a Saturday morning ritual. The kiddos had a great time. I took like 400 pictures, just trying to get one decent picture. Angry Toddler kept turning his head, or running away. I would like to get some decent pictures, just once.

Angry Toddler and Stella got to go into the bounce house and the train ride also. They really liked it. Angry Toddler kept kicking the pumpkins though. He was kicking them like soccer balls.

Here are some pictures of our fabulous Saturday morning.