Liars

My friend Lauren posted on facebook that she had an extra ticket to a hot air balloon festival on Saturday evening.  I had heard nothing about this festival so I did a little googling.  What I found sounded fantastic.  We (me, Michael, Spencer and my mom) decided to go.  Megan decided to bring Scott and Hadley and join us.  Lauren was coming with Shireen and Desmond.  It was going to be such a good time.

This is the description of the event.  This is cut straight from the press release:

More than 50 hot-air balloons will participate in a family-friendly balloon festival during the inaugural Arizona Balloon Classic, November 18 – 20 at Wild Horse Pass/Rawhide at the Gila River Indian Community. The weekend celebration will feature dawn patrol and morning liftoffs and landings, afternoon mass ascensions and evening glow events.

The balloons will launch and land from the grassy fields at Wild Horse Pass/Rawhide, filling the skies with massive shapes and color. Spectators will be allowed to walk on the field and watch the balloons inflate and lift off. Desert Glows, set to take place on Friday and Saturday evenings, November 18 and 19, will feature a field full of illuminated, tethered, hot-air balloons glowing and swaying to live musical performances. The weekend will also include family-friendly entertainment, skydivers, fireworks, a Family Fun Zone with children’s activities, exhibits, sampling, shopping and more.

This is what really sold it to me.  The reason we decided to go:

Afternoon Fun Flights- On Friday, Saturday & Sunday at about 4:30 p.m. about 50 colorful hot-air balloons will lift-off all at the same time. It's a wonderful photo opportunity!

So, all of Maricopa County must have read this press release and agreed that it sounded like a wonderful experience, because parking was a nightmare.  It took all of us between 30 minutes to an hour to just get from the freeway to a parking spot. 

We managed to make it in to the festival by 4:35.  I was so excited to see all 50 balloons.

And then.  And then we realized that they were big fat liars.

Want to know how many hot air balloons there were?  We're talking Grand Total.  And not even all inflated at once.

Six.

Yep.  Six balloons.  That's it.

My dad is of the opinion that we should file a complaint with the attorney general's office.  That seems like a lot of work, but it was definitely a rip-off.

These are the pictures I got of this oh most lame festival.

Spencer did have fun in the bounce houses.  His fun was not worth the $20 Michael and I spend and the $7 my mom spent to get in.

The illuminated balloons were not impressive either.  The "coordinated" glowing and swaying to music (that was NOT live) lasted about 1 minute.

There were quite a few food booths available.  I just don't think there is a single fry bread or bag of kettle corn in the world that is worth a 1 hour wait.

The skydivers were fun.  It was a thrill that lasted approximately 1.5 minutes. 

We decided we were going to leave before the fireworks and drive somewhere close-by to watch them so we could beat the nightmare that would be traffic leaving the event.  The fireworks started on the way to the car so we ended up watched them standing in the parking lot.  The second they ended we threw Spencer in his car seat and got the hell out of there.

We give the balloon festival 2 thumbs down.  We will not be returning next year.

Baby Shower

My wonderful friend Megan had a wonderful baby shower for me and Elliott on Saturday.  Megan also had a shower for me when I was pregnant with Spencer.  I thought it would be fun to do a comparison of me at both showers, but then I looked at the pictures from 2007 and decided against it. 

Here's the deal:  I was 34 weeks pregnant at my Spencer shower.  It was August.  It was Phoenix.  It was 110+ degrees that day.  I took a shower, did my make-up, styled my hair and was dripping with sweat by the time the first person arrived.  My hair was drenched and my make-up was washed away.  I look awful in all of those pictures.  Awful.  I don't want to look at them in private, so I certainly don't want to post them online.

I will note that Spencer was born less than 2 weeks after that shower.  I hope and pray that Elliott does not follow the same schedule.

Anyway.  On to the fun part.

Megan was a childless newlywed when she had my first shower.  Now she has a 2 year old.  I wanted to help in some way since she was doing so much work.  I volunteered to do dessert. 

I made chocolate toffee cupcakes,

and pumpkin whoopie pies.

Megan whipped up a beautiful diaper cake.

These are some of Elliott's new clothes being used as decoration.

Sandy

Joni and Maryellen

Saying hi to Elliott

The hostess with the mostess.

My mom (Carol), aunt Karen, aunt Kathy, Lois and my mother-in-law (Jeanne)

My mom

Kathy, Brittany and Monica with Archie.

I kicked Archie out of his love nest so I could be in the picture.  He was not happy.

We played games.

I sucked at multi-tasking with clothes pins.

And of course there were awesome gifts. 

 Joni made these!

I had just finished telling everyone about how Kathy always buys me pig presents when I opened this piggy bank from her and Brittany.

My aunt Karen and I always give each other reindeer and moose presents (it's a long family story).  She did not disappoint.

Here's the co-sleeper.  Pretty dang excited about this thing.

It was a wonderful party shared with wonderful people.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Megan.  I appreciate your friendship, thoughtfulness and generosity more than you'll ever know. 

Oh Spencer

What is up with the facial injuries?  Why the face?  Always the face.

Couldn't you bruise your knee?  Or your arm?  Or somewhere else that clothing could cover?  Do you know how many black eyes this is in your short 4 years?  I'm seriously asking because I have lost track.

We've taken you to the ER twice.  Both times were, shockingly, facial injuries.

And while we're on the topic of all these facial injuries, why are they always before important photographs?  Like your 3 year pictures, 4 generation pictures, 4 year pictures and Christmas pictures?

Why? Why? Why?

We went to the park with some friends after school today.  Bethany and Trevor (siblings) are Spencer's newest, best school friends.  We've been having play dates and park dates with them for about 6 weeks.  Luckily their mom, Erin, and I are fast friends as well.

The kids are very independent and play on their own.  Erin and I get to sit and chat and occasionally a kid will come over to tell us something before going back to play.  It's lovely. When we were packing up to leave today Spencer came over with a huge bruise on his face.  He told me he couldn't tell me what happened, he had to show me what happened.  Then he reenacted the scene.  Turns out he ran, full force, into a metal ladder when he and Trevor were chasing some girls.  What's amazing is that he didn't even report this to me when it happened.  It was probably a good hour before I knew he had hurt himself.

As the night progressed the bruise on his forehead turned into a bruise and huge bump on his forehead and a pretty good shiner around his eye.  He hardly ever complains about anything being painful, but when we got home he said his head hurt, so I have him some Tylenol.  2 minutes later he reported it wasn't working.  It also wasn't working at 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 6 minutes, 10 minutes and 11 minutes later.  Then it started working.  I expect it will wear off around 11 pm and we'll have a visitor later tonight.

This has nothing to do with the events of today, but this is our latest pottery creation:

I am going to have to think of something small to serve on this for Thanksgiving. 

Ideas?

Veterans Day Weekend

Did everybody enjoy their long holiday weekend?  We had a wonderful weekend.

On Friday we took the light rail for the 1st time ever.  We went to downtown Phoenix to watch the Veterans Day Parade.  It took about 4 times as long to ride the light rail compared to just driving, but we were doing it more for the experience than to save time.

The parade was great.  Lots of people, lots of floats and balloons.

Although I could have gone my entire life without seeing the Sun City Pom Poms.

I commend you for your athleticism late in life, but, cover up ladies.  This is not a good look.

Friday night we went out to dinner and a balloon artist conned us into getting this hat for Spencer.

We started the day on Saturday by attending a sibling adjustment class for Spencer.

He learned how to hold a baby.

How to feed a baby

(side note: I was very pleased that they actually explained that moms nurse babies but they can put some milk in a bottle so that big brothers and sisters can help.)

How to burp a baby.

How to change a diaper.

And how to sing to a baby.

They also made birthday cards for their little brothers and sisters.

It was a really good class.  I'm glad we went.

After the class I met my friends for lunch.  Amy was hosting a ladies get-together lunch in my honor to celebrate the impending arrival of Elliott.

We met at Macaroni Grill.  Unbeknownst to any of us Macaroni Grill is out of business.  We formulated Plan B.  We went to On the Border. 

It was a lovely lunch with my wonderful friends.  They were all so generous and I have some great new books to read to Elliott.  I have no evidence of it though because I took 0 pictures.

Later on Saturday Spencer showed off his flexibility.

And posed with the nutcracker I bought him at Hobby Lobby after lunch. $5.  They already have a lot of their Christmas stuff 50% off!

Today, Sunday, was a momentous day. 

Spencer has slept in the twin bed in our room twice in the last 6-8 weeks.  Once, about 2 weeks ago, when he had a bad dream at 2am and once last weekend when we made him sleep with us since Chelsea and her kids were in his room. 

With the twin bed next to our bed I have to climb to the end of the bed to get up.  This has not been a problem until, oh, 2 nights ago.  I had to heave myself up at 1 am and it was not pleasant.  Michael and I have tried switching sides of the bed but I can't sleep on his side.

So, today we took the twin bed down.  It's the first time since Spencer was born that we don't have a crib, toddler bed or twin bed pushed up next to our bed.

It means that I can have my side table and lamp back.

I predict that I will actually fall out of bed tonight because I have become accustomed to having a whole extra bed next to my bed in which to spread out on.  It will be nice to just roll out of bed when I have to go to the bathroom 4 times though.