Category Archives: Photos

The photo evidence that will one day be our ruin.

The Winged Walstons

Posted on by

Stella was resolute from the very first moment we asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween: A Beautiful Butterfly. As the pieces of her costume started coming together, however, it became more and more apparent that Beautiful Butterfly had actually metamorphosized into Disco Butterfly. The true turning point came when the thin, pink glitter belt was added. It looked as though she fluttered straight in from a Donna Summer video. As usual, this doesn’t come without some relevant back-story. Of late, Stella has found the wonderfulness that is disco. Her #1 request that she repeatedly implores from the back seat is YMCA. Yes, everyone, my child is hooked on the Village People. Running a very close second is We Are Family, as in – I got all my sisters and me. In both cases she knows the words, and sings them with great gusto. Reason 376 we know, unquestionably, that she is our child.

I took Porter’s non-verbal cues of BEING UP ALL NIGHT that he wished to go as something nocturnal. This, coupled with the fact that he is getting four teeth at once and BITES ON EVERYTHING, made it a no-brainer that he should be a bat. He looked adorable, natch, and (along with his sister) posed for about a zillion photos .

We opted for a loop around the Arcata Plaza again this year, and after witnessing the unsavory types that trick-or-treat our neighborhood, I decided we would invite ourselves over to Dore & Lewis’s house for the remainder of the evening, so as not to have to pass out candy to the taller-than-I-am “kids” that ring our doorbell into the late hours of the night. Plus, that meant we didn’t have any left-over candy that I would surely consume by the fistful.

Little did I know that we would get to see one of the more memorable moments of the evening when Steve, Lewis and Porter all went to the door to hand out candy, as Steve casually remarked that they were dressed up as a gay couple who had just adopted their first baby.

The Season of the Pumpkin

Posted on by

This year we planned a coordinated effort for our pumpkin patch outing. Taking into consideration Stella and Alex’s BFF status, it was natural that they do the next best thing to hanging out at the mall scamming for guys – roaming a dirty field for squash. 3-ish year olds love this kind of thing. No, really.

Whereas I used to be the kind of mother who wouldn’t even consider leaving the house without 2 spare changes of clothes, diapers, wipes, bottles, toys, birth certificate, umbella stroller and three additional apparatus for carrying, I realized halfway there that I had forgotten any kind of coat or hat for Porter. This is why you may notice a bluish tinge to his lips in some of these photos. Poor kid. He’s lucky I haven’t left him on the top of the car yet.

We waited a week to actually carve the pumpkins, and it was all I could do to convince Stella that a knife was not a kid-friendly tool…even the “safety” kind. She eventually acquiesced, and accepted that the best she was going to get was to have her hand on mine while I did the actual carving. She did have a fun time scooping guts though. Being that I am the only one who takes photos around here, and I had to be on the task of keeping her away from the weapons of destruction, there are not a lot of photos of the actual carving part. Instead, what you will see is pumpkins, one photo of Stella with a splayed open pumpkin, then all the pumpkins and jack-o-lanters neatly displayed for your viewing pleasure.

Being that Porter was napping during the majority of the carving activities, I had to stage some ‘Boy with Pumpkin’ shots for those of you who would likely complain if there weren’t adequate seasonal photos with both children (yes, grandparents, I am looking at you).