Happy Halloween.

It's fun to finally celebrate Halloween. We didn't do anything for Halloween last year because we were in Poland, where the stores still offered lots of candy and decorations but I didn't see anyone buying (the candy or the imported holiday...). Before Poland, Anna wasn't really coherent for the first two Halloweens of her life. But this year, we knew she'd love it. Candy... costumes... squishy pumpkin innards... what's not to like?

We carved our pumpkin on Monday. Before I show you how it turned out, I have a little explaining to do. In the Scoresby family, we have a tradition of making Apple Uglies. Every October we take caramel apples and give them faces made out of candy. It's a delightful, delectable tradition. The best part is ODing on sugar and chatting it up with the fam.

It's not hard to make them ugly, but to set them apart you really need some flair. Like a giant set of starburst teeth on my apple from Girls Trip to NY October 2006.


(Thanks for the pirated pictures, Jen.) See, that's how dedicated to this tradition we are. We make it a point to do apple uglies even when we're on vacation. Here's Steph's beauty...


...and Jen's and Sean's, respectively. (Are those supposed to be arms, Jen? I can't remember, but I love them.)

Anyway, since Trevor is MIA these days, as he's at school for literally 16 hours a day, I couldn't rationalize making caramel apples for myself. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make a Pumpkin Ugly. I tried. I really did. I went for odd-shaped, googly eyes, an obligatory unibrow, a funky hairline and sideburns, a big nose, and buck teeth.

Sadly, it looks pretty run of the mill. He even looks angry. That's not what I was going for at all. But I guess that's what you get for doing it freehand and not having any artistic talent.


On Tuesday, we dressed Anna up in the only costume I could muster after having just moved, the adorable Polish folk dress you'll remember from this July post, and took her to our ward Halloween party on Tuesday. Many people called her a gypsy and one lady said she looked like a Swiss mountain girl — which isn't too far off, geographically — but strangely no one guessed Polish folk girl.


Here are a couple pictures of Trevor and Anna at the festivities. Trevor's face in the second will give you a good holiday scare.



I couldn't resist taking a picture of this adorable little gorilla girl. She toddled around the cultural hall all night and I just wanted to squeeze her... and also maybe see if she'd give me a grunt or two...


We ate chili and cornbread and then the kids trick-or-treated around to different rooms. Anna kept saying "tricky treat" (cute!) and calling her acquired candy her "trick-or-treats" (also cute!). I of course hid her bag of candy after she went to bed, like a good parent, and thought (hoped) she'd forget about it in the morning.

She didn't. One of the first things out of her mouth was, "Mom, where my trick-or-treats go?" I didn't answer for a while so I wouldn't have to lie, and then when she demanded an answer, I said, "That's an interesting question... Hey, do you want to play a game?" It totally worked.

So I've been eating her Halloween candy and giving her some here and there when I feel like it — like a good parent.

Isn't Halloween the best?

Dear Stomach,

I just want to tell you I'm sorry. When I first thought about eating the "few"-day old stir fry for dinner, something told me not to. When I first tasted the chicken and thought there was a hint of strange there, something told me not to eat it. But that something wasn't my brain, that's for sure. My brain said, "We're poor. Eat the leftovers. Don't let them go to waste." I should have listened, Stomach. I should have listened.

I guess you started to feel a little queasy when we got to Target. By the time I was ready to check out, you were really upset. And then by the time I had hauled the stuff from the car to the apartment and put Anna to bed, you were demanding my full attention.

And then I remembered something. A friend of mine, who was with us in Poland last year, spent the previous summer in Kiev. She didn't have a kitchen in her apartment and had to live off street food for a couple months. She said she once got a kebab that told her, after several bites, that it wasn't quite right. Too old or too undercooked, I don't remember. But feeling incredibly sick, she ate some yogurt and was miraculously cured.

So I decided to eat one of the fancy-pants yogurts that I got at the store today: Rachel's Plum Honey Lavender, which also claimed to have "calming" effects. (Heaven knows no one needed them more than me, at this point.) It was delicious, but sadly I was focused less on the taste and more on its ability to coat my stomach with a thick white layer of calm down.

I felt better almost instantly. Thank you, Yogurt. Even so, Stomach, I know you still haven't fully gotten over the effects of my unwise decision, but I hope you will accept the yogurt as a peace offering and that you'll eventually come around to forgiving me.

But I learned my lesson. Listen to whatever sixth sense was telling me to avoid the food in the first place, because eating fancy yogurt for medicinal purposes isn't saving anyone money.

Love,
Ashley

Reasons 762-768 why Anna is adorable

762. "Ring Around the Rosies" is one of Anna's new favorite songs. The first time we sang it repeatedly on Grandma and Grandpa Banks' trampoline, Anna sang "Ashley, Ashley" instead of "ashes, ashes."
763. Every time she has gas, she lets everyone within a 20 foot radius know by shouting "Oh, gas!" Sometimes she'll even motion toward the point of origin, in case some of us missed it. And sometimes, she'll play tricks on us. On occasion when she does have gas, she'll get a sneaky look on her face and say, "Mom gas?" I'll deny it and then she'll laugh and say, "Yeah, Anna gas."
764. Her pronunciation is quite good for a two-year-old, but some of her words are so cute that I avoid teaching her the real way t0 say them. Some examples:

cucumber = cummer

glove = glub (love this one)
bandaid = bandy (and this one)
probably = plobaly
Summertime = Sumtermine

765. She loves to say cheers, and she'll do it with anything: drinks, grapes, the carrots in our soup tonight. I have no idea where she learned this.
766. When someone around her burps or if she does it herself, Anna asks to clarify, "Say burp?" I love that it's something said. "Yes, I said burp. Burp."
767-768. These pictures I just ran across again in iPhoto are reason enough.

We finally moved!

After a two-day road trip, which included Anna throwing up three times to effectively break in the new car seat, we are here. Anna and I drove down to LA with Trevor's parents and his brother Devan last Thursday and Friday. We unloaded the U-haul Friday afternoon and evening and spent yesterday shopping and installing so we have more places to put all of our stuff. Every wall is lined with boxes, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be that way for a long time. But it's good to be with Trevor and it's good to have our own place with our own stuff. Get excited for the before and after photos to come.

In many ways, I feel like I've been constantly moving for the past two months, living out of suitcases at my parents' house and packing up all of our belongings, little by little, to prepare for the out-of-state move. But on the other hand, I feel like I've been moving for the last year. International moves are hard and I also feel like we were always on the go in Poland, fleeing the country for one reason or another.

So with that said, I'm ready to be done. I'm ready for my day at the beach and subsequent day at the spa NOW.

Too bad there's still like 500 boxes left to unpack.

Annasaurus Rex returns... from Poland

A few weeks ago, just after we recently returned from Poland, my large family had a huge gathering. It seemed like there were millions of kids running around the house and Anna was pretty shy/terrified for the first hour or so. (We joked that it was probably because she wasn't used to so many people speaking English to her. That took some adjusting.)

But then she seemed to warm up a little after a while, enough to leave my side and go play with the cousins who are sort of close to her age. I was excited by this, knowing that she needed friends her age and, coincidentally, friends who spoke English (neither of which she had in Poland.)

And then, after she had been gone for a while, we saw this:



Actually, we heard it loooong before we saw what was going on, and I had trouble believing it was Anna. She kept it up for quite a while, long enough for me to get over the shock that this sound was being emitted by my normally calm daughter and long enough still for me to run for the camera.

But after a few surprised laughs from us all and a few more minutes of the madness, someone started to complain about how loud and shrill her scream was becoming. I told them to keep quiet because she was getting some much-needed social interaction. This far outweighed the temporary ring in our ears, to me. And if this is the only way my daughter can make friends, I'll take it.

Ah, sisters.

(a picture from many moons ago)

So one night a couple weeks ago, my sister, Stephanie, got home from work and I was explaining where the food was for dinner, as my mom was gone and had left me in charge. After I directed her to the hamburger patties on the stove, I held up a bag of hamburger buns behind her and our exchange went a little something like this:

Me: "And here are some buns, if you want," [and then putting my hand to my backside] "or there are these, if you like. Either way."
Steph: "Oh yeah? Do they both taste good?"
Me: "Depends. Both are soft and white, so whatever suits your fancy."

I don't think you can get away with having a conversation like that with anyone besides a sister or an extremely close female friend. (Call me biased, but I don't think it would work with boys at all.) Anyway, this moment made me smile. I felt even luckier that I have TWO sisters I can be cheeky with.

Things I learned on my trip to LA

Last weekend I found some cheap plane tickets and decided to pay a visit to Trevor (sans Anna), since I hadn't seen my spouse in WAY too long—like, more than a month! That's not okay. And since we still have a couple more weeks to go before the big move, I thought a little quality time together would help us make it through the last lap of this, our Being Apart Marathon.

Anyway, it was SO good to see Trevor, it was good to check out the new apartment and measure a few things so I know how much of our stuff to bring down, and plus, I even learned a few things:

1. Traveling without a child can be a peaceful, relaxing experience. I actually took a book on the plane. And I took a nap — a NAP! — on the flight home.
2. I don't need to carry snacks with me everywhere I go. Although I discovered some leftover fruit snacks in my purse that would have helped tide me over if I did get a little irritable, I didn't even need them.
3. I'm still not used to the California landscape. I've been there a few times, and I was only there for 4 days this trip, but still. It looks weird to me, no matter how much I've seen it on TV. The palm trees are tall and they stick straight up out of nothing, there are a few green areas, but basically it looks kind of dry and deserty. At least LA did. But don't get me wrong. Read on.
4. I'm excited to live there. I'm excited to explore new places, find fun places to eat, and discover great places to shop. And since I know they've got to be there, I'm also excited to set out on adventures to find greener areas (this is starting to sound laughable coming from a Utahan). But it's going to be a great adventure and I can't wait.
5. However, I am not excited to drive there. When Trevor asked if I wanted to drive one night, I told him no because it had been a while since I had driven a stick (remember how we lived in another country last year?) and I didn't want to jog my memory on crazy streets I didn't know. So that's going to take some getting used to.
6. Since so much of the business of flying is done online these days (reservations, e-tickets, checking in, etc.), sometimes I feel like the prep I've done for the trip is fake. At times I feel like I'm going to get up to the gate and hand them my flimsy boarding pass and then they'll laugh at me and tell me that it's not even a real ticket. It sort of seems like it shouldn't be this easy to travel several hundred miles.
7. Before the trip, I couldn't wait for some alone time. Being a single mom is rough, although our families have been super supportive while Trevor has been in LA. But with that said, I missed Anna terribly, of course. We all knew it would happen.

Anyway, that's all. It was a great trip, but it's good to be back to my baby. And it's even better knowing that we're going to be done moving soon (since I feel like we've been perpetually moving for two months now) and we'll all be reunited with Trevor again soon. Very soon.