Procrastination is my middle name...

No really, it is.

With the schools participating in Halloween on Friday with the kids dressing up and the Halloween Carnival, guess when I decided to make most of the costumes I told people I'd make?

Last night!

Last week though, I did manage to make a Thing 1 costume for a friend of mine. I just have to do the Thing 2 costume, their hair hats and the Cat in the Hat- Hat for their mom. I am going to take some pictures once I'm done cause I am SO EXCITED to see them!



On Monday at lunchtime, I managed to make a full on Shiny boxer Robe and Short set for my friends son who wanted to be a boxer. And get it to Anchorage by Tuesday morning, because for some weird reason, their school celebrated Halloween on Tuesday.



After the Haircut heard round the house, we couldn't figure out what Kaisa could be for Halloween. Then we watched, "How to train your dragon." And I swear no wonder my dad loves it here. He is totally a Viking. He fit right into the Eskimo culture wearing furs and animal skins on his back.



So, she is going to be Astrid from How to Train your Dragon!

Last night after Adya was afraid I wouldn't get hers done, I decided to finally start her Geisha costume. A full pink Kimono was in effect. I have NO idea how to make the sash, so I'm going to wing it (that usually works for me) and see how it goes. If all else fails, I am a wicked face painter, so I'll paint her face and no one will notice the wrong Kimono sash!



And of course, in full MOMMY mode, I rummaged through our leather stash and made Kaisa a full leather skirt and headband. I had to use my noggin for the skulls and spikes though, because we live in Kotzebue (I know you've heard it before, but seriously, we don't have a craft store so I have to improvise, why do you think I'm so creative!? Cause all I had to play with was wood glue, screws, and paper towel rolls!) and living here means that we don't have ANYTHING close to what anyone else has.



But you know what we DO have? Flour, Salt and hot water. :) Yes, we sat around and made skulls and spikes for Astrid's skirt. Today, I am heading over to NAPA to see what I can get for her shoulder guards, and I'll make a greenish gauzy shirt for her. Luckily Britni gave her the perfect Boots-wit-da-furrrr to wear and that's about it.



She really, REALLY wants a huge axe, but Dean is going to have to do that and he's out of town until Friday. Ah...too bad! Unless...yes, I think I can probably make it out of cardboard, a dowel and duct tape! I believe I even have super shiny silver duct tape!



Happy Halloween Costume making to everyone!

Momma Bear Club

If you're not interested in High School Boys wrestling, then this post isn't for you! If you're here for witty banter, then maybe sick around and I'll see what I can do. :)



So, if you are a dedicated reader and saw at the end of the Hair post yesterday that my son took third place at the Bush Brawl, then you're already one-up on everyone else. Everyone else...he took third place and I am SO PROUD! Not only that, but we bought him brand new wrestling shoes this year, only to have him declare Dean's high school shoes the best he's ever worn. These are from circa 1989, seven years OLDER than Koy himself!



How many of you are wrestling momma's? If any of you have wrestling sons (or daughters), boxing, karate-ing, and other savage viking sports like that where you watch as a referee allows another person's kid to beat your kid up then this is for you!



I have some serious, and I mean SERIOUS momma bear syndrome. I mean, my PARENTS can't even yell at my kids without my blood boiling! I have to restrain myself every day, when someone else disciplines my kids. I'm just being honest, too. I am very grateful that people scold my kids when I am not around. If they had free range to do whatever they pleased, then I'd be in for a world of hurt down the road when I said NO! But that doesn't mean that I'm not counting to ten in my head while I'm smiling and saying, "Thank you for doing that," to the community member.



I don't know why that is. Maybe because I was the one who grew them inside me, I was the one who nursed them and changed them and took care of them when no on else was there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an umbrella mom, I just have Momma Bear syndrome, that's all.



So when I have to sit on the bleachers and watch as some kid continually elbows my son in the back of the head and the Ref not blow his stupid whistle, I lose it. We videoed my son's matches with our little camcorder and we have to watch it on mute. I'll have to put some music in the background, because its almost embarrassing to hear my sisters and I yelling! I blame the Finnish blood cursing through our veins.



Friday Koy wrestled two matches, the first one, he managed to pin the kid pretty quickly. I can't tell you which moves he did, because I don't even know anything except, "Crossface!" (So, guess what I was yelling the WHOLE time?! My poor son!) Then his second match he ended up either catching a knee, or a forehead on his head and lightly passing out. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to run over to the mat and grab my 5'7" 125 lb. 14 year old baby! So, anyway, he lost that match but didn't suffer from a concussion so that was great news!



After going home at 10:00 p.m., he had to get up by 6:00 am for 7:00 am weigh ins. They gave them a +2 weight limit, meaning if he was in the 125 weight class, he could weigh 127 on Saturday. (I just learned all this stuff, so bear with me if you already know!) He was supposed to wrestling the consolation rounds starting around 10:00am-ish, so I went back home and went to sleep.



At 9:00 am, I got a text from his BFF saying he was wrestling NOW! So, I quickly (And I mean QUICKLY) put on a pair of shoes and a jacket, called Elsa and drove over to get her while we rushed to the gym. By the time we arrived, we watched him walking over to the score booth at the end of the match. (Which means he won, cause they have to sign the slip at the booth!)



Throughout the day we sat on the hard bleachers waiting and waiting and waiting for the wrestle-backs. Every hour or so, when we were ready to leave, they would say, "In the hole on mat 1, 125 weight class, Koy Johnson and Blah Blah." (Except they kept saying Koy JohnsTon)



And then we'd sit back down and wait some more. The waiting wasn't too bad, since we had THREE mats going at once and the weight classes ranged from 45 lb Kindergarteners to heavyweights in high school. My BFF and Best Woman (Matron of Honor?) and her family came up for the weekend so Tarren could wrestle. Tarren was my Flower Boy(?) he walked with Kaisa in our wedding. His dad was one of Dean's groomsmen. Tarren won the 45 lb weight class.


(P.S. you guys think I'm a good seamstress, I have NOTHING on Danielle! She MADE Tarren's singlet! Made it. Crazy good sewer!)

There was really only one match I was mad about though. I was so mad that I went over to the coach after the match and told him exactly how I felt about coaching kids to think that that was OK. He pretended not to know what I was talking about until I said, "We have it on video," and walked away.



The match was against my son and his guy was pretty squirmy and hitting Koy's head. But I was told that that's normal, you do things like that to "piss off your opponent" (according to my husband) and luckily Koy doesn't get upset that easily. Anyway, we started to notice that whenever the ref would blow his whistle because they were out of bounds, that once the ref turned away, the kid would elbow Koy in the back of the head. We were yelling about it, and I think even Koy's coach noticed it. I watched the other coach and he sat there with a smirk on his face because his kid was ahead. Of course, I blew up. I mean seriously, all of us in the stands blew up.



This continued on until finally the ref called the kid for an illegal move and the only thing someone could yell was, "Yeah, YOU!" And my normally smily kid (he SMILES during his matches you guys!) who has no temper in the world was MAD. I think I heard myself say, "Oh no, he's is MAD, I wonder what's going to happen...."



Well, we found out what would happen if you make my kid mad. On the whistle he turned, flipped the kid instantly and held him there in a CHOKE HOLD, (I don't know what its called, but that's what it LOOKED like to me!) gritting his teeth and with a snarl on his face! He pinned him and got up, nonchalantly walked over, took off his colored band around his ankle, held out his hand and...SMILED at the kid.



After that, he won his last match for third after his teammates told him that he was gonna get WHIPPED by the kid. We are all so proud of him! The way he handled himself, and the way he shook it off afterward and just focused on the matches. Even his own teammates are awesome. They wrestle each other, and are still best friends after the matches offering advice during the match to each other. Sigh...



Ahh.... High School Wrestling, I have a love-hate relationship with it!

Lots of Love

For Halloween my daughter was going to be either Rainbow Bright, or Pippi Longstocking. She was very excited about the Pippi hair.



She is used to me brushing her hair, every single morning of her life. She gets up, brushes her teeth, gets dressed and brings me the "Hair Basket," a white plastic basket with clips, headbands, brushes, and pony tail holders. She figures out how she wants her hair fixed and we go on with our day.



Every. Single. Day. Do any of you have girls with long beautiful hair who HATE to have their hair brushed? I do! But, I am not about to have a ratty headed girl walk around school. The rule in the house is, "HAIR FIXED every day" (If you're under the age of 13!).



I always had long hair. Once in the third grade, I convinced my mom to let my grandma take me to get the "Dorothy Hamill Wedge" and that was the first and LAST time I got my hair cut. She trimmed it, but it stayed long until I was 28.



"It hurts to be beautiful." My mom used to say. So, obviously, I just told Kaisa that too! I also would say, "I can cut it all off and we don't have to do this anymore..." And lately, she's been saying, "YES, lets CUT IT OFF!" Of course, I just assume she's being bratty and doesn't want to get her hair brushed, but, apparently I was wrong.



She took it upon herself to Google (She is a GOOGLE fool! She can Google ANYTHING you want her to!) Locks of Love so she could find out how much she'd have to cut off to send it off to a child who needs it. (We had to tell her it was LOCKS, not LOTS of Love.)



Saima eventually helped her figure that it was 10 inches in tightly bound rubber bands. Lucky for everyone there, she woke up with a HUGE rats nest in her hair after having a nightmare and rolling around her bed all night and even after a shower with a cup of conditioner, it took me thirty minutes to brush it out. I was so irritated when she asked if we could cut it, that I said, "YES, lets cut it then!" And she was ecstatic!



So bound in two ponytails with "colorful rubber bands so they can see how pretty it is..." I cut off TEN AND A HALF INCHES of hair from my baby's head!



Amidst tears (from me) and "OHMYGOD's" from everyone around, she smiled her way through the haircut of the decade at our house! She absolutely LOVES it. Dean absolutelly LOVES it. Saima absolutely LOVES it. I, on the other hand, wish to assess my fifth amendment privilege at this time. I am proud that she is donating it to Locks of Love, and today she is getting a Locks of Love teddy bear from their website.



Now, less than a week before Halloween, we don't have a costume for her and nothing will ship to us before their costume parade at school on Friday, so I am at a loss there.



I will say though, that she looks much more Finn, than 'Skimo now! And I'm sure I'll love it eventually. Especially in the mornings when I don't have to crunch through her tangles.

(On another note, my son took third at the Bush Brawl in the 125 lb weight class this weekend! I am so proud of him!!!)

Wraaasling...

Ugh, I attempted to photograph and video my Freshman son wrestling some Exhibition matches against Barrow today.

I have to say that while my child is wrestling, I am a HORRIBLE cameraman. And an even more Horribler photographer! But lucky for me one of our friends was there and he took a bunch of photos for me.







My little tiny baby son isn't so little tiny anymore! Sigh...







It does help though that he was wrestling a girl! :) hehe. All the boys at the end were saying that the girl was "on Roids...." I told them to be careful cause GIRLS ARE TOUGH!

Pot Pies and Wrestling Shirts

Now, normally Chicken pot pie wouldn't necessarily go together. But today they do. Cause I'm gonna give you my super top secret recipe! (Well, its not super top secret, but that just makes it sound better eh!?)



And I made my mom a wrestling shirt for the Bush Brawl this year. She's going to wear it all week I think!

OK... BEST EVER CHICKEN POT PIE! (Notice a trend here?)



Gather your ingredients:
*Two or three boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I have to use frozen because I live in Kotzebue and we don't have fresh Chicken breasts available...cheap ah?)
*A can of corn (Or a handful of frozen/fresh organic corn if you have it available, I don't!)
*A handful of frozen/fresh peas
*A few carrots (Yes, my carrots look all lame cause I thought I had carrots, and it turns out I only had a few baby carrots left, but that'll have to do for now!)
*A half of one onion
*A can of Cream of Mushroom Soup
*Two pie crusts (Notice I'm using pilsbury ready made, because if my mom isn't eating it, no one cares if I use ready made! If you want a recipe, CLICK HERE for a great recipe from Tundra Gypsy, and check out her knitting and crafting and baking...yum!)



Cut up your carrots and throw them in a pot.



Cut up your chicken and throw it in the pot with the carrots. Fill with just enough water to cover and boil until the chicken is done. Your carrots will still be slightly crunchy, which is best, in my opinion!



Slice up the onion and place in another pot. Cook until translucent.



Add the Cream of Mushroom Soup, about 3/4 of a can of water, the corn and peas to the onion pot. Boil until nice and bubbly. (Note: I noticed that Campbell's Cream of Mushroom has MSG (GASP!) in it. And I can't eat that, so now I'm gong to have to make a roux for my chicken pot pie, but that's ok, five more minutes is OK!)



Drain the chicken and carrots, then add to the Cream of Mushroom pot, or vice versa, if your pot is too small.



Place a pie crust on the bottom of your pie pan, fill with the chicken mixture, careful not to overfill. Place the other crust on top and fold the top crust over the bottom to seal in the chicken mixture. Poke vent holes on top.



Bake for 35-40 minutes at 355 degrees, or until the top is browned. I let mine set out for about ten minutes before we eat it, but if I didn't stand there with a wooden spoon swatting away grubby, hungry fingers, we would eat it before then.

OK, now for the SHIRT recipe!

Get a shirt. Get some freezer paper. Get some fabric paint.



Draw your design onto the paper side of the freezer paper.

Cut it out with an exacto knife.

Iron it onto your shirt, plasticy side down.

Let it cool.

Paint on top of the paper with your fabric paint.

Let paint dry.

Peel off freezer paper.

Bring shirt to your mom at work.



(Koy is my son, who is 14 and wrestling this weekend here in Kotzebue. "Aana" means Grandmother. My mom is Koy's Aana. And she graduated from this school in 1974.)



Make sure the back is painted too!

OK, now whatever you can draw and cut out, you can make into a shirt!

Now go make yourself a Chicken Pot Pie shirt! :) Enjoy!