Happy Halloween!

Carving pumpkins last week

The crew, right before heading out to trick-or-treat

The back side

 Remember how Brian and I had this plan for all of us to be Phineas and Ferb characters?  Alyssa was totally on board, but the boys were not, and even though we tried, we couldn't convince them to be Ferb and Phineas.

Alyssa started out as an Egyptian girl, then an Egyptian princess, but when she went to a Halloween birthday party, everyone called her "Cleopatra."  She came home, looking a little disappointed, told me what happened, and said, "I think I want to change what I want to be for Halloween."

"Oh, no you don't,"  I thought.  "I worked hard on that costume.  I'm not making another one."

"I'm going to change my costume to Cleopatra!" she said.  Yea!  I was happy about that one.  It turns out that there was only one other girl at the birthday party, which is why she came home disappointing.

Ethan wanted to be Super Dog, and the best part about it is that he had an absolute idea in his head of what Super Dog looks like, and he told me what he wanted.  I thought it would be fun to put a bone and an "S.D." on the back of his cape, but no - Super Dog doesn't have that on his cape.  Ethan said Super Dog's cape had stripes - green stripes.  I thought it would be fun to make him a collar with an I.D. tag, but Super Dog doesn't have a collar, because, "he doesn't have an owner."  Duh!  Before I made his costume, I asked Ethan where he learned about Super Dog, and I wasn't getting any straight answers.  I had already Googled it, but the Super Dog I was finding wasn't matching up to what Ethan was describing.

"Is he from a movie or cartoon?" I asked.

"No," Ethan said.  "He's real."

"Where did you see him?"

"On a cloud," he said.  Okay.  So I followed his instructions, and he ended up pretty happy with the end product.

Marcus kept going back and forth and all around with what he wanted to be.  Batman.  A cheetah.  Batman.  Baby dog.  I don't know what else.  At first when I showed him the rocket man idea, he liked it, but then he kept changing his mind, so  I asked if I could surprise him, and he was excited about that.  Rocket man it was, then.  He didn't like his costume at first, but once the other two kids started putting theirs on, he put on his jetpack, and ran around the room making rocket noises.

Here's a closeup of his shirt.  How could he not like this shirt?  The moon has crators! I, myself, am quite proud of this shirt.

Our tribute to Phineas and Ferb

 I was talking to my mom on the phone a couple weeks ago, trying to figure out what I could be to go along with Brian's Dr.  Doofenshmirtz and Becca's Perry the Platypus.  I originally wanted to be Vanessa,  Brian wanted me to be Lindonna.  I was stuck.  Then  I thought of my brother Philip.  When Philip was in high school he made a huge R2D2 costume that he actually got inside, sat on a tricycle, and rode around the church parking lot for trunk-or-treat.  A few weeks ago he was making a Tardis (?) costume out of an old refrigerator box to go along with Erin's Dr. Who costume.  I thought of this, gave a loud laugh, and said, "If I was Phil, I would make myself an Inator!"  But then I thought, "Why not?"  I didn't do my costume nearly as cool as Philip would have - it's just a cheap sweatshirt that says, "-inator" on it, but at least I was something.  And the sweatpants I got with it are really comfy.

Another shot of Becca the Platypus, because she's so stinkin' cute!

Our jack-o-lanterns.  It's hard to see the kids standing by their pumpkins, but it goes (left to right) Ethan, Alyssa, Marcus. Ethan and Alyssa carved theirs all by themselves. Ethan even wouldn't let us look at his until it was all finished.  I love how it turned out!  Marcus designed his, and I carved it.

Enjoying our spoils after trick-or-treating while watching Disney's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Dr. Brian Wants Everyone to be Safe this Halloween

The Baby Says, "What?!?"

Rebecca and I have been playing a game this morning that we've been calling, "The Baby Says."  Basically, I say, "The baby says some crazy random thing" and Rebecca smiles and laughs.  It's a fun game.  So far the baby has said, among other things, "I've got a bellyfull, I've got a bellyfull, I've got a bellyfull of jelly!"

and

"I've got a bellyfull of milk!  Ooh, chocolate milk!"

and

"I love it!"

and when I got my phone camera out...

"Whatchyou doin' Mama?"

I don't tell you these things to demonstrate how incredibly funny I am, especially since now that they're written down, they don't seem funny at all.  But they sure are fun to say when you have a sweet little thing sitting on your pillow, just smiling and laughing at you.  She really does have a great sense of humor, or at least she thinks she does, because the baby says, "I'm so funny!"

edited to add:  I just discovered that the baby loves doing the Macarena.

Who Done It?

Last Friday Brian and I held a Murder Mystery party, which we've been trying to do since we moved in over a year and a half ago!  We finally were able to get enough people together at one time, and it was so fun!  We did one called "Way Out West" from Freeform Games.  (I think I've mentioned before that they're the absolute best Murder Mystery company we've used. 

This is the closest we came to a "group shot."  it's just as everyone was arriving and introducing themselves to each other.  

The Judge

 Willie and Nathan

Andrea's husband, Barlow, won the award for best acting, probably because he was the deputy sheriff and he was doing a great job of arresting and interrogating people, but I think Andrea should have won.  There were a couple of times that I would look at her, and she just looked upset, and I thought, "Oh, no!  She's not having fun." but then when I would start walking over to her, I would hear that she was complaining about something or someone and was perfectly in character.  Andrea won best costume, though.  She's in the peach dress.

 

 

Poor Jodie got shot, and she's unconscious on the floor.

I think Matt got shot at the most during the night.  Everyone seemed to be against him.

 

  Karrie got put in jail, but I'm not sure why. As you can see, we allowed cupcake eating in jail.  Those were good cupcakes.

I'm sorry some of the pictures are blurry.  I think the settings on our camera have been set funny for quite a while, but I don't know how to fix it.  Oh well.  We're glad to finally get some people together so we can make more friends in our ward.  We had a great time!

Nursery: Complete

We actually have a room in our house that is done!  And we actually have a nursery - yea!  I thought briefly while I was pregnant about having Alyssa and Rebecca end up sharing a room, but by the time Rebecca will be ready for that, Alyssa will have a ton of stuff that she will get into, and then Alyssa will get mad, and they'll get into fights, and end up not liking each other...  So since we knew Rebecca would need a room eventually, we gave her one right away.

I'm using it more than I thought that I would.  Rebecca spent the first third of her life (she's three months, so one month - you get the math) sleeping in either a bassinet by our bed, in a baby hammock that we made, or in bed with us.  But I also tried to get her to take naps in the crib in her room sometimes, and now that she's older it's where she always naps, and she also starts the night in her crib, then moves into bed with me halfway through the night.

Anyway, it's nice that I have a place to put her down where I know she won't be trampled on by either Sadie or Marcus,  and it's nice to have a definite place to change her diapers.  We've done changing-whever-it's-convenient-at-the-time before, and I like this much better.  I'm so in love with our house, and I feel so lucky to have been able to find it when we did.  Even after living here for a year and a half, I still do little dances sometimes and sing, "Oh, I love my house, I love my house."

So here is Rebecca's room:

This is the picture that greets you at the door.  All of the artwork is done by my talented niece, Megan.  I told her I wanted cute pictures of girls playing in the woods, and I love how they all turned out.  She's been so excited to do these pictures, especially because now she is a professional artist.

This one is my favorite.

Here's the crib we're borrowing from my parents.  Did I sleep in this crib, Mom?  I know at least my little sister did, and multiple grand kids.  I know, it's not to code anymore, but it's sturdy, and I feel that it's safe. 

I should have taken a closer picture of the mobile.  Here's a cropped close-up from the last picture.  Alyssa and I made the mobile together.  I sewed the bird, butterfly, and mushroom, and she sewed all the pink hearts.  We did it a little before I had Rebecca, and it was so fun to work together on it.  And now I love looking at it knowing that Alyssa and I made it together. And actually, looking at the picture, I'm sure that Alyssa will appreciate the fact that the shadow from the hoop looks like a heart; she likes things like that.

I originally planned on painting the mirror ivory to match the dresser, but I never did, because I kind of like it blue.

Here's a close up of Rebecca's blessing dress and one of the pictures.

The rocking chair.  Brian gave me this chair for my birthday just after I had Ethan.  I needed to have my gall bladder removed, and it was hard for me to nurse Ethan, so Brian went to Goodwill and brought home the chair so I would have a comfortable place to nurse.  I don't think the cat realizes that this is my chair.  It's one of her favorite places to sleep, and there's white fluff all over the seat.

And here's the diaper changing station, with the pail completely full of diapers.  Tomorrow's a diaper laundry day.

I love how Rebecca's room turned out.  Before she was born, I told my mom that if the baby ended up surprising us by being a boy, that I would still keep the room pink for a while, because it just makes me happy to be in there.  And now it feels good to have it be officially done.

Just Some Rambling

For some reason I thought that after Alyssa started going to school that I would have gobs of free time.  There were so many times when I was homeschooling that I would jealously think of all the moms who sent their children to school each day and how they must have so much time to do whatever they want.  Now I know that those moms are busy, too.  Just a different busy.

I think I was actually better at keeping up with the household chores when we home schooled, because I had to keep up.  Right now I'm jumping from project to project in the house, and I'm neglecting the laundry and dishes.  Oooh, especially the dishes.  There have been so many nights where we've had to run off somewhere after dinner, and we ended up leaving dirty dishes on the table, the counters, and in the sink.  It's been crazy.  There have also been a lot of nights that Brian hasn't been able to join us for dinner, because of the activities we have to get Alyssa to in the evenings.  Basically, I made dinner for me and the kids, then Brian would come home as Alyssa and I were finishing up and just about to head out the door.  When I put Alyssa into ballet and soccer, I made a promise to myself that we would not lose eating dinner as a family, and I didn't like that that's where we were.

Last week I figured out our schedule such that we can have a good dinner together again each night.  It does mean that we're eating dinner at 7:30 some nights, but it has been so wonderful to not feel rushed as we eat and to be able to enjoy each other's company.  Eating that late is also not a huge deal, because Alyssa get's home from school just after 4:00, and the kids usually get a snack then.  Crazy, huh?  It's 3:49 pm, and she just barely got out of school.

School is going really well for her, by the way.  She's made some good friends, and she's doing a great job of getting her work and home work done. 

Okay, so I think it's time to end this post.  I didn't really know what to write about when I sat down, anyway.  I just know that I need to get in the habit of writing again, so I don't lose all the memories we're creating now.  But right now is not the time to do that.  I have two little boys who are begging to do this and that, and especially begging to eat, and they're not leaving me alone.  But real quick - here is the one thing that I wanted to make sure to put in the post:

Wow, it get's blurry when you make it extra large.  Don't worry, I'm just mid-project.  I'll make sure to take a picture with the real camera when it's done.  I just had to take a picture so that when I take the frames down to paint them, I'll remember what order to put them back up in.  And, of course, I'm sharing the picture with you, even with all it's blurriness, because I am excited.

From the Same Cookie Cutter

Last week I was looking at pictures of Alyssa when she was a baby while Rebecca was asleep on my lap.  I found a picture of a sleeping Alyssa when she was about two months old, then looked down, and saw almost the exact same baby in my arms.  Alyssa had a bit more "Brian" in her, and they do look a little different, but the face shape and their little noses - you can definitely tell that they're sisters.

Rebecca is a wonderful baby.  She's another of our I'm-so-happy-to-be-here babies, especially in the morning.  She woke me up around 6:30 this morning and gave me a huge smile.  She basically spends the first hour of each day just smiling and laughing, which is a great way to start the day.  She's putting herself on a 9:00 and 1:00 nap schedule, with more sleeping in the evening, because she's still little, and when she's not sleeping she's happy to just be with us.  She does not like a wet or dirty diaper.  That's really the only time she complains - is when she wants to be changed.  She is strong!  Everyone comments on how strong and alert she is, but all of our babies have been that way.  I have trouble holding other people's young babies, because I'm not used to holding the head so much or supporting them against my shoulder.  At Rebecca's two month doctor appointment the doctor said that she had the strength and was at the physical level of a four month old.

Yesterday I was on the phone with my younger sister, who is just getting ready to start the pregnancy and kids stage of life.  We were talking about Hyperemesis Gravidarum, and how it will be harder for her if she gets sick, because of her diabetes.  I looked down at Rebecca, who was looking back up at me and smiling, and I said, "Kim, no matter how hard it ends up getting, just know that it is so worth it." Because she definitely is.