Afton Walks

Beginning of October:

End of October:

Another great Grosgrain giveaway

This time it's a guest giveaway. I'll take it!

Aunty Ollie $100 Gift Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

And then there was the 31st...

Halloween evening we were invited with many other families over to our friends' house for a big party. They fed us a great big dinner and tons of desserts with the UT game on in the background. What could be better? After eating all of the kids hit the streets for good old fashioned trick-or-treating. It had been sprinkling on and off all day, so we were lucky that while we were going door to door the precipitation was limited to a light misting. The kids hardly noticed, so excited they were. Lydia only even asked me to carry her treat-bucket twice. Once all of the kids made it back to the house, they were divided in to age groups to go through the haunted woods behind the back yard. I took Josh and Lydia with the under-7 group and it was great. All of the dads at the party had donned masks and glowing-eye goggles and such, and were hiding along side the path that we walked on through the woods. They did a good job of not being too scary for little kids but still being fun. It was a super-great party, I hope they do it again next year.

Now: the evening's attire. Even though all of the kids love Harry Potter and enjoyed their trunk-or-treat costumes, none of them had any interest in wearing them again when it was the big night. Not a problem, I assured them, you can be whatever you want that we can put together with what we have in the house.

It was really interesting to see what they came up with. Given the restrictions I had given them and the fact that we didn't start assembling things until Saturday afternoon I had my doubts about how these costumes would turn out. I ended up being very pleasantly surprised though.

Ben and Josh each changed their minds several times in the days leading up to Halloween. Mummy, werewolf, Darth Mahl (spelling?), ghost, Jedi, vampire, Darth Vader, and so forth...round and round their indecision went. Finally, on Saturday morning they knew what they wanted to be.

[Regular white church shirt and dark pants, red ribbon around neck, dark red paint-blood, plastic fangs and look, it's Scott's Prof. Snape wizard robe cut off to be a Ben-sized vampire cape! Perfect!]

[Painted on nose and whiskers, and dark brown fleece wolfy features (fuzzy chest, eyebrows and sideburns, knee showing through hole in jeans, and fuzzy hands...faux-fur would have looked much better, but we didn't have any. But brown fleece; yes. The same fleece used for Ben's scarecrow hat last year.), and a brown sock tail in the back. He's howling, by the way...he's a werewolf by the way.]

Now Emma on the other hand decided on her costume literally the day after Halloween last year. I don't know where the idea came from or why it stuck, but for whatever reason she did not waver once on her choice to be...a bat. [Black tights and legging under a black skirt and long-sleeved black shirt. We made her wings with scraps from making the original Snape-robe. It was Emma's own clever idea to hot glue some pieces of yarn on them to look a little more wingy. She also asked if I could add some pink felt scraps to Lydia's Dobby-ears. Voila.]

Lydia was less creative. All week she talked about being Tinkerbell (which she did in fact dress as for her preschool Halloween party), then at the last minute threw on a pink-barbie-fairy type dress-up thing and called it good. Sorry, I didn't even take her picture in it. Afton we dressed in the same ducky costume that baby-Cruzes have been wearing for the past nine years.

Here's our four trick-or-treaters with one of their friends. I edited out everyone's red-eyes in the photo, but now I realize that with the exception of Lydia, everyone's look might have actually been enhanced by leaving them in.

Trunk or Treat

The Wednesday before Halloween we always have a fun trunk-or-treat at church. This year was enhanced with a chili cook-off dinner...Scott got to be a judge.

As we've discussed, the coolest families always dress up together with a theme. Luckily, this truth has been solidified in our children's young, impressionable minds. This year the idea of Mario Kart characters was tossed around, but after considering the difficulty of costumes (beyond Mario and Luigi) and the fact that most people probably wouldn't know who Baby Daisy and Dry Bones were, the kids decided very enthusiastically on Harry Potter characters.

Handy reference guide:

Lori = Prof. Trelawny

Josh = Ron

Ben = Harry

Lydia = Dobby (before his freedom)

Emma = Hermione

Scott = Prof. Snape

Afton =Golden Snitch

I loved this theme because most of what we used we had around the house or we borrowed. The only two real projects were fashioning some Dobby-ears from an old headband and some felt and sewing up a quick Snape-robe. A big shout-out and thanks goes to the Sextons for loaning us their Harry Potter costume (we divided up the robe, scarf and hat among our three Hogwarts students) and to Cally's sister, Cassy, who invented and created the snitch costume for her daughter last year then was so kind as to let Afton wear it this year.

We turned our van into Gryffindor Hall:

We drank spooky lemonade:

We found another Hermione (many years ago these two were both Cinderella):
And the kids wound up the evening in their friends' trunk eating their bounty:

Lydia was very enthusiastic about being Dobby even though she had no idea who he was:

Afton...

...has discovered her tongue. Turns out it's cute.

Ben = 8

How can this be? I have got to figure out how to stop this kid from growing up.

Ben is kind. He is earnest, smart (smart, smart), athletic, creative, and compassionate. A defining moment for Ben came when he was two years old. Josh was a very new baby at that time and still a novelty. One day I had just changed his diaper and laid him on a blanket on the floor while I went to wash my hands. From the moment I put him there he started crying. I wasn't too concerned (you know...third born...he'll be fine if he cries for 30 seconds). But Ben was concerned. As I came back into the room I found little Ben standing over our crying baby just looking down at him and crying big alligator tears of his own. That image has come back in to my mind time and time again in the years since. When I see him being protective of his younger siblings, comforting them, or giving up something to make someone else happy. He has that ability to feel what others feel, I think. He's a really great friend to have, and the kind of son that makes me proud every day.

For his birthday he requested a Yoda cake. Hmmm. I did not have as much time to devote as I would have liked. I warned him it may or may not look very much like Yoda but promised I'd do my best and it would be delicious no matter what.

The last thing I expected to hear at 5:00am this morning...

dry sniffing noises coming from the boys' room, someone getting out of bed, little whimpering noises of frustration and despair, footsteps, more despair, finally a teary Josh at the side of my bed, "Mom, on this side [points to one nostril] I just can't get the snot out!"

Stories I like to tell: Part III

Over the past month I have acquired two new nephews. They are cute as a bug's ear, both of them (well the one I've seen photos of is anyway, the other one I'm just guessing). One is a third-born and one is a second-born. Thinking about newborn babes reminded me of our first-born: Emma.

I'll spare you the details of labor and delivery (although I like telling those stories too, it's not always the kind of stuff you want to read while say eating lunch or something). The main thing I've been thinking about is the day we brought Emma home from the hospital. I considered myself a well educated new mother. I'd read every article, book, literature from my OB, etc, etc that I could get my hands on. I'd just finished taking Parenting 202 and Infant Development the previous semester. I knew what was happening with our new baby and how and why and who discovered it. I was as prepared as I felt I could conceivably (no pun intended) be. And yet when I finally held this tiny new person and felt the awe and the gravity and the sacredness of what a complete and literal miracle she was my perspective was rocked. There is no "prepared". There is no amount of knowledge or study that compares with the reality of life.

Think it slowly... . . . . . . . . . . . l i f e.

That's when the worry set in. The responsibility was...not overwhelming, but just huge. Heavy. I felt some anxiety when we brought her home. I would miss the reassuring regular visits from doctors and nurses who had the medical training that I lacked, who would know better and sooner if something was wrong. I began to understand how little all my book smarts really mattered with no actual experience to draw upon.

Luckily, I have a great mom (with experience x6) who was on her way to help show us the ropes (aren't moms awesome?). As the timing worked out, we brought Emma home on a Wednesday afternoon and my mom's flight was coming in the following morning. When Mom arrived, she helped us figure out the things we just didn't get yet. I was amazed at how second-nature all this stuff seemed to her and how patiently she helped it seem normal to us too. By the time she left from her generous 10-day stay I felt far more competent.

But not on that first night, the one all on our own. We swaddled Emma and put her in the little bassinet at the foot of our bed and turned in early. I remember setting my alarm for three hours from the last time she ate (you know, because she might starve if I didn't (that was sarcasm by the way)). This was totally unnecessary as it turns out, she woke up on her own plenty more than every three hours. And even if she hadn't, Scott and I didn't let thirty minutes go by without checking on her. My outstanding memory of that night is how impossible it was to fall into a sound sleep. I lost count of the number of times I crawled to the foot of our bed and looked down at her just to make sure she was still okay. Watching her chest rise and fall and listening to her breathe. Scott did the same. All night long, like some sort of nocturnal tag-team, we kept a vigil on our baby. And we didn't mind. And most amazingly of all, our baby grew up.

No longer the one who needs rocking and cooing, but now the one most willing to offer it to our newest baby. Emma is going to be a great mom.

Vandalism

I should probably be upset that Josh wrote on one of the freezers in the garage. I mean, come on...that was pretty nervy. Brazen even, like he didn't even care if he got caught. He just wrote his own name up there for all to see. But as it is, when I think of him wandering by the freezer with a pencil and making the decision to go ahead and write his name on it, I just can't stop laughing. So I decided to just leave it there...and mention to Josh that we don't write on appliances.

Cheesey

This package of swiss cheese reminded me of Emma's recent math problem.

More weird sleeping...

We discovered our Lydia like this when she had gone to bed on Conan and Cally's couch one night.

P.S. She had a top on when I tucked her in.

What happened, October?

Sick and Cruzes...simply meant to be. The flu has finished raging through all of the rest of us except for Afton (whew! but not a lot of whew, because she had a nasty bout with croup instead). We were all good for about a day or two before Ben came home from school early wheezing like crazy and coughing a lung up...actually all of us except for Emma are currently coughing to one degree or another. This is looking to be a long and arduous winter. I'm sick of it (literally). In the face of all this wheezing, coughing, congestion etc, we've postponed our biking trip to the Virginia Creeper, are second guessing our commitment to the Race for the Cure, and have already missed or put off a variety of other fun events. Come on immune systems!! Get with it!!
Okay, I'm done now. Thank you for your patient listening.
The upside of the past few weeks is that Afton has started walking, just three or four timid steps at a time. Right about the same time she finally learned to put her hands together and so claps for herself when she does her new trick. It's super-cute.

4th Grade Math

I know they're learning how to round numbers, but this question just seemed odd to me. If you already know exactly how many pages Timothy read, why would you need to know "about how many" he read? Who cares?

Join us for breakfast, won't you?

Honey Bunches of Oats is hands-down our family favorite breakfast cereal.

Lydia calls it Honey Boats.

What happened last week besides being sick?

It rained.

A lot.