Sydney woke up around 5:30 this morning (just as I was falling back asleep after waking around 4:30 and having a hard time getting BACK to sleep). She was crying out. I dashed out of bed to to stop the nightmare and asked her what she was dreaming about. Her response was tearful and something along along the lines of "You were hanging on a farmers thing, and he came out, and you ran, and he got you and you were dead and then there was a Mr. Eyeball...".
My response: "A Mr. Eyeball"?
Sydney at this point realized how funny that sounded and we looked at each other and laughed. The laughter chased the nightmare away and she went back to sleep. As did I for another half an hour until Dave's alarm went off alerting him that it was time to go play basketball.
Life has been busy lately. I am absolutely fed up with trying to keep my house spotless with three kids, for random people walking through for a total of five minutes. It is practically a full time job in and of itself.
Dave has been gone most of the time, studying like mad for the LSAT so we don't see much of him these days.
I have been scheduling a lot of family pictures as everyone prepares for Christmas card season. I am also trying to get our own family pictures sorted out. We haven't had them taken in so long. Pretty sad for a photographer who realizes the value in photo history.
I also had the task of assembling two Halloween costumes for a murder mystery dinner that we were invited to. Dave's was easy as his is a nerd based superhero (we were assigned characters). Mine on the other hand was IMPOSSIBLE. So, I ended up getting some fabric on clearance and sewing it myself. Mind you, the only garment I have ever sewn was a pillowcase dress for Sydney and some shorts once in high school home economics. I didn't use a pattern. It turned out
mostly, but the results are hilarious (which makes more sense to you if you know that I didn't mean for it to be hilarious). Perhaps I will post a picture of Dave and I all dressed up.
It always feels like it starts getting so busy around this time of year when all I want to do is stay at home, bake, and be with the kids. I have been trying to keep things minimal but all the "must do's" still seem to have me rushing around.
Grant is on his second ear infection in the last two weeks. Most likely though, it was the first infection that never went away. The one he got on his birthday. This information explains why I hardly took any photos of his 1st birthday celebration. Or why his cake looks awful. Because he was sick and feverish and just plain miserable and I chose to take care of him rather than spend time on a cake. So I got really creative (not), carved out a 1 and iced 3/4 of it five minutes before we ate it.
But he enjoyed it just the same.
"Hunh? It's someones birthday? I don't want cake, I just want some Motrin and a nap in my car seat. Can someone bring me a cool cloth instead?".

"Ooooh, fire. Did I light that on fire with my amazing fever powers?"

"Mmm, I better get some of this icing before they realize that this piece of cake is just sitting here and they take it away..."

"You mean I get to eat it all?"

"Happy Birthday to ME!"

Nothing better than a cake goatee on a baby.

We did it all over again on Sunday with Dave's family. Grant got a pretend lap top from Mom and Dad, clothes from Dave's family and $ from Ahchoo and Grandpa O (that was also used for new clothes for the fall since all Blake's old ones in 12-18 months are summer clothes). Staci and Marina were super sweet and brought over a super fun vtech car transport that makes so many cool sounds and it way fun! Just ask Blake and Sydney, they fought over it the whole day!
We took the kids to the pumpkin patch last Friday evening. The only pictures I took were mental pictures. Sometimes I find that if I bring my camera, I get so caught up in taking pictures that I miss out on the experience. So this time, I was just
present and enjoyed the experience. The kids and Dad picked out pumpkins after a trailer ride to the patch while I held our little pumpkin. The it was back to the big red barn for doughnuts and apple cider, our yearly tradition.
We all had so much fun and when we got home, we had some Chili that had been in the slow cooker all day and some bones and blood.

Super fun and easy. The kids loved it. Take a package of bread sticks, separate them, cleave both ends of the sticks and roll down the ends (each end rolled to the outside of the "bone"), follow baking instructions and serve with marinara (blood). I also buttered my bread sticks right out of the oven and sprinkled grated parm over the top.
Halloween costume pics of the kids coming soon!