October

October was the beginning of the holiday madness. I'm not even sure what kept us so busy, just a lot of playdates and Steve had a lot of work dinners (he's all fancy now and goes to dinners with other doctors paid for by different companies' reps. like the guy has $50 steak dinners at least once a month. while we eat mac and cheese at home. I make up for it elsewhere....)

Loves to help feed baby sister. Isn't it funny how they open their mouths too?! It's not just us.

We kept waiting for the perfect night to paint pumpkins, when it finally came he was so excited. I thought he'd stick to mostly green, it being his favorite color, but he used a surprisingly equal spread of all the colors. "What color should I do next? Hm? Blue? OK OK."

We proudly set it out on the porch, and every morning we'd go check on it to see how it was doing. Snickerdoodles for breakfast make for a happy, rushed Sunday morning.

"Hey mom, guess what? Can you come play with me at my car table next week today?" "Sure buddy!" "Thanks mom."

They never seem to care about the cold if a park is involved...

How dads do Sunday Funday.

She is certainly a feisty little ray of sunshine, that one. Sleeping a little better at night and naps, is pretty-easily entertained by Parker, speed-crawling and rolling around to different toys and exploring different rooms, eating more and more. Unfortunately, with her ever-increasing curiosity and inability to sit still, nursing has gone down on her list of priorities. It became too much of an ordeal for both of us, that I decided to wean her. I went down to nursing once a day, then once every other day or two, then a little longer, then that was it! She transitioned so smoothly, once we found the right formula that she decided she liked, she never looked back. Nursing her has been such a lovely experience, unfortunately almost night-and-day from Parker (I wish it had gone smoother with the little guy). I was sad about weaning her and cried a little one of the last times, but we still got plenty of cuddle time and I'd feed her her bottle whenever I wanted instead of just giving it to her. There are perks (no pun intended), and it is nice to completely have my body back and not worry about milk and creams and pads and what I wore, etc etc etc. It was a wonderful, quiet bonding ritual I'm sad to have gone but am OK to let go of.

We got all the crazy cousins together for a little Halloween-themed playdate that Janene put on! She did such a great job coming up with different activities and Halloween treats. They all mostly wanted to eat the sugar, but we got them to take a couple pics and be cute, which is all we really wanted anyway, let's get real.

Prooooobably the longest my hair has ever been. Right before I got a little trim.

Each year, I start bugging Steve about Halloween costumes. I usually have a bunch of different ideas, and I just keep throwing them out there until I find one that Steve has the least-negative reaction to. This year it was "A Christmas Story"! Isn't it great?! I was pretty proud of this one. Steve is the leg-lamp-obsessed dad, I'm the leg lamp (unfortunately you can't see my fishnet stockings), Lyla is Alfie dressed up in the horrible bunny costume his aunt sent him (yes I made that without a pattern!), and Parker is regular Alfie! OK so many exclamations, but I loved our costumes this year.

The cutest little deranged Easter rabbit you ever did see!

Oh and I turned 30. THIRTY. Like I turned 20 TEN YEARS AGO. I was a little miffed to be turning 30, because I truly feel like I'm still 23. Maybe 25. When I sit and think about everything I've done in my life, I guess it makes sense that it's taken me 30 years and that I've really been around that long, but then I think about everything that I have yet to accomplish and finish and do ahead of me and I feel like I'm just beginning. And I am! A new leaf, a new decade, a new milestone. Again, we don't really do presents for each other for holidays or birthdays (many people are apparently shocked at this), so dinner at Hutchins BBQ proved to be the perfect date. We tried to go bowling after this, but Saturday night prices were literally 3 times as expensive than their weekday prices, so we couldn't bring ourselves to shell out. No good movies were out, so a little trip to the grocery store, and we were home by ten. Wow. I am 30...
And thank you, baby, for telling me I look 24 all day errday.

Finally got to carve pumpkins a day or two before Halloween. As soon as Steve popped the top off and tried to show Parker how to put his hand in the pumpkin to scoop it out, Parker leapt off the chair and ran away as fast as he could. Sheer. Terror. The things these little toddler come up with in their heads....

This little one for a fancy new purple color on her finger after it was smashed in the door by her older brother. We are having such a tough time with him right now as we've told him not to close doors when he's playing with her countless times (or ever, actually), or with him sharing his toys or yelling at her to not come in the bathroom with him. Other times their giggles are absolutely contagious and I find myself grinning ear to ear listening to them play. It's definitely a love/not-love relationship with these two.

We met Ilene up at Heritage Farms (I totally remember coming here as a kid in elementary school on field trips) for a Halloween trick-or-treating activity a few weeks before Halloween. We still had Grant's Hulk costume we had taken home after one day of playing, so I threw it on him, colored his face green, and called it good. His favorite part was the tractor on the hayride, as he wanted desperately to touch it and its tires. Yes.

"You see my greeeeeen face?!?!"

And this was Lyla's favorite part, clawing at the donkey's ears.

Halloween morning doughnuts. I think I'll add that on the list of traditional doughnuts.

We decided people wouldn't really get what Parker was if Steve and I weren't dressed up for trick-or-treating, so last minute we threw on a combination of our old costumes and voila! Guns'n'Roses! A couple of years ago, he was terrified of that wig (again, with the irrational fears...hmmmm) and wouldn't go near it. It took a lot of coaxing with candy, but we finally got him to wear it.

Our neighborhood is kinda lame, so we packed up and went to another one 5 minutes away. It was a party. "Trick-or-treat! Hmmmm, what one do I waaaaant...." Aside from running house to house and asking us to open all his bags of candy, he loved shutting people's doors for them and looking at all the "beautiful lights!!!"

And then they crashed. And we ate the loot.