Halloweek!

We have had so much fun this Halloween! Daniel really wanted to be Yoda, but I couldn't find a costume that we liked, so I decided to make one! I don't think there's a pattern out there for a Yoda costume, so I just had to make it up as I went along. I would change a few things if I had to do it all over again, but overall, I think it went pretty well.

Last Friday some friends threw a Halloween party. I had forgotten that we needed costumes that early so was sewing Daniel's until the last minute. Thus I just had to use my lame-o standby witches hat. Someday I'll get on the ball and we can have a cute family theme. There were games, good food and contests. Daniel loved getting to whack away at the Pinata.

Daniel trying his first Gobstopper.... can you see the beginning of his sugar induced coma coming on?Next up was Trunk or Treat on Wednesday night. Daniel was THRILLED when one of the young women painted a Yoda on his hand!After all of the chaos and craziness was over there was a bonfire out back where we all got to roast marshmallows.Here in Ohio we do Trick or Treating on a different night than Halloween. I think it's to keep kids off the streets when the drunk drivers are out, but who really knows. Anyways, we went out on Thursday. The colors were gorgeous! Poor Bryan had a test the next day and had to read his book in between each house. :)
Daniel was a hoot the whole time. He would run back to us saying, "Mommy! They knew that I'm Yoda!!!" or "I got pumpkin candy!!!" We had to remind him at EVERY house to say thank you. He could not for the life of him remember to do it. He was just too too excited. Every once in a while as we were walking he would let out a huge contented sigh. I wish I could just bottle him up! One of his very favorite things to do was try to scare the people handing out candy. Even if they had seen him start to walk up to their house, he would hide in the bushes and jump out to scare them, it was too funny. He was the most successful at this house, when they answered their door he let out a huge growl. There was a big group of teenage girls in the entry way and their mother and he scared them all. It was too too funny.

All in all it was a great, great Halloween! (and I'm sooooo glad it's over!)

Football Tickets

Are any of our Ohio friends interested in buying our tickets for todays game for half price? Do you know anyone who might be interested? We have found ourselves unexpectedly unable to go and don't want our tickets to go to waste. They are student tickets and would be $31 for the pair. Let me know!

Legos

Daniel's birthday is right before Christmas. We're talking just a few days before. I grew up with a sister who also has a birthday right before Christmas and I remember vividly how disappointing that was for her. Her presents were wrapped in Christmas paper and her cake was often decorated with Christmas flowers and with a Christmas theme. ( I don't blame my parents for doing this, they had 8 kids and had to work with what they had!) But I don't want my little guys' birthday to get swallowed up by Christmas. So we have decided to have a small celebration on his half birthday. (Incidentally this should work out well with our adoptive children as well. Adoptive families usually celebrate what's called "Gottcha day" which is the day of finalization and usually happens around the 6 mth mark) So, for his half birthday we went to the new Lego store here in Columbus. It was insanely crowded and full of excited little boys. I spoke with an employee and it turns out they had just opened the store 2 days before. Duh. LOL I didn't know it was that new and probably would have waited a while longer before attempting that. Anyways, Daniel made his selections (he had also earned another Lego set by completing a few milestones that we had set for him.) Just look at him with his loot. That's one happy boy there. The next day we set aside some time for just the two of us to work on putting it together.I never knew just how intricate these things are! It took me forever and was so tedious!Look at the cute little figures that come with them! Too too cute.
Lets just say that I felt like a 5 star Mom when I clicked the last piece in place. I have a new appreciation for those people who create incredible statues with Legos! That is some hard work!


Daniel couldn't be happier and I haven't had a quiet moment since! (lots of flying and shooting sounds)

Computer Crash

Well, this is an old post that I started a few months ago.... sadly, it's applicable again. :( A few months ago this happened: I was mopping the kitchen floor and put my computer on the counter so that I could listen to some music. Mopping requires lots of elbow grease, that's right, I said ELBOW. I saw it fall in slow motion and land open faced, butter side down on the cold hard floor. I could have cried. I turned it back on hoping it wasn't too bad, but it just kept getting more "spectacular."

My poor, sad little computer. Luckily, the hard drive was still working! Yes! So I was able to hook it up to our TV to use it. It was a little overpowering to use it as a monitor. lol. (Also it was completely illegible, something to do with pixels and resolution) So we bit the bullet and bought a new computer. 3 months ago. It died yesterday. No clue, just died. It's off to the computer doctor today... :( hoping (pretty sure) to get all of our data back! (so so many pictures I would be sad to lose.)

I know it's early, but Happy Halloween!

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Dr.'s appointment

In order to start school this fall Daniel had to have a school physical. As you can see, Daniel actually loves visiting with the doctor. He tells him jokes and tickles him (yes, Daniel tickles the Dr. not the other way around...) Daniel feels like a trip to the Dr is a party and I've always been grateful for that. That all changed when he found out he needed shots. I talked with him about it and while he still wasn't excited about it, I think he would have been okay. All of a sudden these two nurses came in and very hurriedly prepped him for his shots. He started to freak out a bit, so they told me to come and hold his arms and trunk down, then they both went at it. He started screaming at the top of his lungs (which is. so. loud.) "I don't want this!!!! I don't want this!!!!!" I really think if the nurses had slowed down a bit and given him a moment to process things it would have been okay. Anyways, as we made our way out of the office everybody watched us with a sad look on their faces. Clearly they had all heard everything. It was a bit embarrassing. I really really hope he hasn't gotten my phobia of needles! Anyways, this is what I got to deal with for the rest of the day. Talk about attitude!

(This picture was taken about 20 minutes after the "incident" see how red his face still is and how mad he is??? Yeah, it was that bad.)

Arches

On our drive home from Utah this summer we stopped for a day in Moab, UT at Arches National Park. (Our poor car went coast to coast this year!) The first area we stopped at was Park Avenue (because the walls of the small valley look like buildings.) There is an area farther down in this picture where the ground has completely smoothed out over the years. I decided years ago that this is what I'd like in my master bathroom someday. lol! (not this actual stone, something like it....) I'm weird, I know.
Balanced Rock



Aren't the lines and grooves in this stone beautiful? Don't you just want to run your fingers over them? Sadly, you can't traipse off the main pathways at all here because the "soil is alive" here. (It's full of bacteria and micro fungi)

This water was such a welcome sight! It was about 95 degrees with absolutely no shade in sight. A hot hot day. I really really wanted to go swimming right about then. :) (this is at the beginning of the trail to Delicate Arch)

I loved that Daniel was so pumped about the whole thing. He was excited for an adventure!

At the top was beautiful Delicate Arch. I included a picture with a person in it just so you could see how mammoth it is.

Daniel was such a trooper, he didn't even ask to be carried once.

I love my boys.

We left the park as the sun was setting. So beautiful to see the rock formations silhouetted against the darkening sky. It was really hard to get a picture at this point, so this will have to do. Just know that it was 1000 times more beautiful than this.

Afterwards we headed into town (Moab) and found a little diner on Main St. that was still open. After our hot afternoon of hiking it was heaven to get ice water and ice cream! When we got to our hotel the ac didn't work (grrr), but we were all way too tired to switch rooms by that time. That night I took my first completely cold shower. I stayed in it for at least a half an hour. When it comes to heat I am the biggest wuss in the world, lol.