Three Halloween Tricksters

"Three Halloween Tricksters are we:

My sister, my brother, and me."

We had a couple of different Halloween parties we went to this year. The first was a family party for Claire's first grade class, which included a haunted hayride, pumpkin cake-pops, face painting, and all of Claire's classmates running around in costumes, completely happy.

The second was our ward trunk or treat. The chili feast and trunk or treat were pretty run of the mill kind of stuff, but this ward also has a haunted forest. Completely awesome! The young men put it on and it is a full on haunted walk in the woods behind our church. It wasn't super scary to me (you know, since I am an adult) but it scared Morgan good, and Claire mildly, and I did see several teenagers and adults who came back after a couple of minutes, too afraid to continue forward. Pretty Awesome.

Anyways, we have too much candy in the house now and some whiny girls warn out from all the sugar and excitement of Halloween. And Luke. . . he just makes chubby look good.

The Crime Scene

A couple of weeks ago, I had a day that was, well, maybe the worst day of my life. Or maybe not quite the worst. Maybe that is being a bit dramatic. But if I was to make an analogy of this day, I would definitely use the image of a paper bag, filled with poop and hair balls, lit on fire. That would definitely be in the analogy somewhere.

It all started in the morning, as I was in my bedroom, wrapping presents on the floor, with my little curly-haired assistant, Morgan, helping out. I was letting her use the scissors to just cut random scraps of wrapping paper and think she was actually helping me (3-year-olds are so gullible). After we were done, I put the scissors up on top of dresser, because I know my kids. They will go straight Josephine March on themselves if left alone with the scissors.

After I was done, we left my bedroom and I went to get Luke, who had just woken up and was standing in his crib, bundle up in his sleep sack and that big toothy grin plastered on his face- it wins my heart every time. I brought him downstairs to feed him, while Morgan, at some point, decided to strut around the house sans-clothes, like she owns the place. And while I was feeding Luke, she came out of my bedroom, where she had obviously been searching for the scissors to not avail, and asked me where the scissors were. In one of the greatest lapse of parenting judgement ever, I decided to be honest with her. I told her that I put them away on top of the dresser. What!? Why would I give her the location?? I am an idiot.

I thought that was the end of the story. It's on top of the dresser, a.k.a. out of her grubby, 50-percentile-for-height hands. But boy, did I underestimate her determination. Morgan goes back into my bedroom and a minute or so later I hear a big, BIG crash of things falling down. And then I hear her scream bloody murder. I pop Luke off (if you know what I mean), put him down, and rush into my bedroom, not sure what made the big crash. As I ran into the room, my confusion instantly changed to a terrible understanding as I saw Morgan pinned underneath the dresser and the TV that had been on top of the dresser. She had opened the drawers to climb into them in an attempt to reach the scissors, bringing down the whole shebang on top of her sweet, 50-percentile-for-weight body. The way that the dresser had fallen was that it landed against the fallen TV, propping it up slightly and making a little triangular space underneath. This is where Morgan was. I saw immediately that Morgan's head was bloody and there was blood sprinkled on the floor. I pulled her out, without much resistance, since she luckily was in this little space and I looked her over quickly and saw that it didn't look like she had broken any of her limbs. It was just her head that looked damaged. It was bleeding a lot, so I quickly grabbed a towel and pressed it against her head.

I was very scared at this point, mostly concerned that she had done some serious damage to her head with such a heavy blow. I could see that the TV had hit her head, I just didn't know serious the impact had been. I asked her questions to see if she could spell her name because I was worried she might have a concussion. She was crying and screaming, but still answered my questions, so I decided she would be okay if I drove her to the hospital. Except, I didn't have a clue where a hospital was. So I called Cody, and in my best emergency voice, told him what happened and asked him where the hospital was. While I was talking to Cody, I just kept walking back and forth, with Morgan in my arms, trying to think about how I was going to get Luke and her ready to get in the van. Luke still had a diaper full from the night, and Morgan was naked, save for her underwear. Finally I put Morgan down, had her hold the towel to her head as she talked to Cody on the phone. He did a good job calming her down, while I quickly changed Luke's diaper, put him in the car seat and grabbed a change of clothes for Morgan. And then off to the hospital we drove.

To make this long story short (way too late), she had a gash on her head that required stitches, but no other damage to her head or body. We stopped for ice-cream on the way home from the hospital. When I inspected the TV, I could see exactly where the TV hit her, as there was a pool of blood on the bottom edge. I feel so incredibly lucky that she wasn't hurt more. We feel so blessed that she is in our lives, her quirky attitude, and her sweet hugs. We love everything about her.

This was all said and done and we were home from the hospital by 9:30 in the morning. And then the rest of the day was filled with lack of naps by Luke, who was having ear trouble and therefore was a little grumpy, and a couple of upsetting phone calls from Claire's school, which is another post in and of itself. By 2:00, I was so beat-up emotionally that I had to call my dad and cry. And he made me feel better.

So I guess it wasn't the worst day of my life, because everything turned out fine. Morgan healed, Luke's ears healed, and the calls from Claire's school, which had seemed upsetting at the time, have turned out to be not such a big deal.

Things are good. Except we still haven't gotten the blood stains completely out of the carpet yet. But I have Oxyclean, so I am not giving up yet.

{Scene of the Crime}

Toughy

We have been busy lately, and this little monkey is part of the reason!

Luke is almost 10 months now and is just bursting with personality. I love this age. He loves to laugh and shout. He loves to babble. He loves to suck on my face. He is crawling and scooting all around, pulling himself up into standing position any chance he gets. Today I found him half-way up the stairs. It startled me to see him so high, so I shouted "Whoa!" and he hadn't seen me there so my startle startled him and he let out an excited squeal and laugh, because he was pretty impressed with himself.



He is still such a sweetheart- always happy and easy going. From his 6 month to 9 month appointment he only gained 2 pounds. Part of that is due to him being much more mobile and the other part is that he has been sick in some form or the other for almost the entire past two months. He has had three ear infections in the last month, but still was smiling through it all. We call him "Toughy", because that is what my Grandpa Leathem use to call my little brother and we say it exactly the way he use to- "Hey Toughy" (for the record, I am really good in my impersonation).


We love him so much and seriously can't get enough of this kid right now. Just a big bowl full of fun.

Remember July?

Way back in ol' July, I flew back west to visit my family. We fly into Utah, and it was me flying solo with my three little chiltens. It was sorta miserable, but I won't harass you with those details--because there isn't a lot to detail besides, it was just miserable. We arrived in Utah and spent a couple of days with Cody parent's in Utah, where my kids enjoyed playing with Grandma and playing with their cousins.

Cody's parents have a chicken coup and naturally my kids thought collecting the eggs was quite possibly the coolest thing they had ever done. Here is Morgan and her cute cousin, Lyric, before the collecting began (thank goodness). My kids had a great time, and I also had a good time getting to see my brother and sister-in-laws and some nieces and nephews.

After a couple days at my in-laws, I drove with my sister from Utah to Washington, with six of our little kids jammed in the back of her van. Again, slightly miserable, but Monica makes everything more enjoyable. She is so fun to talk to- we talked the ten hour trip, non-stop, and I was a little hoarse the next day. Good times.

We spent a week at my family's house, where all my siblings had gathered for a family reunion. Again, just so much fun being with family- i love my family, the girls loved their cousins. It was so much fun. Our theme this year was Cowboys and Indians, so my mom made cowboy outfits for the boys, and Indian outfits for the girls, which were so darn cute it almost made me pee my pants. Almost. We had a scavenger hunt that we based off the Oregon Trail game (remember? from fifth grade?? So Awesome). And there was lots of swimming and slip-n-sliding. And some giant radish eating.
But I am a bit shocked to say no scotch-a-roos this year. What??

After our delightful week, we drove back to Utah (more miserable than the drive up) and then we spent a quick afternoon visiting friends, and then went back to my in-laws, where even more of my nieces and nephews had arrived and we had a birthday with all the cousins.


It was lots of fun to see them there altogether. And then the next day, we flew back home to Alabama (which again was miserable).

I'm kind of a whiner.

I love being with my family so much and this trip just wasn't long enough. I felt like each time I was leaving somebody to go to the next place, that I just wasn't ready to go yet. I spent too much time traveling and not enough time with family and friends. At one point, I called Cody when I was on the road going from one home to the other, crying, because I was sad about there not being enough time to see everyone I wanted to and just take my time rather than rushing around. But I was also very glad to be home with Cody again once the trip ended.

All my friends and family just need to move down to my neighborhood with me. I think that is just going to be the best solution.

(I don't know if Glamour Shots still exists, but Claire is ready for her close-up)

Hold up, August

Let's just skip the "there-so-much-to-catch-up-on" speech and get right to the point.


Claire's first day of First Grade, bright and early in the morning on August 11th (who starts school that early??)

Secondly, Morgan had her third birthday. We had a family party for her on her birthday and then a friends birthday party later that week, to the theme of Strawberry Shortcake.

This video still cracks me up even though I have watched it several times. It was actually the second take of singing her birthday song, because Cody started the first round to the slow beat of a funeral march and I stopped him to ensure we didn't have a repeat of last years dirge. Apparently we are birthday-song-challenged in our family.

Morgan is such a delight to our family. She is sweet and funny, attached to her pink blanket, curly haired, tender-hearted, doesn't like to see people sad so she will sing songs to you to make you be happy, and is just unbelievably cute. Seriously, we just can't get enough of her.

To Continue with June

In the midst of all our busyness, we celebrated Cody's birthday 32nd Birthday. He had a friend come down from Philadelphia for the weekend to go fishing with him and we had a small family party for him. Good times.

* * *

We hadn't ever been to the zoo there, so we made plans with some friends to see it before we left. It was a smaller zoo, but very nice and the weather was perfect that day. I am glad we fit it in before we left.

* * *

We also made one final trip to the ocean. My kids love going to the beach. I don't necessarily feel the same about it. I enjoy the actually playing at the beach part, but I dread the cleaning off the kids, loading them into the van, showering them off part of the beach. But knowing this was our last time to the ocean for a while, I managed to look past the work part, and enjoy the moment of playing with our kids at the beach.

Farewell, great Atlantic.

Believe it or not, we still did more in the first couple of weeks of June before the move. . .

It's the never ending story.

To be Continued.

June

It is amazing where a month has brought us. We have been busy, busy, busy, getting ready for our move, moving, and then unmoving into our new home in Alabama. And on top of all that, we had a long list of things to we wanted to do before we left Virginia and had to do some major hanging out with friends before we left. . .because moving is a lonely affair.

So I'll start where we left off. . . the beginning of June. I'll spare you the details of us getting ready for the move, because it just involves organizing and dejunking and some major stressing about some scratches in the d***ed hardwood floor (that's right, I just pseudo-cursed on my blog because that is how I feel about that particular hardwood floor) and none of that is particularly interesting.

The interesting part (at least to me) is the stuff we crammed into our final days in P-town (for the record, I have lived in four p-towns, and up until two weeks ago, I have always lived in a P-town).

After staring at this paddle boat ferry for a year, we finally took the kiddos on it for a short round trip. It was a beautiful evening and a nice way to spend a half an hour.

* * *

Now on to bigger and better and more expensive fun:

We had good times. What more is there to say?

There is still more, lots more, to tell about our June fun.

To Be Continued. . .