October Randoms

There is no rhyme or reason to the following photos. I'm sure if I was keeping things up to date these would result in multiple posts, but since I'm so far behind they are all going to be combined. I am determined to catch up to what is going on currently. I'm so close to posting about November activities I can feel it in my bones.

Without further ado, here are the randoms of October.

I swear, her hair is normally cute before nap-time. After nap-time is a different story. And, yes, she is wearing last year's Christmas jammies in October.

 Lunch time.

This is Kayson. He is one of our favorites. I just die over this picture of him and Grace cracking up.

Grace wanted a last minute snack before bath-time. I gave her a slice of bread and proceeded to finish up the dishes. Suddenly I hear Grace making gagging spitting noises I turn around and there is salt all over the table.

She had a horrible look on her face and keeps spitting and I ask her what is wrong. She keeps telling me "It's yucky. It's yucky." I then look down at her piece of bread and she had poured a mound of salt on it and then took a bite. I'd be gagging to.

Pumpkin spice cookies happened a lot in the month of October.

I found this gem at the grocery store. So festive and delicious.

Christian with the Rose twins at a church activity. It was baby row in the back.

We started putting the kids together in the same room at night. Grace stopped fighting us at night and stopped refusing to go to bed when Christian was asleep in her room. Putting them together had the opposite effect of what I was expecting, and it had amazing results. We usually move Christian out at some point in the night because he still wakes up at night, and wakes up earlier than Grace in the morning.

Mavs Jammies! Aaron's first purchase for Christian when we knew we were having a boy.

Aaron participated in a mandatory team building field trip with his MBA class. They had to wake up ridiculously early in the morning and bus out to a ropes course. They were there until the afternoon and did a variety of the classic team-building exercises (I think there might have even been a trust circle at one point). Aaron has been so busy with school that he rarely gets more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep at night. So when opportunities for sleep arise, he just can't resist. A classmate of his snapped this picture of Aaron on their way home from the ropes course. He's out like a champion.

This is my favorite picture of all time. These two really do love each other and i was miraculously able to capture both of them smiling at the same time.

Apparently fort building turns Grace into a hoarder.

I love this kid.

We voted! Thank heavens for early voting and for volunteers who are so nice to kids. And also for all of the people who didn't pass judgement on us for our ragamuffin appearance whilst voting.

I started sleep training Christian and set up the monitor in my room. Grace was under the impression that the monitor was a telephone of some sort. When Christian would cry she would attempt to soothe him through the monitor. "It's okay Christian, don't cry."

Even when both kids are awake super early, we try our best to catch and extra couple of Zzzs.

Grace loves her Princess dress-ups. We have been fortunate to be on the receiving end of dress-up hand-me-downs, and Grace has been in Princess heaven. He go to dress up is Belle, and since every princess needs a side-kick, she enlisted Christian to be Aurora.

Sleeping beauty just got a whole lot more handsome.

I was also enlisted to be Cinderella, although the dress-up was too small so I looked like a T-Rex with a crown on. The skirt also fit around my thigh, which is a whole new level of sad for my poor thunder thighs. Grace snapped this picture. She's getting pretty good at taking pictures with my phone.

The blissful moments when you sneak in and watch your babies sleep are some of my favorite moments. On this night I couldn't resist taking a picture since Grace's hands were clasped.

The day before Halloween Grace came down with a nasty fever. We made a little bed on Aaron's recliner and watched movies.

Unfortunately her temperature got pretty high fast. After it hit 103.9 we headed to the doctor's office. It peaked out at 104.2. I sent pictures and texts to Aaron to keep him updated. This picture broke my heart. She looked so sick and she was trying so hard to smile. My poor baby.

She got a lot of tests done to figure out what was going on, so we spent a lot of time in this room. I loved the quote on the wall.

All of her tests came back negative and we were told it was a nasty virus and it would be over in a few days. Her fever stayed pretty high for awhile but thankfully went down the next day.

Sometimes I think I'm funny.

The Thing About Texas...

It is unbelievably hot during the summer months in Texas, that is no secret. But the fall? Oh boy. The fall is gorgeous. Temperatures in the 70s and 80s. This is the outdoors season. It seems like a crime to stay inside.

 And it is beautiful

Sometimes I crave the colder temperatures and the physical reminders that the fall season is upon us. But then there are days where I'm glad that I can still wear my flip-flops or take my kiddos on a nature walk.

So the thing about Texas is that the heat has a silver lining.

All Things Halloween

This should probably be divided into four different posts, but since Halloween was 10 days ago. I'm good to combine and move on.

I love dressing my kids up in Halloween themed attire. Pass judgement if you will, but I thoroughly enjoy it.  My sister made, and my mother gifted, this candy corn bow to Grace. Despite it's size, I put it on Grace every opportunity I could throughout the month of October. I die over those Candy corns.

 Seriously, its a big bow. My mom is pretty attune to my love of halloween and sent a care package to the kiddos. In it was a pumpkin decorating kit that required zero carving. Grace was in heaven. She played with that pumpkin for days until she dropped it and we had to throw the pumpkin out...

Christian was also properly outfitted thanks to the care package. I had four festive onesies for him and he dirtied three of them on Halloween. Is he trying to tell me something?

We also made sure to jam out accordingly- although halloween music, however tame it may be, is still a little creepy for a 3 year old.

The Saturday before Halloween, our church did a trunk or treat. Grace was Cinderella. I did her hair in a Cinderella bun and I immediately wanted to cry. She looked so grown up with her hair all pulled back. Make time stop, but for reals.

I went as a woman who showers, gets dressed, and actually does her hair. Christian was a lumberjack who, at one point, had boots and a hat on (but you know how those things go when your baby is 4 months old).

This year Grace totally got it. Car to car, "trick-or-treat", and she even got frustrated with me when I would stop and chat with the candy hander-outers, "Come on Mom! Let's go." She really is growing up.

The day of Halloween was pumpkin carving time. I bought Grace another pumpkin since we had to throw her other one out. We set up shop on an old blanket in Grace's room. After a brief photo-op we got down to business.

 The design was thought up by Grace with precision sharpie marker skills

 Not too bad for her first time, eh?

Between the above picture and the below picture there was an incident.... but I'll get to that in a minute.

Grace's first pumpkin guts experience

 She did not seem to care at all. I thought for sure she would be totally grossed out.

Are you still curious about the incident. Okay, here is the explanation. We were all on the blanket together, Christian laying on the floor and Grace and I getting our carve on. I was taking ridiculous precautions with the knives that we were using, making sure that they were always a safe distance from any child and always out of reach. I was outnumbered 2 to 1 and figured I could never be too careful. When it came to safety my mind was on the knives. After I carved the hole in the top of the pumpkin I wanted to make sure that I had my camera ready for when Grace pulled the top off and saw what was inside. I wanted to capture her reaction. Grace reached down and started pulling the stem off the pumpkin. I quickly reached over Christian to grab my camera, in my hurry to get my camera ready to capture the moment I fumbled it and it fell. But it didn't hit the ground. It hit Christian. My camera hit my baby right on the forehead. I wanted to die. His cry was unbearable. I called Aaron and my Mom in hysterics (I'm kind of dramatic like that), asking all sorts of ridiculous questions about the amount of trauma I just caused my tiny infant. Head fracture? Concussion? Causing an inability to get an academic scholarship to Harvard (which wouldn't happen for Christian moreso due to his parents rather than a camera to the head)? I sent them pictures and pleaded with them to tell me how bad it was. The look on his face kills me. The pouty lip? Worst mother ever.

We bagged the pumpkin thing for the time being and I snuggled Christian with a cold compress and watched, like a hawk, for any sign of further trauma- vomiting, lethargy, etc.

After his nap I reassessed the situation. He seemed just fine, but with a nice big bump and bruise on his head.

With Christian comfortable and as far away from the camera as humanly possible we got back to the pumpkin, and I was able to properly capture the moment and all its underwhelming glory. Seriously, I thought she'd be more grossed out- or at least excited by the innards of the pumpkin. We carved out the design and Grace's very first pumpkin was born. I think he was a pretty rad little guy.

 On Halloween night Grace decided she wanted to be Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.

 We headed to a nearby neighbor hood to go trick or treating. Everyone sits outside to hand out candy. It was the most efficient way to Trick-or-treat. Grace loved this dog.

 I learned that Grace is quite afraid of Halloween decorations and people in scary costumes. If there was either of those things near the candy bowl she wanted nothing to do with that house. There was a man behind us who was wearing a mask and Grace begged me to hold her when he was near by. I tried to reassure her that everything was harmless and then I thought, "Why would I want to tell her that a bunch of really creepy stuff is totally normal when its not." So I just let her do her thing. She seemed okay with stuff if her friends were cool with it.

We missed having Aaron with us but it was a fun Halloween. I can't believe the season is already over.