Pumpkins, Parties, and Trick or Treat!

Pumpkins Take 1:
Halloween comes with a lot of fun traditions. Pumpkin carving is a must, mostly because we love eating pumpkin seeds! Taber found a big ol' pumpkin at Sam's and brought it home to carve with the girls.

Everyone got into scooping the guts, except Teya, who is going through a dainty phase and doesn't like to get her hands dirty. She had fun watching though.

We took a nice family shot and then I started preparing the pumpkin seeds. We had every intention of carving our giant pumpkin but the kids got hungry and then they were tired and we had to put it off for another day. Unfortunately, by the time we got around to it again the giant pumpkin was rotten and moldy. So, we had to go to option B.


Pumpkins Take 2:
Option B was a kid friendlier version anyway. Teya can't really wield a carving knife yet so she was happy to do some fun painting with Daddy.

Here are their final products. Teya's is the pumpkin on the right. She painted that whole thing all by herself, not too shabby!

Ward Party:
Another great Halloween tradition is going to the trunk or treat Halloween party at our church. I was glad we could have a night that the girls could wear the costumes without being bundled up. Teya looked so stinking cute in her little mermaid costume.

And here's princess Brinley, I never got a great shot of her by herself so I had to crop this one. Isn't she adorable in that dress?
The party was a lot of fun, they had a cake walk, costume parade, pie eating contest, Halloween bingo, crafts and more. At the end Teya went out to the cars and got a HUGE loot of candy too.

Trick or Treat!:
Last but not least, we took the girls out for a little trick or treating in the neighborhood. This year was my favorite Halloween yet because Teya was totally into and Brinley was old enough to sort of get it too.

Getting bundled up and ready to go.

Here they are at their first door. You'll notice that Brinley's bucket is empty and she's looking at me like, "What the heck are we doing here Mom?!"

Fast forward a few houses later, bucket is full and Brinley is happy as can be. She really got the hang of it and wouldn't let anyone take that bucket away!

Here's Teya with her combined loot from the trunk or treat and trick or treating. We've told her she can only have one piece a day but she's still young enough that she thinks that's awesome! Brinley is still a little small for candy so I guess I'll just have to take one for the team and eat hers for her. : )

And Monty wishes you a Happy Halloween too! Woof!

Taking advantage

The other day the forecast promised a high of 53 degrees. It was going to be overcast and windy but 53 degrees?! Well I had to take advantage and plan an outdoor playgroup (a group I organize with other SAHM's from church). In Tennessee if it was in the 50's we'd be huddled up indoors drinking hot chocolate. Here in Minnesota though we're much less picky when it comes to what we consider outdoor weather : )

I planned a trip to our favorite farm to go check out their pumpkin patch. The pumpkin pickings were kind of slim since it was 3 days before Halloween, but the kids still had a great time running around and getting dirty.

Teya and her buddies dancing around in the corn crib.

And of course, what's a trip to the farm without some good old hay jumping?

Teya and Abby, two peas in a pod.

Even though we had to bundle up (the wind makes 50 degrees feel a lot colder) The girls had so much fun and I was really glad I made the effort to get them out of the house.

Friday Foto: Dora and Napolean 2004

My second year teaching high school I figured "hey, I'm a Spanish teacher, I should dress up as Dora for Halloween!" (This was before kids, so I had actually never seen an episode of Dora. Little did I know she would one day become a regular part of my daily life) I had super long hair then so I was wearing a wig that day. The kids thought it was great and were pretty freaked out when they thought I chopped my hair. This was also when Napolean dynamite was HUGE. A couple kids dressed up like him but this student not only looked like him but could imitate him perfectly. Fun times teaching high school! Looking at this pic it's also no wonder I got in trouble every time I was in the library during my prep hour for not having my student ID. It seriously took 4 or 5 times before they remembered I was a teacher : )

Growth Spurt

Today I took Brinley in for her 15 month well check and was amazed when they told me that since her last appointment 3 months ago, she has grown 4 inches!! I knew she had grown since I had to buy her a whole new wardrobe in size 18 months, but I had no idea she had sprouted that much! She jumped from the 18th percentile to the 45th percentile in height. Pretty impressive!

With the height change have come a lot of other changes. I feel like she is escaping the baby stage and moving full speed ahead into toddlerhood. She now "runs" which is basically a super fast walk with her right arm swinging wildly to propell her forward. She also has 12 teeth, including 4 molars and is quite the little chatter box. Some of the words she says are:

Mo=More
My=Mine
Peeze=please
Chee= cheese
tak oo=thank you
eee-ya-oh=here ya go
moobee=movie
nigh nigh=night night
dow=down
go=go
buddy=(referring to Monty, who I often call buddy)
DeDah=Teya
Choos=shoes
bahdoh=bottle (yeah, I still give her those, oops!)

She is ever the ray of sunshine in our home and continues to have such an easy going flexible personality. She's really getting into dressing up now and if we leave any clothes on the floor she will find them and try to put them on her head or her feet. She also will grab bows, barretts, and jewelry and bring them to me, begging in toddlerease for me to put them on her. She adores her big sissy and copies everything she does. When she wakes up from her naps and sees Teya she runs up to her and gives her big squishy hugs. It's heartmeltingly adorable : ) We love our little Brinsie and are so happy to have her in our family. Here as some recent pics.


And here's a bonus video of her watching Super readers on my iPod. Like I mentioned, she LOVES to dance, and even laying on her belly she was busting out some moves. There's a great moment too when she notices the camera and says "cheese!" and at the end she even goes back to some of her old bouncing baby moves. Classic!

Move over Edward...

There's a new vampire in town

Sorry though, he's taken ; )

On Saturday we attended a fabulous Halloween costume party thrown by some of our good friends, the Baldwins and the Tedjamulias.

We spent the evening playing games, bobbing for apples, and even had a dance off at the end. I think I burned at least 1000 calories dancing : ) Thank you to our lovely hosts for such a fun filled night!

The Tedjamulias as Mario and Princess Peach (aren't they adorable?)

I didn't get the chance to document everyone's costumes, but here are a few. Love the couple's themes!

Emotional Night

Last night I gave Brinley a whole apple to keep her busy while I was making dinner. She's eaten whole apples before and never had a problem so I didn't think much of it. A few minutes later I heard her coughing and gagging. She'd swallowed more than she could handle so I picked her up and started pounding her back to get it out. She gagged up a pool of drool and started crying so I thought she was okay. Crying means breathing, breathing means fine, I thought.

When Taber got home 30 minutes later she was still acting like she was in pain and was drooling excessively. Nothing we could do would make her smile and she kept coughing and crying. Taber suggested calling the nurse hotline so I gave them a call and explained what was going on. That's when things got emotional. The nurse said I needed to call 911 or take her to an ER immediately. I hesistated at first and the nurse got upset and said, "what are you going to do? are you going to call 911 or go to the ER?" I told her I didn't think we needed an ambulance and she got frustrated and said, "well I'm a registered nurse and my professional opinion is that you need to call 911." I told her I'd take Brinley to the ER and hung up and started throwing things together to leave. We don't have a hospital in Maple Grove so in my panic I just took her to the Urgent care. She must've looked pretty pathetic because they didn't even make me fill out paper work, they brought her straight back and the Dr. came in right away. After a brief exam he said she had an esophogial obstruction, blocking her ability to swallow (which is why she was drooling so much) and that he was sending us to the Minneapolis Children's hospital. He was worried the apple could move and be apsirated so he called an ambulance to take us there.

I've never been in an ambulance before but I actually thought it was very comforting because I knew if anything happened on our 30 minute drive to the hosptial that we had all the help we needed to deal with it. We got to the ER and they put a little hosptial gown on Brinley. within 5 minutes it was drenched with drool. The Dr. came in and saw her and quickly decided this was serious enough to book an OR. They called a gastrointestinal pediatrician and started prepping Brinley for surgery. The nurses came in to start an IV and that was the toughest part for me. Brinely has such thick little rolls on her arms and tiny veins that it was very hard for them to get it in. They poked her 3 times, blowing 3 veins before the anesthegiologist came in and said the OR was ready and they would do it themselves.

We went back to the Surgery prep room and listened to the nurse, the Dr, and the anestigioligst tell us what was going to happen. They were going to give her laughing gas to calm her down then put in the IV to put her under. Once she was out they were going to go in with a scope that has a video camera on it to find the apple and then pinch it out with some grabbers. We signed some papers and then they took her out of Taber's arms and whisked her away. She cried when they took her and I cried watching her go. A few hours earlier when I gave her that apple I didn't think our night would end up like this. Thankfully Taber was there to comfort me. Together we went to the waiting room to wait it out.

20 minutes later it was over. The surgery was a success! They found the apple, got it out, and everything was going to be okay. The relief I felt was indescribable. All night I was crushed by guilt for giving her that apple. Knowing that she was okay was like the weight of the world being lifted from my shoulders. When she woke up we went back to see her and she looked wonderful. Such a difference from her miserable state before the procedure. After monitoring her for 30 minutes we were able to take her home. We got in around midnight, picked up Teya from our sweet neighbors who were watching her, and got the fam all settled in bed around 1.

This morning Brinley is completely herself and doing better than ever. It was a very emotional night but a good reminder for me that all those strict guidelines about foods to avoid for small children are out there for a reason. For now we'll be sticking with applesauce.

S is for Sista!

Before I had kids, when my sisters would come out to California to visit me it meant time to play hard! We would hit the beaches, go to theme parks, restaurants, and do some serious shopping. Now that we have kids our sister visits have changed quite a bit. Since small children do not love shopping, don't do well in restaurants, and have to take naps, we adjusted our agendas. Our motto for Sarah's visit last week was Mother's by day, Sista's by night!

During the day we planned fun activities for the kids, museum visits, kid friendly food joints, apple picking, etc... Then at night, Taber would stay with the kids and we'd go out for ladies night fun! We managed to fit in a couple late night movies at the theater, hit up some great restaurants for appetizers and dessert, enjoy haircuts and manicures at the spa, and get in some good shopping! The whole week was extremely theraputic and I can't thank BOTH of our husbands enough for making it possible! Here are some of the highlights of our week together.

MOTHERS BY DAY:

First I introduce you to my sister's cutie bug Noa, he is 4 weeks younger than Brinley so it's kind of cool that we were pregnant at the same time.

And now on to our week! We took the kiddos to the Minnesota Children's museum on Wednesday. They played so hard that on the drive home all three of them spontaneously burst into tears and wailed all the way home. It was so crazy and funny at the same time, all we could do was laugh. When we put the kids down for naps we attempted to learn the Beyonce Single ladies dance. haha! yeah...

On Thursday we had a kid friendly lunch with a some of my friends and then met up with Taber at his work so Sarah could have a tour of the headquarters. I was so glad we brought the kids because Teya was THRILLED to see her Daddy at work and clung to him the entire time.

On Saturday after some girl time in the morning we put the kids in their Halloween costumes and went to the Mall of America to do some trick or treating at the theme park.

We met up with our friends, Cameron and Wendy and their cute little lady bug, Miley.

It was great to have our friends there to take a picture of all of us together! The kids weren't really feeling the photo op but we'll take what we can get : ) Sarah got some shopping in and we hit a couple roller coasters with Cam and Wendy. Teya also rode the some kiddie rides all by herself for the first time!
On Sunday we went to church and then took the kids on a walk to the little jungle gym by our house. It was cute seeing Noa and Brinley play together.

On Monday we went to our favorite apple farm for apple picking, fresh apple donuts and cider. Some of the apple's had frost damage from the snow earlier in the week, but most of them were still good and we got a pretty decent loot.



SISTA'S BY NIGHT!

Taber is THE MAN and happily stayed home with the kids every night so Sarah and I could go out and par-tay! It was the most liberating thing to put the kids down, change out of our mommy clothes and go out at night. I forgot how fun it can be to just drive around in the car when you don't have to wrestle kids into car seats or throw snacks into the back to pacify fussy children. It was also so awesome to plug in my iPod and BLAST my own music while we drove. I used to love rocking out in the car but Teya isn't a fan of my music and definitely doesn't like it loud. We usually just end up singing kid songs till my voice box is swollen and my brain has turned to mush. So yeah, rocking out to my own music was blissful liberation.

One of the best parts about going out later was that we weren't battling any crowds at the restaurants or theaters. On Tuesday night we saw My Sister's Keeper at the dollar movie and had the whole theater to ourselves. It was like our own private viewing and we definitely got a little hyper ; )

On Wednesday night we hit a big sale at Kohl's and stayed there till they closed at 10pm, then we went over to the Theater to see the 10:30pm showing of Fame. Once again we had the whole theater to ourselves and took advantage of the chance to stand up and dance to the music, boo and cheer out loud, yell at the characters, and just act like nerds. I know I'm getting older but hanging out at night with my sister made me realize that I'm not THAT old and that I can still go out and get a little crazy. Here are some pics of us in the empty theaters, we couldn't resist ; )

Friday we had a spa day and Sarah cut 8 inches off her hair. With our new matching hairdos we got dolled up to go to Biaggi's for appetizers and dessert.

It was funny to see people react to how much we look a like. The guy pouring our water looked at me and smiled, then he looked at Sarah and did a double take to look back at me and said, "okay, I'm confused now." Then our waiter asked us if we were twins. We said, "No, just sisters." And then he said, "Oh, so are you the same age?" We were laughing pretty hard at that one.


Later in the trip we went to Redstone, my favorite restaurant for fondue, and we also stayed up a couple of the nights to play Pounce and watch some chick flicks at home. By the end of the week I was definitely tired from all the late nights! But it was soooo worth it to feel so girly and to have such great bonding time with my sis. : )

Fabulous Fibs

I just wanted to give a quick shout out to my sister's new business. Her and her friend are starting to make and sell the most ADORABLE costume bibs called FIBS, because they look like one thing, but are really another. When I was in Utah I put a couple on Brinley and couldn't get over how cute they are. I think they'd be a perfect baby shower gift or great for the upcoming holidays. They have a bunch of different designs, Go check them out at www.fibbibs.com!

Friday Foto: Sister Time

My little sister Sarah is in town.
I'm definitely getting my fun fix for the week.
Yay for family!