The In-Between October Stuff

Remember how I said that I slept on an air mattress downstairs after my surgery? This meant I got bed buddies after Brian went to work. Sleeping was so tough, which meant getting out of bed was even tougher. We watched way too many Disney movies in October. 

 Meanwhile, Gabe kept growing and we think rolling, even though we didn't actually see him do it until weeks later. We'd just look down for a minute, and the look up and he'd be across the room.

 I couldn't do much, but I could cuddle with Gabe:

 And Rachel snuggled with Gabe too:

 Michael had 8 flag football games over 4 weeks, and I was finally able to go see the last few. Here I am holding Gabe and watching Michael play:

 Nana and Papa joined us for his last game. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we forgot a hat for Gabe. Good thing Papa had one:

 After Michael's last game, which was the day before his birthday, Nana and Papa took Michael out to lunch for little birthday date. That was pretty cool.

There was this unfortunate accident:

 Too much Wizard of Oz?

I bought Brian new church shoes. These date back to his mission. (over 10 years ago). He had a tearful farewell to them...okay maybe not that tearful.

  When my mom came, I watched with gratitude, envy and sadness when she played with Gabe on the floor. I was grateful someone was teaching him how to roll over, jealous that I couldn't, and sad because it felt like he would be walking before I'd be able to get down in the floor with him again. Well, it wasn't easy, but I got on the floor four weeks post surgery to tickle his belly and try to get him to roll some more. It may be a small thing too many of you, but it was huge for me.

 Meanwhile, Gabe keeps discovering more things about the world, including himself:

 My first sewing project post surgery was fixing this jumper. It's been funky since I re-did it with Michael. I think this time is going to be good:

 Sometimes Gabe is too tired at the end of the night to finish his bottle.

 This is the "Gabe! You're awake!" party:

 Brian painted all of our doors downstairs. I helped by hanging the drop cloths. Yay for getting around more! And even bigger yay for our doors being painted.

 Our sink downstairs has been a lifesaver! It makes it so I can give Gabe a bath, which would be really, really hard in a tub. And he was finally big enough for this bath seat:

 I can never get enough of babies sleeping:

 Once again, Brian helped out with the Rocky Mountain Marching Band Invitational at BYU. This year, it was just too much for me to handle going. Next year perhaps.

 Gabe loves the jumper:

 We pretty much live downstairs. We love having it finished. The upstairs looks so dull and old now.

 When Rachel dresses Gabe:

 Sunday snuggles downstairs:

 Brian took these pictures of Gabe, and they are awesome:

 I needed help tying my shoes in October. Here I am at physical therapy with one shoe untied because Brian left before I could get his help tying them. Thankfully, my therapist tied them for me.

Cal finally asked Cassidy to marry him! I'm getting a sister in May! Woo hoo!!! I love how happy she makes him.

 We didn't decorate much for Halloween, but we did pull out a few things. One morning, I came out to find that our funeral parlor had been converted to a dressmaker's shop.

 Funny thing about Rachel. She HATES scary things. It was tough getting her to go to Lea's house because Shayne likes to put scary stuff everywhere, and this year they really out-did themselves over there. She was talking about it today, in fact. I think she mentions it every time we go to Lea's house about how she doesn't like the scary stuff.

I inherited this Halloween shirt when Rachel was a baby, so I was excited that I had a baby that actually fit into it around Halloween. Yay.

 Not sure what is going on here:

 Or here:

 This is Rachel after church...probably the last day she will ever wear this dress because it is about too small.

Towards the end of October, we got a fridge and stove for our kitchenette.  I stopped sleeping on the air mattress downstairs and returned to my bed, aided by Tylonel P.M. We decided to continue to invest in our health and bought a Sleep Number Bed. 

 Michael got this stuffed Monkey from one of our neighbors on Halloween. He let Gabe play with it. Gabe didn't want to give it back. It was the first time they fought over a toy.

And just like that, it was November. 

Halloween

I love Halloween costumes. I don't necessarily love the spooky part of Halloween, but I have always loved dressing up, and as an adult, I really don't get many opportunities for dressing up in costume. Chalk it up to loving to perform. Or chalk it up to loving to sew something more creative. Or chalk it up to the fact that I have a screw loose in my brain. But there is always guilt hanging out around Halloween. I spend too much on these silly costumes. I waste too much time sewing them. I'm stressing myself out for something absolutely silly. This year, I especially felt the guilt because I had just had surgery and sewing five costumes was just way too much. But by the time October rolled around, I had had it with just sitting in a chair and watching everyone else doing stuff. I wanted to do something. And I also reconciled some to the expense guilt away--I'm making memories for my kids and doing something special for them, and I can't put a price on that. I'm not always great at playing with them, but I can make them feel special at Halloween. 

I started the season with every intention to take it easy. I was going to buy Rachel a Cinderella dress, a nicer one, not like the dress I bought last year that keeps fraying and falling apart. I felt like it would be a good investment since she wears her dress-ups all the time. I figured I'd buy Michael's too, but I really wanted to make Gabe's costume. I'd made the other two's first costume (I'm not really counting Hedwig since Michael was so tiny then), and I was determined not to short-change Gabe. I had this pattern for a super cute lion that I'd been wanting to make since Michael was a baby, and this was finally my chance. I decided Brian and I could dress up as Dorothy and the Scarecrow to go along with Gabe.I thought, "If only there was someone in the Wizard of Oz that was frilly enough for Rachel do dress up as." And then I remembered Glinda. As a little girl, I thought Glinda was the most beautiful girl ever. I even dressed up as her one year. 

I pitched the idea to Michael and Rachel when we were driving home one night. Michael was on board and requested to be "the robot guy." Rachel, who had never seen The Wizard of Oz, had no idea who I was talking about and said, "No, I just want to be Cinderella." So, I showed her a picture of Glinda. "Her eyes got big, and she said in an awed expression, "Oh! She's beautiful." She was on board after that. I looked online at Wizard of Oz costumes, and they were awful. There was nothing for it. I had to make them. 

I enlisted my friend, Cami, to go with me to JoAnn's to buy fabric. She drove and gave me the courage to ride the little driving cart around the store. We laughed about all the rough goes of it. I was so embarrassed, but that was the only way I was going to be able to do it, and I was determined. I should have had her take a picture with all the bolts of fabric sticking out of the front, but I only got her to take this one after checking out. 

 I found a sweet tutorial for making an awesome Tin-man costume. I sewed the vinyl and Brian glued the bolts and spray painted the costume.

Unfortunately, sometimes paint was not dry in time for Michael's first Halloween party, so I threw together this out of stuff in our Halloween box:

 This is at our friends', Ivie and Liam, house. The kids had a fun time doing the carnival style games and playing with Ivie and Liam.

 I wanted Rachel to be able to pull her costume on and off all by herself, so I made the top out of really stretchy Lycra. The pattern called for fitting, so it was a little rough trying to trim it down and get it to fit right. It turned out much better in my head, but Rachel loved it, so that's what really matters. And I feel confident that this dress is going to last because of all the French seams I did in it.

 Michael and Ivie:

Glinda and Dracula:

We decided we could handle carving 2 pumpkins this year, so we went to Wal-mart to search for costume supplies and bought these two huge pumpkins. Notice I'm in the driving cart again? Yeah, after the hip surgery, I lost all sense of dignity and pride. 

  We carved pumpkins the day before Halloween:

 Michael and I were on a team, and Rachel and Brian were on a team. Michael actually got quite a bit of the guts out himself:

 After Michael and I finished ours, I walked away to work on something else, and when I came back, he was trying to carve a Y into the side. I was annoyed, but Brian helped him carve it out.

 We also made sugar cookies. They were delicious.

 The cookies, however, weren't so sure:

Yay for our carved pumpkins. Notice the one Rachel is hugging. She told Brian she wanted a "girl pumpkin". So, Brian made one with eyelashes. I was pretty impressed.

 We made our full. family costume debut on Friday, October 28th at our Ward Halloween Party. I threw Brian's scarecrow costume together in the hour and a half leading up to the party. I also made Rachel's crown, and gave mod podge and red glitter and sequins to Michael and had him bedazzle my red shoes. It was the typical last minute costume stress, but everything turned out so great:

 My friend found this awesome yarn to make Gabe's mane while we were at the fabric store. I may have gone a little crazy with it because the mane is massive, but he was so cute in it. Here we all are in costumes that I put together, post surgery. I'm still kind of impressed with myself. It felt so good to take on a project again, even though it wiped me out.

  On Halloween, the elementary school does a Halloween parade. Michael's costume was still not dry. We figured out in the days leading up to the ward party that it was never going to dry because the paint wouldn't bond to the plastic of the vinyl. We sprayed a clear coat on top, which helped a ton, but it meant that the costume lost a lot of it's original shine and awesomeness. It also meant that I couldn't send Michael to school as Tin Man. He wanted to be Wolverine this time around. Here he is:

 We got a late start getting all of us in our costumes for trick-or-treating, so it was dark when we took pictures, but they still turned out great:

 What's the point of a pretty dress if you can't twirl?

 We still have sparkles all over the house and car from this dress:

 Our neighbor Sally was kind enough to take some pictures for us:

 This mane. It kills me. That's what happens when the baby is asleep and can't try it on until Mom finishes it.

 My goal with surgery was to be able to take my kids trick-or-treating. I took all three kids and we hit about 5 houses before I had to hand it off to Brian. He did the lower neighborhood loop and then brought Gabe back to me. Isn't he the cutest little lion?

We hope everyone had an amazing Halloween.