Halloween 2009

I really enjoyed having Halloween on a Saturday this year, even though Ryan had worked Halloween eve all night long and slept through the morning. He woke up in the afternoon and we kicked the festivities off by carving and painting pumpkins while listening to the monster mash and other Halloween songs. Kate has been talking about painting pumpkins all day long and there was not a centimeter of pumpkin left unpainted. I think I should probably let her paint more often! Sawyer got in on the fun too. He is the cutest dancer in the world and was really rocking out to the music. But towards the end you could tell it was nap time because he kept rubbing his eyes with his paint hands!
We then had some friends over for dinner and ate chili and "mummy" hot dogs. Things must have been crazy because I didn't get a picture of dinner. Afterwards we headed to the church for a trunk or treat which was really crazy and Sawyer was being really clingy so I didn't get many pictures after that. At the gym Halloween party he walked around and loved picking candy out of people's bowls but today he wouldn't have anything to do with any of it....except the sucker I let him eat! By the end of the night I'm pretty sure I had a hunchback just like the real Queen disguised as an old lady from holding him. I told Kate that and she asked me what a hunchback was. It is so funny the things she has started asking me what they mean, especially related to holidays. Just recently she asked me how Santa gets into our house and when I explained the whole fireplace thing she looked at me like I was nuts! I must not have been very convincing. Then today in the car when we were driving to the church we were listening to the country station and she said, "hey mom, I know this song!" and then she proceeded to sing "She thinks my tractors sexy!" Luckily she didn't ask me to explain that one.
Anyway, after the trunk or treat we drove up a few streets and hit some houses for the true trick or treating feel. Kate was timid at first but really got into it and even when we decided to go home she was still wanting to find more houses. Sawyer, on the other hand, was finished.
Once home both kids happily put their jammies on by the light of the jack-o-lanterns on the back porch and then it was bedtime. On the way Kate said, "Raise your hand if you had a really long day!" We all raised our hands.
It was a really long day but it was a fantastic Halloween. The weather was just perfect and really felt crisp and autumn-like. Kate even had to wear a jacket! I hope you all had a fantastic, candy filled Halloween too!

Not my average post

Tonight, after the kids were all tucked into bed, I left Ryan at home to go pick up a few things from the store for a Halloween party tomorrow. I headed towards my regular Kroger and then changed my mind and decided I would go to Target so I could get some paint to finish Ryan's costume. As I drove by Kroger I saw the parking lot was fun of flashing police cars and had a yellow taped off crime scene.
I continued on, did my quick shopping at Target and then headed back home. When I passed the Kroger again I saw that now there were a few news crews there. I came home and joked with Ryan about it while putting away my groceries. Out of curiosity, I set my DVR to tape the evening news.
After my donut hole eyeballs for the party were finished, we watched some TV (30 Rock really had me laughing tonight!) and then we watched the news.
Tonight at the Kroger I frequent a lady was either about to start her shopping trip or had just ended when a guy tried to car jack her. Witnesses saw him trying to pull her out and then he shot her several times. He was caught and the woman was rushed to the hospital, in surgery at the time of the newscast.
At the Kroger I frequent. Often times alone at night while my husband is home with the kids.
Add this to the recent flier we got from our apartment management warning us of 3 recent close (not in the complex, but close) home invasions where the women were sexually assaulted. The flier was complete with a composite drawing of the suspect. I think those are always scary looking.
When Ryan is working at Ben Taub (as he is this month) he has one or two nights a week where he has in hospital call and is gone all night. I don't sleep well normally when he is gone and it has gotten worse with these recent events.
This brings me to my funny observation. I recently was in my knife drawer and I found the can of pepper spray my sister in law got me as a joke when we were considering moving to New York City. It now resides on my bedside table. I got lots of people telling me that I was crazy for wanting to live in NYC, but I think it is so funny that we now live here in this big, traffic filled city with all this crime and pollution and downtown-ness. It is so New York-like....except without all the awesome sights and surroundings and experiences. I wanted to ride the subways, go to church in the bottom floors of the Manhattan temple and just experience NYC! Where is my Rockefeller tree?
SIGH....with that being said, I must confess that Houston treats me pretty well most of the time. I like it mainly because I love all the friends and acquaintances I have here. And there are lots of nice suburbs around Houston where you can have a house with a yard and it seems to feel less downtown-y. I wouldn't really know. But people do choose to live here. And crime really can happen anywhere.
I think it might just be that the NYC dreamer in me comes out strongest at this time of year....fall fading into winter and then into the Christmas season. I seriously know I would have loved it there. Anyone want to go visit with me?

Goodbye Devin!

Today Devin entered the MTC! I talked to him a couple of times on the phone in the past few days and I was on speaker phone when everyone said goodbye at the curb of the Mission Training Center. He seems so old and brave and....manly! I LOVE HIM! I posted more pictures on his blog. If you're interested, check it once a week for his letters!

Our new form of wholesome recreation

We decided for our birthdays and Christmas this year we would treat ourselves to a bike trailer for the kids and it has really proved to be a lot of fun. We went on a short ride the day after we got it to a local park but we actually went on our first long ride on Saturday. Ryan was envisioning a trip to the place where we went camping with the alligators but I had to be at the church to practice our primary program so we rode their instead. It was a little different than going to a trail....we passed under overpasses, and bridges where bums sleep and heard the hum of Houston traffic the whole way!
We tried to take the city streets to the bayou where we would be able to ride along it the rest of the way...but there were all sorts of detours in our way that made it take longer than we expected. Its a 10 mile ride and, despite my last minute sprint to the church, I ended up being late to the practice (which I was in charge of! Oh the humiliation!) but it worked out okay. After the practice we got back on our bikes and rode to chick fil a (our new favorite family restaurant. have you ever had their side salad with berry vinaigrette dressing? It is my new favorite!) Then we headed home, a little tired....with Sawyer asleep in the back. I was so surprised how well the kids did sitting in that trailer together all that time. They sure love to play and Kate takes good care of her brother.

We're so excited to be able to bike together as a family!

YMCA Halloween

Friday night we dressed the kids up and headed to the YMCA for their Halloween party and it was a lot of fun. They had little games to play and some trunk or treating (but only like 5 cars....probably because you had to pay to do it. who wants to pay to pass out candy to people?) and some free pumpkins!
Kate's favorite thing to do was to get candy, although she only actually said trick or treat once. When she saw the face painting she said, "maybe I'll do that on a different day." I helped her with the cake walk and it was a pretty slow moving game...but she won a cupcake the second time! I was pretty glad because I could have seen us there for a while.
Sawyer's favorite thing was throwing the football through the cut out hole. He wanted to do it over and over again. He also walked around with a piece of candy in his mouth constantly....and he drooled chocolate drool all over his Dopey costume! He got lots of compliments on his costume and just walked around oblivious to it. Several people wanted to take his picture but I had to tell them that I had spent a half hour outside trying to get him to look at the camera earlier that day and he probably wasn't going to be saying cheese. He was pretty cute walking across the stage in the costume contest with his Daddy too!
We left the party way past our bedtime but the kids were pretty hyped up on candy on the way home. Isn't that the fun of Halloween?

My life through my phone

so I finally got the cardreader so I can put my phone pictures on my blog! wahoo! I actually take a lot of pictures and send them to my mom all the time so its nice to finally get to archive them. I'm warning you, there are a lot of pictures.

baby KATE! Dani sent this to me off of her phone so now its on mine. Its from the good old days at the Tucson Costco

Sawyer sleeping with cheese cracker all over his face

dressing up

Kate and her friend Summer making faces

dress up "glubs"

baby Sawyer!!

Kate's ginormous "pack pack"

M&Ms at the airport

pricked finger at the WIC office

carousel at the zoo

tasting the cheese at Kroger! this was right after Sawyer was actually big enough to sit with Kate!

nice

my favorite picture on my phone! This is Kate last year when we were camping and driving to the bathroom late at night.

I came home one day to find them chillin outside like this

IKEA ice cream

Kate and Devin at Olive Garden for his birthday

Sawyer wearing his sister's tights

(don't worry, he didn't leave the house like that!)Mini cart shopping

Making cookies

At the beach right before the scary sea weed

Kate's favorite thing to do is to take pictures with my phone
she does it almost daily. She really likes to pose her animals like a photographer

stuck in a cave at the zoo in a downpour
(Kate took this picture too)

getting pumpkins at the store after our pumpkin patch grumpiness

loving each other in the car

our first night with the bike trailer

testing out the pink bikes at REI....Sawyer especially loves the pink bike with streamers!

stuck inside the gym because its pouring and we forgot our umbrellas

dressing up again

It was so funny to go back through and look at these. Its nice to have a handy camera phone for when my real camera isn't with me!