Happy Halloween!

There was a time when my kids were little enough that they had no choice but to go along with whatever I had schemed up for their Halloween costumes. These costumes were usually handmade (by someone else ;) and always very, very, very cute (cuteness being the main, nay, only, objective.) Examples here, and here (oh, that baby ghost still gets me!) Those were the glory days, man. But now that they're older they have all these "opinions" and ideas of their own and I guess I have to be the nice mom who lets them choose their own costumes from now on. Somehow they're just not into the idea of being Wayne and Garth for my own personal amusement. It pretty much blows. And much like last year Wes could not settle on what to be. He kept saying he wanted to be big foot, but that resulted in two problems, number one being that they don't make kids big foot costumes, believe me I've checked. And number two being that his new school doesn't really celebrate Halloween. They have "character dress up day" which is pretty much the same thing except you can only dress as a character from a children's book and you have to bring the book in with you. And we don't have no kids sasquatch books lying around last time I checked. So finally I just loaded him into the car, took him to the store and let him loose in the costume aisle. He came away with an Ironman costume. Meh.

Oren, on the other hand, knew exactly what he wanted to be for Halloween. A red bat. Also, doesn't exist. And I don't sew and everyone I know who does sew has been way too busy to bother, soooo. We talked him into being Batman, which is next best thing in his book. Of course he wanted to be a red Batman which still doesn't exist and so after much persuasion he finally settled on blue Batman, which, thankfully, does exist. And there we have it. The really boring story of how we ended up with two really boring Halloween costumes. Thrilling writing over here today, you guys. Where's my Pulitzer?

So anyway, trick or treat pics coming right up! The weather was much better than last year when it poured rain, and this year it fell on Josh's birthday so we celebrated with pizza, sparkling cider and chocolate cake afterward. Not the most exciting of  birthdays, but decent for a Thursday night I'd say.

Hope you all have a very Happy Halloween and may your children bring home all your favorite candy to pilfer!

xoxo

Happy Birthday, Josh!

Dear Josh,

So unless things start to get crazy around here today it looks like you won't have to share your birthday with a certain snail baby we're all waiting so very impatiently for. Guess this day can remain all about you - just how you like it ;)

I wanted to take a minute here to tell you how great you are. Especially these last few months when all I've done is cry and complain and ask you to do a million things around the house. Thank you for your patience and for the nightly back rubs which are the only thing that help me sleep at all and especially for that caramel apple you brought me home yesterday. (Which by the way I ate that whole thing last night while you were upstairs reading in bed with Oren. And it was primo too.)  You do a whole lot for this little family of ours, and I probably don't tell you nearly enough how much we all appreciate you. Thank you for always cleaning the litter box, and for changing out the 947 new light fixtures I've bought for the house, thank you for all the nights you cook dinner, clean the kitchen, vacuum the rug you hate so much. Thank you for those sweet little boys sleeping in their beds and the little one in my belly who we get to meet any day now. Thank you for working hard for us, and for humoring me when I get a crazy idea and for almost always letting me have my way in the end.

You're the best and I love you very much.

Here's wishing you a very happy birthday.

love,

Emily

Maternity Photos

Josh has been working with local photographer Lauren Parker on a special project for her website, which I can't wait to share here when it's all finished, but in the meantime Lauren took some maternity photos of me and my little family that I'd love to share today if you'd care to take a peek!

When Lauren and I were discussing the session I had a pretty clear idea of the type of photos I was hoping for and I have to say, she completely nailed it. Thank you Lauren, for this beautiful shoot and for capturing this special time for us. I will treasure these photos forever. 

39 Weeks + 1 Day (the state of my uterus address)

please excuse this blurry/grainy taken while it's still dark out at 6am before heading out the door to work photo

At 39 weeks and one day pregnant my uterus is decidedly still occupied. This is the most pregnant I have ever been. If this baby were like his or her brothers it would have been born yesterday, as they both came at 39 weeks on the nose. Needless to say, I was fully expecting to have a new baby by now. Which just goes to show you, as with every labor and delivery of mine I have absolutely no clue how things will ever actually go and when I do hazard a guess, I am most always very WRONG. 

So, yeah, still pregnant.

 

Fall Day 2014

This is one of those days I look forward to so much every year. Pumpkin picking, corn mazing and lots of fall treats being consumed later on while carving our pumpkins. But don't let these photos deceive you, the boys were in rare form all day. Crying, whining, fighting, car time outs - all of it was happening this year and I barely managed one semi-decent photo of each of them at the pumpkin patch. (And you can just go ahead and forget about a family photo). It was just not our day. 

But, the weather was perfect, the company was grand and those pumpkin cookies and that apple/pear crisp allllmost made up for it.