Happy Halloween!

We're taking Adrian trick-or-treating for the first time tonight. He is so excited! We've been talking about it for the past week or so and he is always telling me, "say, 'trick-or-treat,' give candy, say, 'thank-you!'" I've been letting him play in his pumpkin costume for the past few days to get him comfortable with wearing it and boy, he's comfortable! Last night, he was wearing it (sweating) and I took it off to change him into his pajamas. As soon as his pajamas were on he wanted it on again and was so upset when I had to take it off for him to go to bed. He wore it until lunchtime today, again sweating, and only took it off because I didn't want it to get dirty while he was eating. I don't think we'll have any trouble with it tonight! He's been asking all morning, "Go trick-or-treating?" His voice gets all high-pitched at the end and he raises his eyebrows. "Go trick-or-treating when Daddy get home?"

I whipped up a trick-or-treat bag for Adrian today. I can't take credit for the idea, I saw this bag on Etsy. I had some green fabric left over from another bag, I used felt and black buttons for the eyes.

Adrian was so impatient for me to finish making it so he could carry it around. I wish I could get a picture of him looking all excited but it was difficult enough to get him to hold the bag in the right direction.

Trick-or-treating pictures tomorrow and that shirt if I remember to get a picture!

Happy Halloween! Be safe!

He always has me laughing...

A minute ago he hopped on his bike and informed me, "I'm riding my bike all the way to the park, buh-bye Mama!"
And a few minutes ago when I ran to grab the phone, "Just a minute Mama!"
Now he's 'Goin' fishin' in the boat." (The Lego container.) "I catch-ed the fish!"
He's been calling me 'hon' or 'honey' lately as well. He always brings my attention to the things I say every day even when I don't realize I say them.

I restyled a shirt today! Go me! I'll post pictures once I take them.

Sister's Trip

Jean, Molly, Gretchen, Kaitlin, me, Larissa, Amanda, Emily Sara, Jennifer, Mom

I'm not done blogging, I've just felt kind of burnt out from blogs in general.

This past weekend was our 1st ever Sister's Trip! We've talked about taking a trip together for the past several years but it never seemed to work out. This year, Sara took action and started planning it. That's what it takes to really get a plan in motion. We can find an excuse every time whether it be money, babies, our husband's schedules, but in the end, if a trip is planned there's a pretty good chance that we'll all make it! We did have two babies with us this year and we will probably have at least one baby for the next umpteen years but that's just the way it goes. Next time, it could be me. I'm not sure how often we'll be doing this but I know my mom has her own Sister's Trip every other year and that always seems to work well.
We rented a condo near Madison, Wisconsin for the weekend and I am so glad we did. It was such a nice place, full kitchen and living room, 4 bedrooms plus plenty of space in the finished basement (where 2 of the bedrooms were) for a couple more beds. All 13 of us fit quite comfortably. We had first considered a hotel but it was so much easier to visit when we had chairs and couches and space available so we never felt cramped. This picture (courtesy of Emily) was taken on the screened-in porch.
On Friday night, we went to Olive Garden and then back to the condo to exchange our handmade Christmas gifts (my mom posted pictures here). The next day, we ate lots (oh wait, that was all weekend, we brought way too much food!) and then headed to Panera Bread before doing some shopping. I am a terrible shopper! After pinching pennies for so long I have forgotten how to spend money. I found a sweater for myself at Plato's Closet. That's it. Of course, it is a little trickier trying to find maternity clothes but I was also on the lookout for some new heels and a pair of boots, I found neither. I think most of the other girls brought home a few bags of clothes, lucky them!
That night we exchanged our white elephant gifts which gave us plenty of laughs, some were serious and some were just ridiculous. Like the super soaker squirt gun my mom got!
It was such a fun weekend with so many laughs, so much food (I guess we do talk about food a lot...) and it definitely wasn't long enough!

DS

It's Down Syndrome Awareness Month. My mom emailed all the kids to share this video so I thought I'd share it on here (sorry if you already saw it on facebook). Christopher, in the video, reminds me so much of my little (almost 16-year-old) brother Danny, especially at the end of his segment when he says 'See? We are more alike than different."

Reading with Dad

Vintage-Style Romper

I've been itching to sew lately, I still haven't done any real projects this fall. I found this pattern at St. Vinnies for 7¢! I think their patterns are usually a whopping 14¢ but the sale for the day was half off everything except yellow tags. I also found a winter jacket for Adrian (still hoping to find a nicer one but for the price listed, I couldn't pass it up as a 'just in case'), a yellow, silk shirt for myself, and another basic toddler pattern for shirts and onesies. I also had a $1 off coupon so my total was, wait for it...$2.17.
This pattern is from 1975, I plan to make the top sunsuit using this vintage sheet a found quite a while ago:

I'm not even sure what I'll do with it once it's done but I was so excited to use the pattern once I brought it home! It might be a baby gift or it might find it's way to Etsy. Hey, do you remember when I talked about opening my very own Etsy shop?? Yeah...I remember that too.

hiking with 2-year-olds

I've been avoiding posting just so I wouldn't type out a big complaint about how lousy I've been feeling. Since it's basically unavoidable, I'll just get it out really quick...I've had a cold for over a week and when I was getting to the point of whentheheckwillthistupidcoldgoaway?! I got another one. The first one was coughing, sore throat, lots and lots of phlegm (your welcome) and this one is more in my head...no, not like I'm making it up, come over here and I'll show you. Kidding, but really, I have a runny nose and my head feels all cloudy and I'm positively exhausted. I have a pot of chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove right now and even though it doesn't sound that tasty at the moment, I can't wait to eat it. There's nothing like hot soup when you feel like crap.
I was obviously feeling quite a bit better on Wednesday--even though I had that other stupid cold at that time--when the twinners were here.
Kaitlin and Gretchen came down on Tuesday night and we made plans to go hiking. Or I made plans to go hiking. Now that I think about it, I don't even know if they were remotely interested.

We went to Sugarloaf which is the easiest hiking trail I know of. Kendall only had flip-flops so we all ended up wearing flip-flops.

It was a perfectly beautiful day and there are lookout points on the top but we didn't end up staying long since all of us were getting hungry for lunch.

This was my first time letting Adrian walk up on his own and he did great! Actually, both kids were pretty awesome.

Gotta love self-timer shots!

Kendall had some mud on her leg so she held her shorts up on the way down.

We finished up and then went to Border Grill for lunch. Yum! I'm so glad my sisters were able to make it down for a visit!

home is wherever you are

I managed to survive a week without Jeff! He left last Monday for training and we were finally able to pick him up again last night. It actually went pretty well, I had a vehicle for the week so that helped. I felt pretty relaxed until Adrian and I both came down with nasty colds around the middle of the week. There were many times that I had to remind myself that he wasn't feeling well either. It takes so much patience to care for a sick little guy when I just want to crawl back in bed! Then, of course, he was so tired and I wanted him to sleep so he could get better but, he wasn't sleep very well at all.

It took him a day or so to figure out that Jeff wasn't around and from then on, he constantly asked, "Where's Daddy? Daddy working on airplanes? Daddy far away?" And then, after telling him that Daddy was in Texas he would ask where Jessica (Jeff's cousin) was, remembering that she also lived in Texas. He must have thought they were hanging out or something. Pretty soon came the "I miss Daddy." I have no idea if he knows what that means but I know he heard me say it plenty of times! We went to the airport to pick him up last night and as soon as Adrian saw him (his flight landed earlier than expected so he was already waiting outside our tiny little airport when I pulled up) he started giggling and kicking his legs. Aaah, it was so sweet! We're both so glad to have him back!