Photo dump, and Halloween

We had the Gullys over for Halloween night, and we had a grand old time!  We saw a few trick or treaters (next year I'll make sure to stock up on candy more thoroughly), ate plenty of yummy treats, and admired our cute costumed babies.

 My Halloween decor inspired by Holly's white finger-knit garland.  I put it up on the ceiling, and I thought, you know what would look great with this?  A huge freaky spider.

 

I shared Theo's costume for a minute. Don't worry, I know I look good.

For the first time probably of my life, I did not dress up on Halloween day.  I was just too plain busy.  Does this make me a real grown up?

Memory Lane

Corbin and I finally got our new (to us) Subaru today!  It's been in the works for a few weeks, but now it's sitting in our driveway.  I'm excited to get the hang of it.  And the best part of it- heated seats.  You know they's be on tous les jours during the next 6 months.

Last night I needed to grab something from the baby's room after he'd gone to bed, so I sneaked in real quiet-like.  While I was in there, I stood and looked at my precious baby for a little while. I realized while I was taking him in that I miss this sight.  Theo slept in our room for the first six months, so we got to see our beautiful baby sleeping peacefully every night.  Sometimes, Corbin and I would stand together watching him and finding it hard to believe that he was actually ours for keeps, and counting ourselves very lucky.  I was having those same thoughts last night.  I realized I will totally be the mom from I'll Love You Forever by Robert Munsch.  That book makes me cry every time, and I love it.

I was about to appologize for that being rather sappy, but I won't because I meant every word of it.

Since Frankenstorm has been hanging around (don't worry, all we've gotten is some rain, which is not uncommon for Ithaca anyways), Theo and I have spent pretty much all day inside.  And since Theo is teething, he felt it necessary to take a three hour nap.  I didn't mind.

So I was sorting through the files on my computer, trying to get them organized.  I ended up doing that thing I used to do when I was little and had to clean my room.

Wow, look at this cool toy I haven't played with in forever!  Instead of cleaning up, I think I'll play with this for an hour.

I found a bunch of old journal type documents and read them, one from Corbin's and my engagement, one from a few months before the baby was born, one from like 2007. It was like finding time capsules from myself, and it was so fun to see them again.  They made me realize that I've come a long way, even in the past year.  I fell in love with Corbin a little bit more.  I gave my baby a few extra kisses, and I laughed at myself a lot.

I can't wait to go back in another few years and sort through all this stuff again.

The baby playing with a plunger.  Further proof that storm-time is fun-time!

Random thoughts, and the Pumpkin Patch

Sometimes when I'm listening to my music on shuffle, a Bert and Ernie sing along song will happen, and it's hilarious because of the way the tracks are split up.  One moment, Bob will ask Big Bird to sing a song, and enthusiastically Big Bird will say, "Sure Bob!"  The next second, Lifehouse's "First Time" will come on.  

I love that.

I think my phone has died died.  The battery ran out, but it won't charge.  Its time has finally come.

Last night, we were playing in the living room, and we heard lots of honking.  Not cars, geese.  It's great to hear them flying overhead going south for the winter.  It seems so legit. 

Halloween is less than a week away and I still have no clue what I want to be. 

I got a haircut today, and I went to the only place that I know of in town.  I failed to look at the prices, and got a $35 haircut.  I feel so mad/guilty.  My hair looks nice, but not $35 nice.

I hosted a dinner party solo last night. Corbin had to stay on campus to study last night, but we were scheduled to have the missionaries over. Since male missionaries aren't allowed in the home if there isn't an 18 year old man (or older) man there, I needed to do some fancy footwork.  The Gullys were nice enough to come have dinner with us- thanks for being 18 or older Darin! It was real fun, a bit crazy with the babies running around, and quite delicious.  Leslie made yuuuuuummy cookie bars.  I'm pretty sure each missionary had like 5. 

This morining, the lovely Leslie and Ava invited Theo and I to the pumpkin patch.  Here are only a sample of picture of the fun things we saw and did.  Enjoy!

 Sweet goat cat walk thing that went over the walking path.  I was a little afraid they would poop on us.

 Beautiful peacock, sans loooong tail.

 

Neat Spiderman pumpkin, that I dedicate to Lucy Flanagan.

This isn't from this morning, and I know he's making a weird face, but look at those mittens!  I can't believe a) he let me put them on his hands, and b) he kept them there.  I love this man!

And I just realized he has completely demolished and entangled my ball of yarn.  Be back later.

Welcome back, Internet

Super crunchy leaves... incredibly satisfying.

 Earlier this week, we received a wonderful package from Grandma filled with delights, like this adorable fluffy coat.

 OK, everyone, all together: So CUTE!  Theo rocks this Watson hat, and it's created ideas in my mind for Halloween.

The package also had great onesies and corduroy pants.  He'll stay nice and warm this winter thanks to Grandma Chatfield.  There were also some storybooks, which will warm his heart on those cold winter nights.

For some reason, our internet just up and died last week, but now we're back online!  A special thanks to my wonderful husband for being vigilant in scheduling someone to come look at the problem.  Love you, Baby!

Indexing and Inspiration

Indexing is right up my ally for stuff I like to do. After hearing that my sister Kellie is bored all day long (she's got a good excuse with having a lame foot, so not much to do but sit around), I challenged her to an indexing competition to see who can digitize the most names.

Kellie, if you're reading this, I'm about 30 away from 500 since Tuesday morning.  I expect lots of prizes when I win.

Anyways, I have really been enjoying myself.  I've seen lots of Dorothys, lots of Johns and Elizabeths, and loooots of names I've never heard before.  One whole record of about 30 people were all from Puerto Rico.  I guess in Spanish, it's OK to take any male name under the sun, add an a to the end, and make it female.  You go, Puerto Rican parents of the 18 and 1900's.

I was inspired when I saw the name Radcliff, to someday name a son that and call him Rad. How cool would that be- Rad Miller.

Anyways anyways, I've been doing a lot of boat passenger records, and as I write the names, I've started wondering things about these people.  With those who have the same last name, are they married, are they spinster sisters, are they a young family taking the kids on a trip? And maybe there are friends sailing away into the sunset together.  Maybe some people get on the boat as strangers and leave as friends.  Who am I to say?  And I wonder why they're on the boat?  Did they have a good trip?  Was the food all right?

So many fun questions swirling around in my head that I'll never know the answer to, but I can make believe my own answers, and I like that.

It makes me want to know more about my family history.  So many people who came before me lead full, exciting, productive, and very different lives.  I want to know them.  And if they need my help in getting their ordinances done (which I highly doubt, unless they're from the 1300's or something) then I want to do that for them.

Family History is a really neat thing.

Wooly Caterpillar

 Theo's love for the shower and shower curtain is why he is banished from the bathroom when I bathe.

 I'm just gonna come out and say their names: Leslie and Ava.  I feel so free!

When we were walking to the park yesterday, we saw a veeeery wooly caterpillar walking across the street.  These little guys are everywhere!  Leslie is a cool kid, so she picked him up to show the kids.  Ava thought he was pretty cool, and was a gentle girl when petting him.

 I'm not sure if I've said this, but Theo hates to have his hands held.  So he didn't get to pet the little guy.

But we did have a package waiting at home from Aunt Holly!  Look at the sweet hotwheels wrapping paper!  And now Theo can be a warm boy this winter.  PLUS there was an extra surprise of a baby photo album inside.  We love it a lot.

Photo Dump of Fall Break

 

We went to Beebe Lake on Monday, which is, you know, just a lake that runs through Cornell campus.  Yeah, I live here.

 

We got to babysit A. while her mommy had her first day of work.  We pretty much had a blast.

Sorry, there pictures were in order, but now they're not.

Cold weather is upon us (but it's just gonna get worse).  We're getting prepared.

Big thank yous to Holly, my mom, and L. for giving us winter clothes for the baby, making sure he doesn't turn into a Theo-pop this winter!

We got to party it up with the Swigerts during General Conference, and as you can see, Hal was thrilled about it!  Just kidding, he really was cute and sweet the whole time.  Sitting in that position will give anyone a double chin like that. 

Theo has been eating a lot of Cheerios lately.  There was one stuck to the kitchen floor today, after having previously been drooled on, dropped, and dried there.  Later, he decided he really did want to eat it, so he tried picking it up with his fingers.  When that didn't work, he went for the good old face-to-the-floor method.  Too bad that didn't work either.

Ten points for whoever saw the deer in this picture without reading this first.  Seriously, we stood there and watched each other for a few minutes.  Corbin and I were finally the ones to move on first.

After having Corbin home for four days in a row, my housework groove was totally thrown off.  But apparently all my productivity got stored up, because today I: gave the baby a bath, cleaned the bathroom, deep cleaned the kitchen, including wiping down the table and high chair, finished this month's book club book, made BBQ chicken for dinner, indexed about 30 names, and tweezed my eyebrows.  Oh yeah, and took care of a baby.  BOOMSHADOW!

Autumn is Here!

Today I had my first wow moment of New York autumn.  As Theo and I were driving to Mommy group, I saw a very tall tree, and all of its leaves were bright cherry red!  I literally said WOW out loud.  

So many of the trees are starting to turn, and it just keeps getting more and more beautiful.  I'll have to put batteries in my real camera and start going crazy photographing everything.

My backyard looks like some kind of fairytale scene, before the princesses arrive.  There are like ten different kinds of birds flying here and there, squirrels scampering around, butterflies fluttering, even a giant crow or too to keep the balance.  There was a moment when a squirrel romped through a group of birdies and made them fly away.  It was very magical.

My cauldron of scary stories.

I got out the Halloween decorations on Saturday, and it makes me soooo excited for the actual event of Halloween. I've been pondering costume ideas for a month, but I feel it's now appropriate to start mentioning them to others.

 I asked L. to take a picture of Theo at Mommy group, because his face was covered in wood chips.  But this beauty of a face ended up getting preserved for posterity.  I love this boy!

BTW: he's getting his fifth tooth.

I got to bust out my tea set. There's a depression in the place for the cup-how cool!

For girl's night L. and I made scones and mint hot chocolate for quite a delicious faux-tea.  It was fun and tasty for a chilly autumn night.  But I think next week will have to be straight up cookie dough.