Halloween Preparations

Halloween has been a sore spot in discussions with Connor. He absolutely refuses to even talk about costumes. The other day Dave asked him what he was going to dress up as and Connor said "I said NO!" So Aunt Mary Ann got the boys these rock n roll shirts so we put those on. I got him a microphone and told him to say "Rock N Roll Baby" into it..which he gladly did to most people we saw while trick-or-treating at Dave's work. As you can see, Evan just wanted to check out the candy.

Then we went to the pumpkin patch. Evan had so much fun hugging all the pumpkins.

Then we cleaned them out with lots of help from the boys.

I looks like they are working together but really Evan is pulling Connor's hand out because he wants to do it himself. He got shipped off to bed right after this.

The finished product...the problem is in TX you can't carve your pumpkins too early....it's hot, they'll mold. So the pumpkins are sitting inside until tomorrow night when they need to do their job. Also a note for next year...don't get the bumpy pumpkins they are really tough and take power tools in order to carve!

The Valley

We had to take an unexpected trip this weekend down to the Valley in TX..McAllen/Hidalgo to be specific. My step-grandmother passed away on Thursday and we decided that it would be worth the trip to go down for the funeral. Ironically my mom and uncle were arriving that day for a scheduled visit anyway. They arrived to find out what happened while they were traveling.

So on Saturday afternoon we packed up the boys and made the 6 hr drive down. Evan's not such a fan of the car, but Connor had his videos and ABC sticker book and he was good to go. We got there much earlier than expected and were able to spend some time with my mom. We decided to stay at the same hotel for convenience, but when we got there it was little creepy. It was one of those with the doors all on the outside...which is a big no-no for safety. We got all ready for bed and discovered that the remote didn't work. So Dave went to the office to get a remote and when he came back a gigantic cockroach tried to take it from him! He fought it off and we agreed it was time to go. He walked across the street to the Comfort Suites and got their last 2 bed room for only $20 more! We packed up the boys at 9:45pm and switched hotels and it was the best decision we'd made in at least a month! The new hotel was very nice and no bugs!

We went to visit Grandpa the next day for a few minutes and eat at my favorite place in the Valley, El Pato. Then we had the visitation at the funeral home that evening. The funeral home had pews instead of chairs and every other pew had a cross on it. Connor ran right up to the pew and tried to pry the "letter t" off...guess we need a little religious education. The boys did pretty well there for about 30 min. until Connor shook his bag of letters all over the place and it was obviously time to go. We went back to the hotel and ordered pizza...another good decision!

The next morning was the funeral and the church had a "crying room" at the back which we walked straight into (after having a conversation that those "letter t's" were called crosses and we can't touch them). We made it about 3/4 of the way through the service but apparently missed the mayor of Hidalgo getting up and saying many wonderful things about Anita and all of her contributions to the community. Then we went to the cemetery which, ironically, is adjacent to their property line so you could see the house from her plot. We decided to say goodbye there and head home.

We are glad we made the trip and hope that my Grandfather's health continues after this loss...they had been married for 42 years...his 3rd marriage I think!

ADK 2010

This past weekend we went to NY to the Adirondacks to visit Dave's family. After narrowly making the plane, it had to turn around due to engine trouble. This is the scene outside our window as we landed...never had this happen before. Our flight ended up getting canceled and we had to get our luggage and go back through all the lines again to get a new plane...which didn't leave until 4pm and it was about 10am at that point. We decided it would be more trouble to deal with going back home (shuttle, parking, packing back up and doing it all over again) so we just stayed at the airport. It was grueling! We didn't make it to our cabin until 2am after leaving home at 6:45am. Then Connor was so wired and confused that he couldn't fall asleep until 5:30am...and you guessed it, Evan was up at 6:30am! It was not pretty!

Evan really, really, really wanted to walk INTO the lake. Not sure what he thought but he was bound and determined to do it so we didn't let him outside much. As you can see it was chilly there.

We had this random Native American statue in our condo that Dave and Scott just had to have their picture with. Scott spent most of the weekend trying to figure out how to get the statue home. Along with this statue we had some very interesting art work and at least 2 mice. It was a nice condo though.

We stayed with Dave's nephew, Scott, and his wife, Erica, and their boys, Braeden (5) and Landon (2). The boys got along great and had so much fun together. Braeden said the best part about the Adirondacks was Connor! So sweet!

Landon and Connor checking out the beach!

We managed to get everyone together for 5 minutes to take a picture. This is just Dave's immediate family...Mom and Dad in the middle, 7 of their children with their spouses and children (17 +1 grandchildren (some with spouses) & 2 great grandchildren) = 34 people altogether! Crazy big family!

We didn't really get to talk with too many people while we were there though because we spent a lot of time wrangling our two. Evan was not happy about the change of venue and refused to be more than 3 inches away from me the entire time (I went to the bathroom with him on my lap most of the time...it was BAD!) Connor spent a lot of time saying he wanted to go home even though he did a really good job of dealing with all the people. This was our 3rd trip in 3 months and I guess it was one too many for them. I just can't imagine trying to do this with 3 next year! We aren't traveling until the trip up next year so I have time to prepare myself.

I had my first appt with my new OB yesterday. She was very nice and the wait time was minimal. She asked if we were planning on having any more and I asked her if she could tie my tubes before taking the baby out! She said she hadn't tried that one, but she'd get it taken care of one way or another. We have another ultrasound scheduled for Nov. 9 and everything is looking as it should. I still haven't had too bad of morning sickness....a bad day with this pregnancy would have been considered a mild day with the last two...so I really can't complain.