The Story of Baby Jude

*Yes, this is the whole story, so it's long.  Forewarning.

Well I won't even attempt to totally pick up where I left off from the last post!  I wish I could say that everything was peachy keen from that point on, but unfortunately I basically went from being sick as a dog to feeling crippled with SPD.  More or less my joints and ligaments just loosened really way too soon and in places like my pelvis in particular I really noticed.  By about 20-22 weeks my pelvis would just feel like it might break when I went to roll over in bed at night, put on my pants, walk up stairs, get in my car.  It was a long pregnancy, it just was, that might sound bad, but it's the truth.  I basically felt like I was unreasonable tired for a year.  At this point I'm a week post pardum and I feel like I have all this energy and so FREE!  AND I have this cute little squish newborn.  THIS is the good part for sure!

So onto the point of the post... :)  I was determined early on that I wanted to just go into labor naturally with this pregnancy, for one reason or another I've basically been induced with my other two.  But as this extremely mentally/physically exhausting pregnancy wore on I started to lose my resolve on that.  My doctor brought up inducing me early about 4 weeks from my due date at our regular appointment.  Charlie was 3 days before his due date and he was 9 lbs, and my doctor was worried about this baby being big combined with the pain I was experiencing already wouldn't be fun.  The baby was measuring big, not huge, but that's what they said about Charlie.  My biggest fear about inducing was my body not being ready, and ending up in a csection when I didn't make progress and the baby started suffering for it.  But just as with Charlie I was walking around at 4cm dialated and fairly efaced, and Charlie's delivery went smooth as smooth and was very fast. At first I said no, but then she told me the date they could start me.  March 28th.  It kinda felt like a sign.  Leland was born on 1/28, Charlie was born on 12/28, and this baby could be born on 3/28?  That is pretty cool.  So about two weeks from my due date I called her back and said, 'yes, let's do it!'

Well the weird thing about inductions is you just sorta wander into the hospital and 'sign up' to have a baby without having any labor pains.  Sort of doesn't seem 'right'.  On the upside, it seems like the luxury way to have a baby, haha, you don't have to do labor in the middle of the crazy night and lose a day to non-sleep, etc. The morning of the 28th I was to call labor and delivery at 6am.  They were busy.  So they told me to call a couple hours later... and so went our entire day of calling 'two hours later'.  John was off work of course (thinking we'd be having a baby that morning) and then thinking it could be in two hours for the whole day.  We all just sort of sat around and stared at each other.  By 6pm I was basically thinking our March 28th thing was out the window.  I called at 6 and they said, 'okay, be here by 7'. 

We rushed right in and got checked in and changed and my doctor came by.  Since I was positive for group b strep I was technically supposed to be on antibiotics for about 4 hours prior to delivery, she had looked up the notes from Charlie's delivery and noted that after she broke my water Charlie was born about an hour and a half later, so we were trying to decide if she should do that, or wait.  She said she'd just been at a convention where they were saying it's not necessary to slow down a fast labor for the courses of antibiotic, as the whole trouble with the group b strep applies more to really long labors, especially where the water is broken.  So we went ahead.  I actually didn't have the immediate reaction to my water being broken like I had with Charlie.  I felt some mild contractions, and that's it.  They started just a little pitocin and had the anesthesiologist on alert (I felt like I might rip open immediately after having my water broken with Charlie, woaaaahhhh baby it was bad.)  The nurse knew I wanted a delivery before midnight and she was on board and said she was going to make it happen, but not to tell other women that, haha, or everyone would start expecting miracles!  After that we just waited and waited.  We watched the last half of Pride and Prejudice and all of Princess Bride. I made slower, but steady progress than the last time, and we eeked toward midnight.  It started to feel nervous that after all this we wouldn't make it anyway... I mean we'd get over it, but it would've felt like such a near miss!  At 11:20 the nurse checked me and said I was clear to push, I was surprised because I was feeling a little pressure, but not too much.  Both of my previous deliveries, even with an epidural there was no question that it was time to push just from how I felt! The nurse went to call my doctor, but I didn't see how we could make it in time - I mean she had to still drive here, etc.  Fortunately, my Doctor was in the hospital!  She got to my room about 11:30, she got ready and about 11:40pm she and the nurse said, 'we can do this, let's get the baby here before midnight!'  I said, 'You guys, that's a lot of pressure on me!!'  We got in position and pushed three times through my first contraction and my doctor said, 'he's basically here, one more'.  We pushed three times through my second contraction and there he was!  11:49 PM.  Guys, I may suck at pregnancy, but evidently I rock at pushing.  I also evidently give my babies what my nurse referred to as 'csection head' meaning they don't cone.  :P 

Jude was supposed to come straight to me, but when he was born he had sort of a shock response and held his breath.  We all kept waiting for him to breath, but he didn't and was pretty purple, so I didn't get to hold him for a second as they passed him off to be checked out.  He finally breathed in and did perfectly fine from there, getting good apgar scores and everything.  I was sort of in disbelief.  It was sort of a weird out of body feeling.  First off John and I looked at him and said, 'he's small!'  We didn't expect that!  And I think part of me was expecting Charlie.2, and Jude looked very different!

Jude ended up being 7lbs 12 oz, and 20.5 inches long.  Now I realize that's normal for most, but it was small to us! 

I had to stay in the hospital about a day and a half, l am one who likes to high tail it as quickly as possible, but it was okay this time.  They had just lifted the ban on kids under 14, so Charlie was even able to come up and see us.  He had a very timid response, he seemed to be a little shocked himself that this mythical 'baby brother' he'd heard so much about was here, and what was mom doing in this place.  But he was really sweet with the baby and wanted to stick around.  Grandpa had to entice him out of there with 'egg hamburgers' (egg mcmuffins).  Jude was a super sleepy baby, so actually I could have got excellent sleep, but we ended up every few hours bugging him, trying to get him to wake up already and eat a little something cuz he didn't seem to bother himself.  We got okayed to leave later in the afternoon on the 30th and take Jude home!

So Here's the Deal...

(I wanted to show a picture of our bean, but my scanner isn't plugged in and that was all the resistance it took for me to throw the idea out.)

After what were nearly the longest 10 (and a half, haha) weeks of my life, I'm pleased to announce we are 15 weeks prego!  I don't think it will come as a big shock to anyone, seeing as Charlie is 3 in December and we were likely going to have more than one kid (at home).  We're due April 4th, and we will have an ultrasound on November 15 to (hopefully) find out if it's a boy or a girl. (Place your bets, I think it's a boy, Charlie and John say girl.)

I know it's not really politically correct and you're just supposed to suck it up and not say too many bad things out loud, just to close girl friends in confidence as it's a miracle and all, but because I'm a whiner, I will now elaborate on about the longest 10 weeks of my life.  Unfortunately I don't journal, so anything I do remember about anything in detail usually comes from my poorly kept blog, bad as that may be.  However I feel like I want to prelude this with two warnings...

*If you struggle with infertility, this may not be a blog post you want to read.  I am about to whine and vent about one of life's biggest blessings, one many women would do about anything for... I am not ignorant of that fact.  I am blessed to have the physical ability to create babies, it's not lost on me... however, be that as it may I'm still about to complain a lot and I feel like that may hurt some people, and if you're in that boat I'd urge you not to read on and do that to yourself!*

*This post may cross the line into the TMI category if you're at all squeamish about pregnancy (mostly puking and the like), then maybe this is also not the post for you... I don't feel like it's graphic, but sometimes people have a low tolerance for this sorta thing.*

I appear to be very very lucky in certain ways when it comes to having babies, that we've actually never 'tried' to have a baby.  Our first two were first day off birth control type pregnancies, so this time around we figured we should really 'decide' (very approximately of course) when we wanted the baby to get here, not just randomly stop birth control!  In other words, no more December babies (cuz seriously, that's a hard month to have your b-day as a kid, and the newborn through the Utah winter is a bit scarey) and I also thought it would be ideal to not be prego during hot summer months, etc.  So we essentially talked all the ins and outs and decided to go for the, 'as ideal as being prego can be', timing and see what happened.  We were hoping for an April/May arrival, thus being really prego through cold months and the baby arriving as the warm weather came on...  Well our 'first day off birth control' approach was true to form!  I am a completely consistent 28 day (almost to a specific hour) "cycler" so I have always 'known' I was pregnant like later that day of my missed period.  We checked the dates online, and it was April 4th.  (Dr. later confirmed w/ ultrasound measuring, etc, but we didn't need it really.)  Now the last two times I was pregnant, I knew I was and it was exciting and I didn't start feeling any symptoms till late week 6, early week 7.  With this pregnancy I was slightly shy of 5 weeks pregnant when I began to feel it.  I was shocked and very scared about this omen, because my previous two pregnancies have involved soooo much nausea, tiredness and puking, that it had already given me a pit in my stomach to even consider getting pregnant again with that experience still to vivid in my mind.  But I kept hearing that 'each pregnancy is different' so I thought that there was maybe, just maybe, some hope that this time I wouldn't feel so awful!  Well each pregnancy might be different, but this one has most DEFINITELY been even WORSE!  I guess I didn't account for that possibility - or didn't think there was much worse it could get!  WRONG!

So immediately (4 1/2 weeks in) I felt drained, and all time like I was walking through water or wearing a weight vest to do anything... held down, winded.  And I started to get that queasy feeling at the sight and smell of food - no food sounded very good.  A week, week and a half after that I was in full blown 'this could be the serious, worst flu' mode.  I felt like I was going to pass out when I so much as lifted myself out of bed... From the moment I woke up my body felt the way it normally feels if I'm terribly ill, or like when you've had a really long day and are finally falling in to bed in the wee hours.  Like there's nothing left inside you to move you places.  Food was a nightmare, I had to eat it and didn't want to, made me sick to look at food, definitely couldn't grocery shop, but if I avoided it like I wanted to I paid the price.  Anything I ate once, even if I felt okay going down the first time, suddenly got added to the list of things that made me sick to simply think about for the future... saltines, ginger-ale, cereal, ice cream, etc all made the list.  The biggest problem was that water, or even just waterish items (gatorade, juice, soda) were my new worst enemy.  Especially water, but even a lot of times juice or whatever would make me puke almost instantly - I figured I was puking in the neighborhood of 10-12 times a day during my worst weeks.  Which led to dehydration, which led to me having about a full two day period where I couldn't think of any food or drinks I'd actually kept down.  Nothing in the tank, literally nothing.  I was thinking that was a bad thing for the both of us so I finally called the nurse - I hate taking meds when I'm prego, even if they 'say' they're safe, I feel so guilty.  She told me to get on the 1/2 tablet of unisom and 25 mg of B6 right away.  She also felt hesitant and worried that I needed to get in to the hospital for some IV therapy because of dehydration.  I was supposed to call if I didn't keep anything down in the following 24 hours.  But fortunately that drug cocktail actually kept me from puking, well at least 90% less puking.  The downside was that I still felt just as nauseous and I just felt even more tired.  In addition to the body fatigue my brain was in a fog. I kept on in this way for awhile until I had my meeting with the nurse... I was doing pretty good at that time, felt like crap, but small amounts of food got down, but she was still concerned about the drinking issues.  I told her I'd call if it didn't improve.  The next week it got worse again (mooooorrrreeeee puking, fun fun) for no apparent reason so when I met with my Dr (week 10) by this time even though there were some improvements I'd lost like 12 pounds, still struggled with liquids and she decided I should change to the Zofran.  This helped the most. I actually felt the brain fog lift and felt actually hungry on occasions (though I still didn't think anything in particular sounded good)... a lot of the nausea was gone which felt like heaven, meaning I didn't feel nauseous every SINGLE moment just now and again throughout the day which felt like a win to me at that point.

Feeling dead sick and tired every second of every day for like 5 straight weeks (5-10) takes a toll on your sanity.  I was talking with John around week 9 and I said trying to pump myself up, 'best case scenario I might start feeling better in like 4 weeks' and then I just BURST INTO TEARS and said, "I can't, I can't do it!"  Clearly there weren't other options, but I did ask if it was possible for them to put me into a medically induced coma and wake me up when it was over.

The few weeks after the Zofran I at least saw strides toward sanity, the insane amounts of fatigue were gone, and I didn't feel as exhausted constantly.  I didn't feel sick every second, but just randomly - again usually if I've waited too long to eat, or I catch a wiff of something bad, or someone mentions that one common kind of meat that comes from farm birds (Shhhh).  I didn't wanna eat things, but some things at least didn't gross me out and make me sick just to think about.  I still have trouble with water.... which of course is ALL I want to drink... all the sugary additives are so sick and all I want is nice clear cool water... but unless I'm feeling amazing AND have a full stomach it's a sure way to puke to drink water.  Which has been making it still hard to get to the gym...  The other week I wanted to go and did and felt okay (still feels like I'm wearing around 50 extra pounds at the gym, so that's hard), but anyway, after I was thirsty, I desperately craved and drank some water, it started turning my stomach, by the time I got home I was running for the toilet.

Also, really really really bad constipation (I know, TMI) but I suppose that's what you get for being kinda dehydrated.

Most currently the weirdest thing is EVERYTHING seems to go rotten in my mouth (it's disgusting and doesn't help nausea) but most commonly and strongly sugary stuff and dairy, that happens in about 60 seconds after eating something sugary (and I don't just mean processed sugars... apples, oranges, grapes do it just as bad.)  I am walking around with permanent halitosis and it's gross.

THE GOOD PARTS (I really have tried to keep these in mind, but with limited sanity it's just really hard...whether that's awful or not.):

• Where it's easing up a bit I'm hoping that I'm on schedule for feeling a lot better at 20 weeks which is what happened with the first two, and not being one of those crazy unlucky few who puke the ENTIRE pregnancy.
• The baby is on track and seems healthy!
• They did a Nucal Trans ultrasound like we did with Charlie measuring the babies 'neck fluid' and it was again small (they have found babies with chromosome problems tend to have more fluid back there then chromosomal-y average babies), which is excellent.
• They also did first trimester blood work screening for T18, T21, Spina Biffida, etc and I got extremely low risk factors for all those.
• Evidently babies are extremely parasitic creatures, so they can thrive in hostile environments like mine.
• And best of all, we will hopefully be adding another (and let's face it, I'm thinking final) little one to our family in early April! :)

A Day at the Zoo

A little update.  Then I wanna post some NYC trip info and pics... but basically anymore I just keep my 'charlie' updates on here, haha:

Charlie is now 2 years and 4 months old.  When we last went to the Dr. just after his 2nd birthday he was 30 lbs(75%) and 3 feet .5 inches (85%).  He's getting so challenging and so rewarding.  He gives hugs & kisses one minute, then hits ya the next!  One minute he's singing in the car, then next he's throwing a tantrum because his toy isn't behaving like he wants.  I think they're so DARN cute at 2 for a reason.  So they live! :)  He LOVES pancakes, "cake-cakes", and he thinks they magically appear from the box and is always looking in the pancake mix box for some "cake cakes".  Also digs popcorn, "cot-carn" and has been known to have it used as incentives to quit throwing some tantrum or another.  He knows all his animals, colors, numbers and how to count, and all his letters.  We weren't really 'trying' to teach him these things, he just had some toys and bedtime books that taught him and one day we realized he knew all his numbers and colors and a bunch of letters - then all the letters.  If he'll cooperate it's a fun party trick.  Just the last month has brought a whole new level of talking.  It's not a few words we recognize with jibberish in between it's 3-4 word sentences with jibberish in between.  He loves to sing songs, we broke down and put one of those SUPER annoying kiddie tunes cd's in the car because he thinks they rock. He loves to be outside, we just bought a jungle gym because I knew I wouldn't survive the summer without one.  He gets too cooped up and loves slides and swings, etc.  He still likes his Yo Gabba Gabba toys, but doesn't ask for the show very often.  I brought him home a woody and bullseye from NYC and he loves them to bits. He loves Madagascar now, and is back on a real Toy Story kick.  He loves to ride in his power wheel, but won't use the steering wheel, haha, he just drives it straight and mom and dad run after him.  He loves to see pictures and videos of himself, it's a good way to keep him entertained some days!  He loves to play on the dirt hills next door to us, they're like his everest.  And he likes to throw rocks in the gutter.  He is so cute! :)


John and I have been doing house projects.  It's always something, lately it's been a slate patio, and now it's going to be assembling a big jungle gym. 

John's been riding his bike a lot and loves that.  I started going to a gym called Crossfit.  If you know anything about it, it's basically a little boot camp style, they do high intensity for short periods of time, and give you specific work outs to complete each day.  For example, yesterday we did burpees (lay down flat on your stomach on the ground, then stand up and jump/clap, then repeat) and kettlebell swings, alternating between the two in sets of 2-4-6-8- etc as many as you can for 12 mins.  Today we did sets of jump roping and sumo dead lifts, and it was written out and you see how fast you can possibly finish.  Typically you are literally speechless and dying at the end.  But it feels good in a weird way.  :)

We went to Willow Park the other day, and Charlie seriously loved it.  I've already decided we have to do Hoggle Zoo this summer... because Charlie just loves the animals, and totally ran from exhibit to exhibit just at little a little zoo.  Can't imagine how stoked he'd be to see the big ones!

A Day in our Life

So I very, very often get the comment: "You must have the best pictures of your kid." I always have a little twinge of guilt when people say this, because in THEORY I have a great skill set for getting nice pictures of my kid all the time.... buuuuuttttt.... more often than not I'm there like every other mom snapping a pic with my camera phone.
There's many reasons/excuses for this just a few I feel compelled to use now... 1) My camera can not break in an accident, therefore it is diligently stored away from rambunctious toddlers... I work with my camera and I have bookings coming up, and yes, I have a back up camera for my weddings etc... but the whole point of a backup camera is to have a WORKING backup camera AT the event should something happen to the first. So I need both, in working order, at my weddings. SO, it's stored away, and out of site, out of mind!! When it's packed away it just doesn't come out like it should. 2) Just like every other mother of a small child, there seems to never be enough hands to wrangle kids and carry their 'gear' haha... if I don't have backup (dad), the last thing I think about is getting another fragile, fairly large and pretty heavy piece of equipment out to go somewhere.

So pretty much like every parent anywhere, my camera seems to come out in obvious situations, special occasions, pre-planned family portraits, etc. Otherwise, it's the good ole camera phone for us! haha. Every now and again I get a pang of guilt and dress charlie up and take him outside to shoot a few. He's usually non-compliant and running around like a crazy, just like every toddler ever (photo moms should get model children, don't you think? ones with endless patience and natural camera ease... nay not so) and so it doesn't always end well.

So these 'Day in the Life' shoots I have seen all over, and I decided one day that I needed to do it. Just 'everyday art'... not stuffing charlie into over the top outfits and heading off to fun locations with perfect hair and a freshly wiped nose. Just us, doing random, natural (read boring), daily activities that really will be so fun to remember when Charlie is all grown and we don't have a morning cereal routine. So I did a bit of it one day and here is the finished project... and I need to remember to do this again...

(natural means no photoshop for momma... arg, I look so old!)

My Bitty Baby is 2!?!

I have Christmas Pics. But Let's start here. I just wrote my little 'birthday tribute' to Charlie that I hope to keep up at least once a year as my kids grow, so I thought I'd post it, and I also figure, may as well post the party pics too..... so, GO!

• Talk about a recent growth spurt! All his pants just turned into floods overnight!
• Such a sweet boy, if you say 'soft' or 'gentle' with a baby or animal he very gently pats their head. If he knows he's done something naughty he runs right up to smooth it over with a hug and a kiss (a little manipulative I think!).
• He LOVES to draw and color and could sit for 30 minutes straight doodling on paper. He also wants mom and dad to draw with him, and he always wants them to draw, Muno, Foofa, Brobee, Toodee and Plex.
• He still loves Yo Gabba Gabba, especially all his toys, he always wants all his toys with him at the same time. He got little bath squirts for Christmas that are the heads of the 'Gabba Gang', and it's not good enough to have just one or two, he has to haul around all five Characters and always knows if someone is missing and freaks out!
• Charlie talks so much and so much of it you can understand. If you say, 'say ---' he can repeat back to you most simple words.
• He always goes to sleep with his blanket and a couple stuffed animals, mostly his Brobee and Muno beanies. He is an amazing sleeper, he doesn't even try to get out of his crib actually, he just lays on his back and plays with his 'babies' till he's tired and falls asleep. Both nap and nighttime are so easy for mom and dad. Recently he's tried to sneak a few more toys into his crib for naptime by throwing them up over the bars on his way into the room when he knows we're going in to go to sleep, and it cracks us up.
• He very recently got into cartoons and movies. First it was Toy Story (which he still loves), then he really got into Tangled (he loved to sing along with the ruffians at the bar, 'dreeeammm, dreeeaaaammm'). His big favorite for the last month was Rio. He would ask for Rio almost first thing in the morning and he knew the songs and would sing out 'Riiiiiii-oh' during the movie, and then lots of times just for fun in the grocery store or restaurants. Recently he's included Kung Fu Panda which he got for Christmas into his favorites - he asks for 'Po'.
• Charlie loves to laugh, when other people are laughing (in real life or on TV) he just likes to join in with this real loud, joyful, but totally fake laugh.
• Everything is 'woah' when he gets it. New toys, food, etc. It makes mommy feel good when she puts his food in front of him, because he seems so impressed.
• Lately Charlie got into fettuccine alfredo, but he's hit and miss with all food. A pretty constant 'like' though is fruit. In the last two-three days he's probably eaten 200 blueberries.

We had an 'Art' themed birthday party for Charlie as he's so into it right now. We had the kids paint canvases, and even had a multimedia art project across our walls (I let that happen because I have a bunch of dings in that wall that have to be painted anyway, haha.

Even our treats and snacks were art. Fruit and veggies and dips and cheese and crackers in every color of the rainbow. I didn't take a picture of the cupcakes, but I had these little crayola crayon picks, and I decorated it to look like a scribble from the crayon. Got the idea on Pinterest and it was really cute, but I'm not really the greatest at like piping and decorating.

Charlie absolutely loved all the birthday presents he received. He screamed and yelled and said 'Wow!!!' Then he would dance around and laugh and run back to the present.

We did jelly bean art as a party favor. The kids could take a little jar and fill it with the rainbow of colored jelly beans how they wanted.

Many thanks to everyone who came. It was so fun for us parents to watch Charlie (and really at this age, let's face it, that's what it's mostly about!). At the end, like any year, we were thoroughly tired and just wanted to sit and put our feet up, and we did!

Yo Gabba Gaaaabbbbbbaaaaaa!

First off, yes, these pics are awful. I didn't think they'd let me take in my nice camera, as to be fair it does have very nice HD video, maybe I'd just record the whole thing and distribute, haha. Other than that all we have is cameras who do AWFUL in low light. But after I kinda felt bad, because other people had SLRs in there, so maybe I could've got away with it.

So the story is we ended up winning some tickets to a live stage show event of one of Charlie's fav shows, 'Yo Gabba Gabba' from a radio station through the magic of facebook. I felt a little bad because I found out about the contest through another facebook friend who would also have loved to go. We did end up winning. (I was begging, borrowing and stealing for votes.) This is just a show that actually interests Charlie. He's not big time into TV yet, but this is his speed. 5 of the about 30 words he knows how to say right now are, Muno, Fuffa, Brobee, Toodee, and Plex. So yeah, he's a fan. I really wanted him to see it, but there really wasn't money in the budget for it - some of the cheaper seats are $30 per ticket, and yes, a not quite two year old has to have a ticket. So we decided weren't going to go if we didn't win, but we did. I was like jumping up and down when we won.

Charlie, who has an attention span of 2 minutes for anything besides coloring (even watching the show on netflix, he has to run around and play while he watches), sat completely and totally still for the entire hour and a half of this show. It was unreal.


The bad part - they sold all this merch, of course. And Charlie saw some beanie babies with the other kids, and he was instantly obsessed. He just kept staring and screaming 'muno', 'brobee'.... Sooooo... like the sucker parents we are, we got a few. They were stupid expensive, but it was totally worth it. Check out this video of how much he loved these things... that makes the price worth it! (We were just glad we hadn't had to buy tickets AND the dolls.)

In the not quite 24 hours we've had these things, Charlie has probably put them down twice. And that wasn't for a long time. While walking to the car after I tried to take them so he wouldn't drop and lose them, but there was absolutely NO question of that.

Thanks friends and anyone who voted to get us these tickets. We had so much fun!

A Post that is Mostly About Halloween...oh and HI, I'm back!

This is me diving back in to blogging after 6+ months, ha. I've decided that it's a good plan not to try to catch up all at once, and I may never really catch up, but I may pepper stuff back in as I have the time and energy. I'd like to jot down a few things before I forget, but we'll see! I really got inspired to try and keep up some tidbits here, as I went back and tried to put together a scrap/photobook of our 2010. This blog helped me so much! You never know if anyone cares or is reading your blog, so sometimes I was just like, 'eh, whatever no one cares.' But after how nice this blog was to help put together a picture book of our year, I truly realized, the person I'm blogging for is mostly me!

The lead up to Halloween I wanted to do all this stuff, but I've actually been pretty busy with a lot of weddings with the photography thing. Which is great, but we didn't get a lot I wanted to in. But we did go over to the pumpkin walk which is like tradition. Charlie is a bit young yet for this, but he did like a few things. The amount of open grass to run in, the kids all around, running away from mom and dad. He didn't get the 'scenes' except one: Tangled. He was absolutely memorized by the Tangled scene.


And we had a melt down and had to leave over the little, I don't know what they're called you put your head through a hole and you're in a scene or whatever, that was of Toy Story. He absolutely was taken with it, but he didn't want any kids to put their faces in! It really upset him, he just wanted to stand at the front and stare at it and touch it. So we had to leave, cuz he kept trying to keep other little kids out of it, which isn't great.


SO here's the thing about Halloween for us... I'm ambivalent about dressing up and all that, I like a good party, but that's it... John won't dress up at all really. He likes eating candy, if that counts for being involved in Halloween. Charlie being little and not knowing if he cares about it or not, basically gets involved to the level we care to, so the last two years we've just kinda had a fun time coming up with random ideas to dress him up as. Year one, he was 10 mths old and had funny patchy hair. We thought he looked like he had a 'comb-over'. That hair started these ideas of an old man costume, which sorta refined into him being 'Benjamin Buttons'... Thus a baby-old man. Haha. This year we knew what Charlie was going to be for a very long time because we've been calling him "Charticus" for ages. I don't know how the nickname started honestly. But probably 6 months ago one of us threw out the idea that he should be like a Spartan warrior/one of the 300 for Halloween - named Charticus of course.

So we printed off some pictures from the internet of like Gerard Butler in "300" and then just pieced together how we'd make a costume. The nice thing was, we NEVER thought he'd be able to actually go outside in his costume. In October it's usually just way too cold to wear most costumes without a coat, let along basically underwear and a cape. But randomly Halloween turned out to be 60+ degrees. Still a little chilly for extended wear of this particular costume, but he ran outside and we took some pictures, and we spent 5-10 minutes at the neighborhood trunk-or-treat. Then we just went to my moms to 'trick or treat' and hung out till bedtime at her house. We were real party animals this year!

This is John and Charlie eating their Halloween hot dogs at the trunk or treat. And John trying to coax Charlie to look at mom and smile.

All in all it was fun, albeit laid back!