The Cowboy

Rush spent most of the past few days in his cowboy costume, first at his school Halloween party...

...then adapted for my parents' beach themed Halloween party by adding his bathing suit and a sheriff's badge made out of a starfish...

...and finally for trick-or-treating!

Our trick-or-treating goal was to hit our immediate neighbors' houses, but we ended up walking all the way down the street, not stopping at every house, but stopping enough that Rush caught on to what was happening. He was a little shy, but also very into the candy.

We're all pretty tired after a full weekend spent with Trent's family, my parents' Halloween party on Saturday night, and Halloween today. Our porch light has been off for awhile, but instead of going to bed Trent and I are staying up to finish watching Van Helsing on tv, which despite terrible special effects is at least Halloween related.

I call Halloween 2010 a success.

We're Still Alive

First of all, a warm welcome to our new computer. It just arrived yesterday, reconnecting me to the useful things like marthastewart.com (ahh, holiday decorations and cookies in snazzy packaging) and facebook, which I haven't missed enough to visit yet. I was planning on posting pictures from Rush's first ever school Halloween party, but I'll be uncool and admit it - I can't find our photos on this computer. We've just been reloading some old version of Windows over and over through the years and finally decided to actually buy the new version, but I haven't spent any time looking at Windows 7 yet and it's apparently a little different then Windows 97 or whatever we had before. I need to spend the rest of Rush's nap time finalizing Halloween costumes for all of us, so it looks like I'll save getting to know the laptop for this weekend.

So I haven't abandoned the blog; just taking a little break called "It crashed again? Apparently laptops don't last forever."

Costumes

Rush was originally going to be a kangaroo for Halloween, until I tried to get him to try on the costume I bought last year and he totally refused. He refused all animal related costumes at Target also, possibly on principle. At that point I decided that a cowboy is a great Halloween costume for a 19 month old, because with his strong will and changing opinions a costume that primarily consists of regular clothes is a costume that might actually wear.


For a few days he was going to be Woody from toy story and I had plans to make a cow print vest with a pull sting on the back. Luckily, my college roommate Katy threw a costume party for her three year old's birthday, so we were able to test out the general cowboy costume in advance. The cowboy hat and bandana came off within one minute of arriving at their house, and because there was a moonwalk, so did his shoes. Cowboy boots were totally out of the question from the beginning, but at this point we've ditched the Woody idea as well. He looks great in his good old-fashioned cowboy clothes and at least looks like a cowboy for the 8 seconds that he keeps his hat on his head.

By the way, it was a great birthday party: a moonwalk, bobbing for apples, face painting, a pinata and a fabulous, professional looking cake that Katy made. I also had a chance to eat a childhood favorite that I haven't had in years, a chili bun, which is when you cover a hotdog bun in chili and eat it with a fork. Who wants the actual hot dog part of a chili dog?

In other totally unrelated news, I FINALLY finished the quilt I started way back in 2007. It's 100% done and I've been wrapping it around my head every night when I crash on the couch. Trent calls it a true patchwork because it was mostly scraps that I just started randomly sewing together. I measured it the same way I always measure a quilt, by laying down on the floor and making sure it will cover both my shoulders and feet. I'm not sure how big it is, but I'm hoping it will fit a twin bed. Really though, I'm just happy it's finished.

We're Ready

We went to Target the other day to get everything we need for the new baby's arrival:

And that's it. Ready. Oh, except for picking out names...we're into the third trimester so it's probably time to start getting serious about that...

Cookies for Friend

My BFF Kate's baby is due very, very soon, so I'm anxiously awaiting the phone call about her new arrival. Her daughters were both born in Los Angeles and my irrational fear of California earthquakes kept me from ever visiting, so I've never actually seen one of her children as a little baby. I'm really looking forward to meeting the newest member of their family. They're adding a boy to their current line-up of two little girls, which I know from experience is a winning combination.


Because Kate is always working on something special and handmade for someone, I wanted to make something special for her girls and new baby. For the girls, I adapted my Raggedy Ann pattern to make little witch dolls, which was a really fun project (excluding the hair, which I always forget is super tedious). It's hard to tell from the picture, but their skin is green. There was pressure to finish them and get them in the mail in early October so they didn't seem like they were made on some sort of craft clearance if they didn't receive them until Thanksgiving. It was probably a good idea because it got the gifts in the mail pre-baby.

For the new baby I made the snuggle wrap blanket from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones, so lovingly modeled by Pluto. On most blogs when people show off their crafts, they set them up in good lighting in a nice area. Looking at the picture I took, I probably should have at least made my bed first.

I loved that blanket so much that I made one for our baby too.

Speaking of our new baby, he or she is a kicker. Trent and I sat down to watch last night's Mad Men episode and the baby was bouncing around for the entire hour. Between Rush's love of the outdoors and this baby's apparent energy level, I think we'll be spending a lot of time outside running around over the next few years.

Movin' On Up

Rush moved out of the nursery and into his new bedroom last week. He really likes the room during the day, not as much at night or nap time. We're still working on a new routine, but we'll get there.

It was actually really fun putting together Rush's new room. Miraculously we had a lot of things around the house that we were able to spiff up and repurpose. We repainted the dresser with leftover paint from our front door and the curtains were made from cutting apart an old curtain from our old apartment and adding some new fabric.

My favorite part of the room is this little nook. Rush totally understands it and will lounge on the pillows and hand me book after book after book after book to read. I also finally found a way to incorporate my favorite passage from Charlotte's Web by painting it on a canvas. Well, painting it and writing it in Sharpie.

My other favorite part of his room is his name banner hanging over his bed. I've said it a million times, but I love starting projects that are easy to finish quickly. I mainly followed the directions I found on this site.

The one detail that I keep forgetting about is that we haven't cleaned out the closet yet...agh. I have to clean out the closet in our room first to find a place to put some of the stuff, which I know includes, among who knows what, a karaoke machine, a file cabinet and a zillion papers that need to be filed, miscellaneous pictures that we don't know where to hang and therefore have been floating from closet to closet, and a mattress - an entire twin size mattress shoved into a closet. The thought of cleaning out three closets- because I need to clean out the nursery closet as well to figure out what is baby stuff and what is Rush's stuff- is just making me tired. For now, I'll just go get a nice cold drink...maybe that will motivate me to start that later...?

What's Happening - Lately

How about what's happening right this minute: Trent's at Home Depot, I just finished eating a bowl of cold spaghetti, and Rush is sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of ice water. It was cool this morning so we opened all the windows, but now it's just hot inside. We'll be venturing outside soon, if I could only get dressed. Sometimes it's better to have something to do on Saturday morning to motivate you out of your pajamas.

But lately we've been enjoying fall, putting out our decorations, going to the park every day, feeding all the neighborhood cats on our back porch, and enjoying a visit from Aunt Casey and a short visit with Moom and Jimmers. I finished a lot of my fall crafts, because miraculously I started early this year. The Happy Halloween sign above was made from a book of black and white wall paper samples that I got for free at Lowes. I like how the addition of a few Halloween decorations makes the Eiffel Tower look really creepy.

We worked a shift at the pumpkin patch at Rush's school. We'll be going back again to pick out our outside and pumpkin carving pumpkins, and of course take some pictures of Rush. That's not a cell phone, by the way. It's a calculator.

I'm also happy to have our computer back after another week with a broken laptop. It appears that we'll be in the market for a new laptop soon. Computers are the worst deal; they're expensive, but they don't last very long. Technology has of course evolved in the past five years, but not to the point that a new laptop is going to be very different than this one. What do we really use? The internet, a photo program, music program, Microsoft Office...and of course there's always Paint. Not that we use it, but it's always there, just in case.

Ten Points to Gryffindor

Around the release of the fifth Harry Potter book there was a website where you could go to the sorting hat, take a quiz, and be sorted into a house. My charming, yet evil, sister Casey was of course sorted into Slytherin. I recently finished knitting a Slytherin scarf for her as a little Halloween present, to get ready for the release of the next movie, and so she'll be ready for quidditch season.
The dilemma in getting a picture of the scarf was who would model it. Trent and I are both Gryffindors, so it's not like we were going to wear it. Rush hasn't been sorted yet, so we thought he wouldn't mind trying it on for a few photos.

We were wrong. Really, what did we expect? He was born into a family of Gryffindors. If he thinks preschool is fun, just wait until he finds out about Hogwarts.

I sent the scarf by owl post and Casey received it today. We're doing our part to promote house unity.

Notice how Bolivar and Jetty preside over all things even remotely Halloween related? October is certainly here.