Last Week of October

I love October. I think it is my favorite month. Fall is definitely my favorite season, unfortunately, the state I live in does not understand it's role in the seasons. In Utah the weather is what I would consider "Fall-Like" for maybe two weeks. Three if we are lucky that year. Anyway, with colder weather comes sickness and we caught it. The girls are recovering from the Croup and spent the last week and a half acting, sounding and looking quite pathetic. It was heart wrenching in this house morning, noon and night...especially night, as Croup worsens at night.  Because her voice was so hoarse, Eden's cry didn't sound real at all and was difficult to hear if I was in another room. So when she was sleeping I was not because I was afraid I wouldn't hear her when she did wake up. Eden would whimper, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" as if there were something I could do for her but I felt so helpless. I just kept reminding myself how comforting my mother's touch was, and still is, to me when I do not feel good and hoped that she would feel some of that same comfort from my holding her. Thank heaven for medicine, because it starting working pretty quickly. Hope actually got sick first, and had a few scary moments, but wasn't quite as pathetic as Eden. I am sure her age is mostly to thank for that.

Here is a look at one of the low points this last week.

Daddy's touch is just as nice as mommy's. One night he even got her to sleep when I could not. My kids are quite lucky to have such a great daddy.

Surprisingly, there were moments that I found to make the trick-or-treat bags that I've been thinking about making the kids. I have to take a moment and do something I never do; brag on myself. I have spent such a long time being intimidated by sewing (damn you 7th grade TLC) that I am just now gathering the courage to give sewing projects a chance. This is my third project and I have to say that I am quite proud of myself for accomplishing this project with a final result that is better than what I was hoping for! I didn't have a pattern to work from, so I took some suggested measurements from people online and went to work. It was a lot of fun and made me feel pretty good about myself. Granted, it is a simple bag, but right now I need all the recognition I can give myself.

Eden's is the bag in the first pic. Being that I went a week and a half before Halloween, the fabric store had little to choose from in the way of Halloween prints. The fabric for her bag was my least favorite while I was in the store, but once I finished them all it is now my favorite. I got glow-in-the-dark fabric paint and embellished the print here and there on each bag and hers was the best fabric to do that.

I knew I wanted the bags to be "lined" too, so it took me a while to figure out how to place everything to sew it correctly, but it was pretty easy once I got it figured out. I used transparent ribbon for the handles, which is my only regret. When I started sewing the handles in, I realized that they probably wouldn't last long and might fray rather quickly. Hopefully by then I will be more skilled with sewing and can fix the bags with a different type of handle. We'll cross that bridge when it breaks. Noah's bag is the spider web pattern. I really liked this fabric and was disappointed with my glow-in-the-dark spiders that I drew, but I felt like it needed a safety mechanism, thus the spiders. Hope's bag is the pumpkins. I embellished the faces of a few pumpkins. The kids really liked their bags and thought it was awesome that they glow-in-the-dark. Eden really didn't give a darn, but hopefully she'll think it is pretty cool next year.

On Saturday we stopped by a local pumpkin patch and the kids picked out pumpkins. Hope just wanted to kick them and toss the little ones around. I don't know where that behavior came from, but luckily she didn't break any of them. At one point I found Eden hugging a green pumpkin but of course missed that moment with the camera. When I asked her to hug it again she hugged Noah instead. I got a picture of that which is cute too. Check out the bottom right picture. Click on the collage to make it bigger...MOM. :)

Noah took a break on a hay bale and Eden must have thought this looked like a good idea. She sat next to him and grinned really big like she was doing something cool. It must have been because Hope soon followed.

We saved carving the pumpkins for Sunday evening. I took no part, except documenting the event. Pumpkin insides are one of the most disgusting things....EVER. But it's one of those things that it is so disturbing that you can't help but keep looking at it. So I took a picture. :) Noah actually carved his own this year. I told him he could use a butter knife and he did surprisingly well considering how dull it was. Next year I will have to get one of those pumpkin carving kits so he can use better tools. Now that I think of it, I think I said the same thing last year. Oh well. One of these years it will happen.

Hope thought the insides of the pumpkins were gross too and would have nothing to do with cleaning them. She enjoyed watching dad and Noah though. She requested one with a silly face and a cute little nose and daddy obliged. 

While the big kids made messes with pumpkins, Eden made a mess with yogurt.

She likes to put it in her hair. At one point she was slathering it on her arms like it was lotion. Silly monkey.
She also found Noah's gameboy entertaining. Although she used it as a telephone instead of a game. Noah thought that was pretty funny.

Here are the finished jack-o-lantern's.

Mickey Mouse even made an appearance.

Noah is spending Halloween with his dad this year but in just a few hours the girls and I will go trick-or-treating at dad's office.
Hope woke up a little earlier than usual this morning. She came into my room with a proud smile on her face hands on her hips and said to me, "It's Halloween! Can we go trick-or-treating now?" She has continued to ask me if it is trick-or-treat time every 20 minutes since we woke up.
Stay tuned for a post about the much anticipated trick-or-treating!!!