Saturday is a special day, it's the day we get ready for Sunday!

So Steve was very determined to reorganize all our stuff in preparation for family visits coming up...as well as a new family member making her appearance.  I decided I would support him.  Steve is the king when it comes to being motivated to organize.  He's much more OCD about it than I am...whereas I'm more into making sure things are actually clean for the most part.  To Steve, cleaning means organizing...and to me, cleaning means cleaning - organizing means organizing.  We figure out how to communicate somehow though. :)  
We went through all our under-the-stairs stuff as well as the "spare oom" - which is our current extra bedroom (title affectionately taken from Narnia).  We did some actual cleaning (with some persuading from me) as well.  Ross gets really enthusiastic about helping - which I absolutely love.  He helped with a lot of the chores...and helped us go back over some of them after he had tried his hand at them too. :)

Ross loves using the broom...especially to sweep the carpet - which is obviously is exactly what we use the broom for!

Maybe I should have vacuumed AFTER he swept the carpet?  Ross sure has some muscle power going on in his arms.

He is a serious carpet sweeper...with killer legs - just look at them!

Can't forget to sweep the upstairs carpet - very important.

He's very dedicated.

Helping dad "reorganize" some movies.  We had to get him dressed - we don't want all the ladies swooning over his muscular arms and killer legs all the time!

I LOVE this face!

Deciding where to put the movie...hmmmm.

  Ross now loves to try any and every word we give him...it may come out as a bunch of slobber and mumbles at times, but it's VERY entertaining and totally adorable.  He has definitely mastered the word "muscles" with a cute little lisp on the s's.   Steve has taught him to flex when he says it too...such boys.  "Bulldozer" is also a fun one to say - more like "bullbossa". Ross prefers to walk everywhere possible and insist on helping with everything we're doing - especially if we're not paying attention to him right that minute - even though he was quite content playing with his toys a second ago without any of your help.  He's learning all of his aunts and uncles names as well.  He's SUCH a little boy - and too much fun!

And P.S.  Thanks to my friend Kristin, I finally found some rainboots for Ross - and not for an arm and a leg either!  Just an arm because they were 50% off. ;)  Fred Meyer was definitely my friend yesterday! :)

Crashing Hallowen Parties...and Winning

So here in Forest Grove in our ward we are the thorn among roses or the rose among thorns - however you'd like to see it.  Our ward is half native Forest Groveians and half optometry students.  I'm not sure what the trend is with LDS people doing optometry school here but it hasn't been broken yet.  We, however, are the only physical therapy students in the entire ward...probably even the stake.  We usually get shuffled into the optometry student category by all the natives - which is fine.  It's true - we are in the "student" department so it's no big deal.  Anyway - seeing how we're not official optometry students - there are a lot of events and activities that they have in their program/department which we obviously don't attend.  Also fine - because we're Physical Therapy students.  We do get invited to some of these events anyway seeing how we're the lone PT students and having one more isn't really a big deal.  They have a fun Halloween party every year where it's mostly just the LDS optometry students who go - most who are all our friends.  We decided to crash it so we could utilize our Halloween costumes for more than just one night.  So we were half invited really. Super fun.
Steve came up with the idea of doing the Super Mario Brothers theme - brilliant.  I could just picture Ross in his ADORABLE overalls, sweet green hat, and a little mustache to boot.  I was totally sold on the idea.  Plus it sounded pretty easy to put together - especially since I knew I was going to be the one in charge of getting the costumes sorted.  Steve is not accountable for having to do or remember things that are beyond absolutely necessary with how his school load is - understandable - but he can't complain about what I come up with.  Ross was pretty much taken care of since we already had a green shirt and overalls for him.  I went thrifting regularly looking for some white gloves and overalls for Steve.  When I searched online for them to buy - the cheapest pair were $30...not something I was willing to do for a Halloween costume at this point in our poor lives.  Unfortunately we don't live in the 80's or even 90's anymore when overalls were totally in a cool...I had a pair at least until I was 20 - yes I did admit that.  I finally found a pair that were just a tad off Steve's size, but figured he could deal with it or I could fix it if we needed to.  $4 total...have I mentioned I love a good thrift?  I found Steve his red shirt for $2 and then bought some fleece material for his and Ross's hats.  They were ridiculously easy to make - which helps with my lazy sewing tendencies.  They also turned out amazing - which also helps in my confidence with sewing. :)  We found some gloves and Steve and Ross were sorted.  Now I just had to sort out my being Princess Peach.  I got a few "jewels" from the craft store, wore a pink dress I had, stuffed my shoulders with socks to "princess it up" and crafted the crown myself.  I was quite proud! 

Some pre-party modeling.

Tough Mario Brothers

Ross kept trying to rub off Steve's mustache.

Luigi after having defeated Bowser and saving Princess Peach!  She's so happy!  It's just all in a day's work for Luigi. ;)

The clan.

Back to the story.
We go to the party which was totally fun.  I love it because everyone gets clever with dressing up and doing themes.  We had some dinner, chatted, and the kids got to play games.  I couldn't resist taking pictures of everyone's costumes - they were too great. 

Mandy and Jenn - our Smee and Captain Hook!  Our couple winners.

Cameron, Kim, and Wes - our building, fire, and trusty fireman on his ride. :)

We needed a little color from Bethany and Sean. :)

Baby Peach didn't want to make an appearance yet so we just stuck with the three of us. :)

Luigi is so over the pictures.  Mario is just his wing man.

Kendra, Karl, and Paige - Ursula, Prince Eric, and Ariel - the Little Mermaid.  Kendra crocheted the fin and starfish bra herself - AMAZING!  Paige won for best little girl's costume.

Hayley, Jason, and Brooklyn - our Bee, Spider, and cute Ladybug!

Steve, Rebecca, and Jack - a baker, his assistant, and an oven cookin' a bun. ;)

Jared, Claire, and Carter - Cat in the Hat with Thing 1 and 2 - brilliant!

Some adventure seeking super heroes!  Scott, Kristen, Skylar, and Parker - Superman, the Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Batman.  We were well taken care of that night in the safety department.

Jett  - our old man and his walker from "Up"

We tied for first with the Mullins' Peter Pan theme.  Oliver - who was an elder in my mission actually! - Maimee, Belle, Cache, and Piage - a pirate, Princess Tigerlily, Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, and a mermaid - we had to have the picture with Smee and Captain Hook though! :)

There was a voting station for best costumes, and to our surprise we tied for the best costume!...a little awkward since we technically weren't "invited" to the party...but winning a Halloween movie - Hocus Pocus - and a bunch of good candy felt too good to pass up.  PLUS - Ross just looked so stinkin' adorable in his costume.  Getting him to wear the hat was a bit tricky seeing how he'd rip it off the second we'd put it on him.  We tried modeling it for him, having his daddy show how fun it was to wear it...everything.  The only thing that worked was distracting him with the bribe of going outside.  After that - he kept it on pretty much the whole night!  The mustache took a bit of restraining actually...but once I started drawing it, it tickled so he didn't care.  We just forgot about the gloves because we felt we were winners already.  :)  

Family Pic!

The Brothers sharing some "flower power"

Maybe it's a mushroom that will make him bigger?

Got to love the "stache" and hat - my dreams came true with how adorable he looked!

The happy winners who had crashed the party!

Ross thoroughly enjoyed the party - seeing some of his friends, eating candy and cupcakes, and even riding his friend, Wes's fire truck.  Not bad. :)  Bring on Halloween!
     

Some Fall Weather and Puddle Hunting

With the weather turning colder and wetter, we've been staying inside a little bit more thanks to a fair weather mom who doesn't like her temperatures messed with.  However, on my hunt for rain boots (which toddler rain boots apparently are quite rare...yes I know - you're thinking, "Are you kidding me?  You live in Oregon - the stores should be raining with rain boots!"  And I would agree with you...but apparently chain stores don't really take into account the graphics of where you live.  Target for instance carries winter snow coats - but ZERO rain coats.  Wal-mart had a total of two cheapy looking rain "coats" - more like plastic made out of ziploc bags - all in the ginormous size for Ross.  Also - I guess girls like to puddle jump more than boys, because they had a variety of girlie rain boots at Target and zero boy ones...and Wal-mart just didn't have any.  Thrift stores have left my efforts fruitless as well.  I had a dream last night that a HUGE shipment of rain boots arrived at Wal-mart and I was finally going to get Ross a decent pair.  THAT'S how much I've been thinking about rain boots.) 
Back to the story.
I DID find Ross a pair of snow boots at Goodwill for $4 AND a raincoat at our beloved Thrift City for $3.  Rain boots are still at large.  
SO - we used snow boots while we went outside today since the sun peeked out for a little while even though it was still pretty cold.  Yesterday there were a good bunch of puddles, but while we were out exploring with Ross, our hunt for puddles was almost in vain.  We did find a couple though that made him happy.  Good enough right?  We had a nice walk, played on the playground with our good friend, Wes, and trekked back home afterwards.  Hooray for fall!

Mom is catching up on the walk - what are they looking at?

Of course it would be some sort of tractor!

Completely captivated.  If anyone is wondering what he is wishing for at Christmas it would be a real tractor of his very own...or at least to be able to watch a live one anytime he wants!

Looking for some puddles - think we found one!

And he thought it was totally lame!

Taking a break from the puddle hunt for a swing.

I took a ton of pictures last year of Ross in this swing...since he was an adorable little blob then that could ONLY do the swings at the playground.  This was the best I could get out of him in the swing this time.  I think he was just disappointed still in our puddle find.

Crunching some leaves

We may have found a puddle!

Brilliant - it even has the reflection factor.

Nothing like a good puddle.

Is it nap time?  What do you think?  I was trying to get a picture of his cute Halloween shirt...this is all he would give me.

And this...good thing he's still adorable though - especially after a good nap. :)

Pumpkin Carving...the Susan Boyle Effect

Last night we carved pumpkins with some of our friends for a pumpkin contest...well Steve and I carved our pumpkins.  Ross was a little too into eating the cookies, and it got too late.  He'll get to have his own carving session.  That kid has had late nights the last two nights!  I let him sleep in...and now as I write - he's STILL awake even after I put him down for his nap an hour later than normal.  
Soo...I had gotten a warty pumpkin - the proper name being a "knuckle head" pumpkin, and I was at a complete loss as to what to do with it.  Witch of course was the first thing to pop into the head, but I couldn't visualize what I should really do with it. I think I sat there just visiting and avoiding any carving for about 45 minutes due to my lack of creative thinking.  Steve was even nice enough to cut the top out and scoop out all the guts while I was in my stupor.  (Again - Steve the master pumpkin farmer is also a master pumpkin carver.)
I decided to take pictures of people carving their pumpkins to delay my own...

Love the Steve face. :)  Our friend Nate and Amy carving too.  Notice how my warty one is still barren.

Shawn and Bethany mapping out their plan.

Ross wanting more cookies - yes that fuzzy thing is my prego belly in the way.

Anyway - I finally decided to just go with the witch profile.  I tried to utilize the "warts" all around.  When I was done and showed it to Steve.  He just asked me what it was supposed to be - real encouraging right?  Like when you were a kid and showed your teacher your drawing and she would just ask "And what is it?"  I figured I was out of the championship of carving and settled back playing with Ross and waiting for everyone to finish.  

Ross trying to help fix my warty witch.

Can you guess who this is?  Right!!  Harry Pumpkin!  Scar, glasses and all!  Steve did an awesome job...I really love the glasses and scar. :)

A very artistic cat in the moon.

Who would have thought Pac Man and an Owl? LOVE it.

When they got their masterpieces done - they put candles in each of the pumpkins and turned out the lights.  I looked at my pumpkin and viola!!!  It had transformed into a pretty awesome witch silhouette!  The green warty parts even contributed in the dark.  I won't lie - we were all a bit wowed.  I felt like I hadn't failed my pumpkin this Halloween anymore.  

We awaited the judges decision.  It took quite a while.  I think he even had to take a cookie break to decide...that and we were all friends with high hopes who all vowed we would break the friendship if he didn't choose ours.  Just kidding. 

Tell me this witch doesn't look a million times better in the dark!  That's how witches are anyway - right?  Totally did that on purpose. ;) Still loving the lightning scar on Harry Pumpkin.

A close up of the cat in the moon - and a star!

Pac Man is going to eat that owl I think.

Finally the decision was made...I won!!  I was amazed!!  He told me it was the complete "Susan Boyle" effect.  In the light the pumpkin just looked drabby and sort of an okay witch profile...but put it in the spotlight...or put a candle in it - and it was a pretty amazing job!  I would like to attribute it all to dumb luck...I would love to say I was strategic in my carving...but that wouldn't be true.  I guess that pumpkin was just meant for stardom regardless of who was carving it. :)  

I would like to thank Baby Boo #2 for the inspiration for "Susan Boyle".  We're 28 weeks along here by the way. :)  Wahoo for the third trimester!

I won a pound of See's Candies - lets add some more to that baby bump!  And yes - Ross is EXTREMELY exhausted.  This was moments before he stuck his hand in my pumpkin and burned his finger...hopefully he won't have to learn that lesson again.

We of course finished the night off with Ross reaching in and burning his finger on the candle in the pumpkin of course.  You can't leave a party without a crying kid right?  He was fine - no real burns - and we really did have a great time.  Happy Halloween!