Oh-Bla-Di

Although it’s never really been “our” holiday, Halloween was big this year.  The question of who Ava would be has been a topic of discussion for months – it was a never ending, never repeating sequence of princess titles.  We ended up doing something generic out of her dress up bin and let her call it whatever she wanted.  Matt and I spent a good while talking about who we would dress up as well.  At least all the effort and though wasn’t wasted.  With all the festivities, Ava ended up wearing her costume three times!

Friday morning, Ava’s school hosted a Halloween parade.  All the kids showed up in their costumes and then marched around the hallways for the other kids to see.  Even though we don’t go to school on Fridays, Ava got to go participate in the parade.  Matt and I were there to watch, too, so that was fun for all of us.

This girl LOVES a parade.  They do them often and they really make her day!

Here’s Ava with her teachers.  She has such a good time with these ladies!

Friday night, the Hoffmans hosted a Halloween costume party at their house.  It was a really good time and, this time, we all got in on the costume action!  As I mentioned before, Matt and I have become huge Dr. Who fans lately, so we dressed as The Doctor and his companion, Rose Tyler.  Ava reprised her role as a princess and Noah dressed as a glow-in-the-dark bag o’ bones.

Right on schedule, then, we finally got around to carving our pumpkin on Saturday afternoon.  Matt drew up several pumpkin faces for Ava to choose from and she settled on a standard Jack o’ Lantern.  Can’t argue with a classic, right?

Even Noah wanted in on the pumpkin carving action!  (Funny side note, his class at school carved a pumpkin also.  His teachers said he wasn’t really interested.  Ha!)

We collected all the seeds and roasted them since Whoozers said she wanted some.  When they were done and we offered them to her, she wasn’t the least bit interested.  Go figure.

Sunday night, we got a surprise visit from the Hoffmans just as we were getting ready to go trick or treating.  It was great because we were able to get a couple of photos of all the kids and then walk our block together gathering candy.

Ava had been practicing the sequence of trick or treating events all week in her mind and, by the time we got to the third or fourth house, she finally had the knock on the door, say trick or treat, and say thank you sequence down pat.

All in all, it was a successful Halloween.  We got rid of all our candy since Matt is a generous hander-outer and are down to just the little bit Ava gathered in her adventures.  That’s a good thing, since Matt and I have had candy bars for dinner a few too many times lately.  We’re very ready to head into the Thanksgiving/birthday/anniversary season now.  November is really our month.  Can’t wait!

Here are five fun things for Friday.

Fun Thing #1:

Ava and I have become addicted to a new-to-us music group called Rabbit.  You should go give it a listen.  It’s happy, it’s peppy, it makes a 30 mile commute a sort of fun thing to do.  My favorite is Ladybug.  This album is awesome because Ava will even let me sing along with it.  

Fun Thing #2:

At the same time we discovered Rabbit, Ava and I also started digging a kids’ album called Do Fun Stuff, Vol. 1.  Rabbit does several of the songs on this compilation, too.  Seriously fun, not annoying kids music.  Ava’s favorite is “Potty Time”!  She knows all the words and sings along.  It’s the second song on the album…she only listens to the first song because I make her wait to get to “Potty Time.”

Fun Thing #3:

We’ve had super good luck with Craigslist in the last two weeks.  We scored a bike for Ava’s birthday for $10 and a double jogger stroller for $50.  The bike is going to get a fresh coat of paint, a new seat, a bell and a basket this weekend.  The jogger was the key element to a very fun walk the kiddos and I took earlier this week.  Hooray for turning others’ old stuff into our new fun stuff!

Fun Thing #4:

Ava can spell her name.  She did that for me for the first time last night.  And, now, she can write it too!  She learned that within five minutes of spelling it for me.  So, so proud of our smart girl.

Fun Thing #5:

The boy, he talks.  And smiles.

Matt and I watched a TON of the newer Dr. Who series this summer.  In the week or two before Noah was born, we watched an episode called “Blink.”  It was one of the creepiest of the dozens we watched, but the basic idea was that if these two people looked away from these weeping angel statues (which were really some sort of alien thing) then the angels would get them.  The message of the episode was “Don’t blink.  Blink and you’re dead.”

Lately, I’ve been feeling like we’re in a “don’t blink” season of our lives.  Babies grow up so fast.  Noah is going to be eight weeks old on Friday.  And, in exactly one month, Ava will be three.  Is it just me or is time actually going faster?  There’s no way that our first baby is 30 days from three years old.  And, seriously, my newborn is turning into a baby more quickly than I can process.  We may not have any alien angel statues coming after us, but substitute “missed memory” for “angel” and the story is the same.  Blink and you miss it.  Blink and the alien creature called parental guilt will swallow you whole.

I’ve been trying to slow down and be present, especially when the kids are awake – to recognize actively the moments I won’t want to miss.  With work and daycare schedules, it’s so easy to get sucked into the need-to-do’s around here when we get home.  It’s harder to just let go and be present with two than with one.  It’s harder to do while working than it was when I had more moments at home.  It’s harder when I’m home alone.  I don’t intend to make excuses, but to acknowledge the challenges.  It’s hard to not blink.  I’m in a staring contest with my own life.

So, for the me who will be reading this blog in a few years or months trying to remember what these months and days were like, here are some of the moments driving me to keep my eyes open.

Ava riding the carousel before seeing Beauty & the Beast at the Outdoor Movie.

Sweet, sweet baby smiles.  I get one like this after I feed him.  His way of saying “thanks,” I think.

A first ride in a stroller together.  Ava pointed out every single Halloween decoration in the neighborhood.

A sweetheart of a sister helping her baby brother feel better with a binky.

Here’s to trying not to blink.  I’m certain it will be worth the effort.

We’re really in the new, post-baby schedule now.  Ava’s school hours have been cut back to just 25 a week, so that means that Fridays are no longer the solo-Mommy, get-projects-done days of yore.  But, I do have a little time during naps to post an update, so here it is…in list form, of course.

1.  Noah goes to his first day of school on Monday.  I’m both sad and totally ok with the idea.  He’ll be there for five hours, four days a week…same as Ava.  The hours he’s at school will include two naps and about an hour and a half of awake time.  I’m sad to miss that hour and a half, since I know it’ll become oh so important over the next several months, but I feel ok with these hours because we’re basically paying for him to have a safe place to sleep while I go to work.  Remind me of this next week.

2.  Noah can go to school and that means that he’s six weeks old.  Seriously, where did six weeks go?  Can’t believe it’s gone so quickly.  I remember that amount of time taking so much longer when Ava was a newborn.  He’s getting so much bigger and so much more active.  He even talks to us sometimes!  He laughs in his sleep all the time, but we haven’t seen any awake laughs since he was a week old.  Can’t wait to hear that again.

3.  We finally got photos printed from the first few weeks of being a family of four.  I’ve hung them up in all the places I’ve been planning for them to be for months.  It’s so nice to see the faces of all the people I love as I walk around doing chores and stuff.  My last maternity leave project was to create some more space for photos since we have more faces and more photos we love.  I just finished this project (about 10 minutes ago) so this maybe the fastest completion-to-blog project ever.  Best part of the project is that it was completely free!  It’s not so bad to not be able to afford expensive artwork when you’ve got such priceless people to look at instead.

4.  Speaking of priceless people, on Wednesday night, I made chili-mac for dinner.  It was pretty good considering that five minutes before I started cooking I had no idea what I was going to make.  Anyway, Ava was having none of it.  So, I made her sit at the table until she ate the small portion I pushed to the side of her plate.  An hour and a half later, she still hadn’t eaten any.  She had, however, conducted several circle time sessions with her imaginary students.  Can’t punish a kid with an overactive imagination by leaving her alone.  She just makes up friends!

“Ava, what does a three-year-old look like?”

5.  Matt’s been at work until at least 6:30 every night this week, but he was home a couple of mornings to help out with that end of the deal.  Can’t decide which I prefer – help in the morning, especially after a fairly sleepless night, or help in the evening after a long afternoon with the kiddos?  If I’m really honest, I’d have to say that I want both.  It would be awesome to actually see him in the morning and still know that the kids will see him before going to bed at night.  Maybe at the next job…

And a bonus #6…

While I was upstairs feeding Noah just now, Ava was down the hall settling in to a nap by singing to herself.  Someone rang the doorbell and set Libby off.  Being trapped under a tiny human, there wasn’t a thing I could do about any of it.  Ava’s response to the barking?  She started howling.  Yay for Fridays!

Happy weekend, everyone!

Angela Mildon came back to our house when Noah was exactly a week old to do his newborn shoot.  As expected, she did a fantastic job and we got so many great shots that we love.  We acquired the digital files, so can share them here with you as well as hang them all over our house.     Not really much to say except, thanks, Angela, for the great work and enjoy everyone!

And, now, what may be my two most favorite pictures ever.