Joe's First Month

We've had a busy month! This past Sunday Joe turned one month old. Instead of trying to remember all we've done, here are a few pictures:

First night at home:


Sleeping in the bilibed:


Snoozing:




Halloween:


Siblings:


(I had to sneak this after she fell asleep on the couch! Amelia is not quite ready to be close to him just yet)

Joe met his first friend, D:


Meeting "Auntie M" and "Uncle J":


Lastly, I caught a smile on camera just the other day:


It has been a busy, busy first month full of frustrations and joys. All in all, we are adjusting pretty well to life with two little ones.

We still don't have Internet at our apartment but it is at the top of the "to-do list" finally so hopefully we can get that taken care of next week!

Halloween 2010

What a fun day it has been!!! For Halloween this year, Amelia is an ewok! Don't know what that is? Learn about it HERE.



I worked this morning and this afternoon we took Amelia around to see family members in her costume. She gave each person a card and a piece of candy! I was glad we were able to find something fun to do with her all dressed up this year.

Amelia got pumpkin buckets from her Grandma Rude and her Auntie Liz and they both gave her applesauce! Our little ewok loves applesauce and couldn't wait to eat it:


Once we got to Nana's house she had another surprise waiting for her...




...her very own ball pit/tent! Amelia has officially taken over my parent's house. My sister now refers to it as "BooVille" (Amelia's nickname is Boo.)

Now, just for fun - here is Jason today:


No, it's not a costume. He just really loves the Vikings. He doesn't normally wear his helga-horns, so maybe it actually is kind of like his Halloween costume in a way?

Hopefully everyone has had a great Hallo-weekend!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night Amelia and I had a girls night with Lisa and Marie! Lisa had her own pumpkin patch this year and it yielded around 30 pumpkins, wow! She gave some away but still had around 15 left so she invited Marie and I over to carve some. Amelia wasn't too interested in the whole process at first. She just kind of stared:



We eventually just let her run around and play and she eventually joined us on her own and found herself a chunk of pumpkin to "teeth" on:



It was pretty funny!

We had a lot of fun carving but it is hard work!



Marie got really into it and that's probably why she had the best pumpkin...and she finished first! Here are our finished products:


And a close-up of each one:


Lisa also carved this one yesterday afternoon:


We had a lot of fun last night and we hope to make this a Halloween tradition! Next year, Lisa's husband wants to try and grow giant pumpkins. Wouldn't that be fun? I hope they do it!

Amelia's First Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Amelia was a mouse this year. We originally got the mouse outfit to try and take a picture of her in it with her three cats. We decided to just make that her costume this year instead of spending even more money on another one. Plus, given that Halloween fell on a Saturday this year we don't even get any family time. Jason left for work this morning just before 6:00 a.m. and will get home by 3:30 p.m. to drive me to work. I start at 4:15 p.m. and will get off around 1:00 a.m. I am just thankful I do not have to close tonight! Halloween Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS) is insane and the closers will be there until around 4:00 a.m.

Amelia wore her costume to the laundromat yesterday:


She had some fun in her hamper too:



We seem to have misplaced her mouse tail (it velcroes) :( I KNOW it is around here somewhere because I am almost positive that I saw it this morning but now it is nowhere to be found...hhmmm.

Today I tried to get some more pictures of her in her costume (and bib) but she wasn't too interested. This is what I got:






As for the cats...their costumes are still in the basement, so no dressing up for them this year. I'm sure they are crushed. Here they are in their costumes last year though (they would have been these same things this year b/c we buy their costumes on 75% off clearance after Halloween)

Lucky the Mermaid:


Ludo the Pumpkin:


Poopy with Spikes (dino-poopy maybe? punk poopy?):


Jason is somewhat excited to pick me up from work tonight and see some of the RHPS crazies. The Halloween show really is far more ridiculous than the monthly ones (every second Saturday).

Oh yeah, one more thing, since it is Halloween and all. A few friends ask me about ghost stories from the Oriental Theatre (my work). I guess a "paranormal investigator" came to the theatre this month and she did whatever it is she does and her conclusions are...the place IS haunted. She says that the upstairs bathroom and the stairs in the balcony are haunted.

She said she heard a noise that sounded like someone dragging their gimp leg as they walked, banging (which you hear in most old builings anyways), a voice saying "get out" etc.

Now, she was there with only the manager, who was in the office. She heard noises from the upstairs bathroom and went to check it out and when she got in there the entire room smelled very heavily of perfume/deoderant.

As for the "voice"...we were in the process of remodeling (again) and she thinks that it was upseting the ghosts? I guess it fits. It's not the first time they've remodeled though so I wonder if anyone heard that "voice" when they remodeled in the past?

Lastly, someone did die in the balcony ages ago. He was a projectionist and he had a heart attack up there. Did the "investigator" know of this death and that is why she came to her conclusion? Hard to say...

Either way, I was a little freaked out cleaning the theatres alone yesterday evening. When I was in the main house a woman was the last to leave and she came aroudn the corner and scared the crap out of me. I jumped and dropped my broom, seriously. The main house freaks me out sometimes. Actually the whole place freaks me out sometimes, especially after hearing ghost stories. She and I had a nice talk though. She kept me company while I swept. I appreciated it because I am a scaredy cat sometimes :)

Our Pumpkin

This afternoon we carved our pumpkin finally! It has been sitting in the stairwell since Dawn and I went to the pumpkin farm last week. Here is Amelia with her first Halloween pumpkin:



Once the pumpkin was hollowed out it was time for another picture...this one she was less than thrilled about:


She wouldn't even sit down! At first that is...


She finally sat down and was so upset to be sitting in a cold, wet and sticky pumpkin!

Amelia was happier to "help" draw on the pumpkin:


Here is our jack'o'lantern:


It is basic, simple and our own design. Our pumpkin carving kit came with patterns but our pumpkins was so large that the patterns weren't fitting on it well and our printer is out of ink, so we were unable to enlarge the patterns to fit our pumpkin. It may be a bit "boring" and not very intricate but that is ok. I think it works.

Here are some other pictures of Amelia from today. She was wearing her princess skeleton pajamas (skull with a crown on) which I think are actually pretty cute (Jason picked them out):


Amelia is ready to tell some scary stories:


This is one of my new favorite pictures of her. She is so happy:


Lastly, I have a paper to write for Monday as well as a thesis to start researching (since it may take weeks for some books I may request to make their way to UWM). I work all weekend, literally, Friday-Monday. Ugh is all I can say to that. It is hard to be at work all weekend, see Amelia, keep up at home AND fit homework in. Wait, did I mention it'd be nice to have a life too?! Less than 2 months left!!! I cannot wait to turn in that darn thesis and be done with college!!! I usually don't work all weekend but I made myself available on Monday, hoping I could be given either Friday or Saturday off to do Halloween things as a family, but that did not happen :(

So, basically, if I am hard to get ahold of this weekend/next week, please understand. I have more stuff to take care of this weekend than I have time to do. I will try and get on here as often as I can so everyone can keep up with Amelia! E-mail is probably the easiest way to get ahold of me because I can write back whenever I get the chance, even if it is 3 a.m. I try not to fall off the face of the earth but it has been happening a lot this semester. Sorry.

I'll leave you with a close-up of my beautiful girl:


(I got out my Canon Rebel, so I am able to get some great close-ups again!)

Pumpkin Patch

This afternoon Amelia and I went to Basse's Farm for fall fun with our friend Dawn. It was a chilly afternoon which made Amelia cold and crabby but we still had fun! Amelia dressed up like a jack'o'lantern. Here are some pictures from our afternoon:



Amelia in a few cut-outs:




What a BIG girl she is:


Amelia made friends with a goat:


Dawn with our pumpkin selections:


(ours is the big one in the front of the wagon)

A creative spider:


Here is one crabby little baby, who missed her afternoon nap, with her own pumpkin:


BEDTIME :)