October 2014

I have a love/hate relationship with the month of October. It is already an incredibly busy month for our family, but this year we also threw in a new house. We started the month with our 10th wedding anniversary! TEN years! Woah! We didn't do anything special. Just hung out at the apartment. Keith cooked shrimp.

The next day, Etta had her very first school field trip to the pumpkin patch at Gentry's Farm! I went along because you know I would't miss that! We really had a lot of fun.

The next afternoon, after a morning spent at GiGi's Playhouse, we went back to Gentry's Farm with the rest of the family. It was a beautiful day and the rest of the weekends in October were all pretty much booked already, so after nap, we loaded into the car and went to pick out some pumpkins. Etta walked ahead of us when we first arrived, saying, "Come on!". She knew where she was and she was being the tour guide. :)

Daniel loved his "pump" SO much! He slept with it every night and carried it around every day until I decided it was too bruised/ starting to rot and I made it disappear.

We spent the first couple of weeks in October prepping for our move to the new house. I did a little packing, but I found myself on the phone a lot with the builder's agent and with our lender making sure everything was lined up for us to close on the 17th. I will post a New House post soon, but just know that it was a stressful time (and everything was going well)!

Our first night in the house.

Less than a week after we moved in, on October 23rd, Daniel turned 3! We celebrated his birthday with a party on Nov 2nd. This should also really warrant its own blog post... So... That's what I will do. Stay tuned for his birthday post. :)

The week before Halloween (on a Friday the 24th), we attended a Halloween-themed Family Fun Night at GiGi's Playhouse. Not only did we attend it, I was kinda in charge of putting the thing on... So, I had been planning activities and buying supplies and decorations over the last month and that morning, while Etta was in school, Daniel and Alice "helped" me decorate the Playhouse. I did as much as I could and then left instructions for the volunteers to finish up because it was time to get the kids home for a nap. We headed back up there after Etta got out of school that day. We had a fun night. Arrrrg!

The day after Family Night (Saturday), we celebrated Etta and all other individuals in the Middle Tennessee area who have Down syndrome at this year's Buddy Walk. It was a beautiful day and there was a HUGE turn-out at the event.

Etta's Entourage

I went over to the apartment after Buddy Walk to finish clearing it and cleaning it.

(The last load of our crap from the apartment)

The day after Buddy Walk (Sunday), I spent about 7 hours at GiGi's for our annual "Board Retreat" where we basically have a strategic planning session and make the plan for the next year. It's always a long day, but we got a lot accomplished

My mom and Bill came into town on Tuesday night (the 28th) so we could finish buying furniture and try to get the house set up and so they could be here for Daniel's birthday party. We were very busy bees, but we got the house set up and we managed to stay under budget!

Halloween fell on a Friday this year, which means teachers around the world rejoiced that they wouldn't have to deal with the Day After Halloween Sugar Crash (when I was teaching, it was ALWAYS the WORST day of the year. always.). Etta had a Halloween party at school that afternoon. Her class had a "Dress Like a Scarecrow" day, and the best I could do was overalls and a flannel shirt. I think she looked pretty cute. The other parents in her class are so sweet. They are always telling me how much their child likes and talks about Etta. So sweet for this mama to hear. :)

The night was pretty windy and super chilly. And all I really wanted to do was hang by the fireplace and eat hand out candy, but I was so excited about Etta's costume this year and we HAD to go trick-or-treating. So, Etta is very into Curious George right now. Like, VERY. So, a couple of months ago, I started piecing together a "Man in the Yellow Hat" costume for her ("they" don't make a toddler version of the costume). I bought white shirt and white pants and dyed them yellow. I got her a boy's belt and a pair of boots and I found a yellow tie on Amazon that I painted the brown polka dots on. The trickiest piece of the costume was that famous yellow hat. I had a few ideas of how I could make it, but then I ran into my friend, Karina (a fellow Ds Momma) while I was in Party City getting Halloween supplies. Together we stumbled upon a child-size witch hat and she helped me hatch a plan to poke the pointy top in and use some yellow tissue paper and some decoupage to make the hat. I worked on it for a couple of days. I think it turned out great! My only regret is that I didn't get better coverage on the underside of the hat since you can see it in almost every photo. Oh, well.

When I dressed Etta that evening, she knew EXACTLY who she was dressed as. She had two Curious George side-kicks, because I couldn't decide which one should be George and the monkey suits were warm on that cold night. So, we got them all suited up and we headed out into the night.

We quickly rushed down the street and back. Daniel got REALLY into it this year. When the neighbors would open the door, he would shout "TREAT!" (forget the "trick. lol.). He was super cute. Etta got into it too. and the wind kept blowing her hat off of her head and she would yell, "HEY!" and Keith or I would quickly grab it and toss it on her head at the last minute before the next door opened. We probably hit about 8 or 9 houses and then we gratefully retreated to the warmth of our house and the kids dug into their candy. I think Daniel managed to unwrap and eat about 6 pieces of candy in about a 10 minute time period. Pretty sure it was one of the greatest days of his little life.

Randoms from October: