Everyone Hails to the Pumpkin Song

Halloween was pretty fantastic, a large part of which was due to Parry and Suzanne coming down for the weekend and offering up their free babysitting services to us. Andrew and I were able to go out for the first time in ages and not have to worry about being home at a certain time and it was rather fun.

Halloween festivities started on Monday when Carter, Oz and I went to a Trunk or Treat with the AP group. The kids trick or treated from trunk to trunk and ran around and played.









For Halloween costumes, Carter was planning on being Woody, but after doing a little shopping at Halloween stores he changed his mind and wanted to be "scary bones". I decided he was too little to be scary bones and he reconsidered and was willing to be "happy bones" which is how he ended up with the skeleton costume. I wasn't fond of the idea and tried to convince him to be any number of other cute things, but at least I was able to salvage some cute by making him the fuzzy set out of fleece.

Oz is a piece of sushi. I made his white pants and sweatshirt out of fleece. The pillow is out of salmon colored quilting cotton and the nori is left over fabric from an apron I made for Heather several Halloweens ago.

They got to wear their costumes again on Wednesday for the Montessori School Halloween Carnival.

During the week I worked furiously to sew my costume.


I also finished up Andrew's. The result was this:



Andrew is, obviously, Willy Wonka, ala Gene Wilder. I made the coat, bow tie and vest for him.

My costume is a reproduction of the dress Epperson made for the movie challenge during this season of Project Runway. The original looks like this:







Saturday we carved pumpkins.







And took the boys trick or treating.


Oz insisted on holding a piece of candy in his hands at all times, but was a good sport and said 'Thank you' and 'Bye' at each house. He also stole two pieces of candy at many of the houses.

Carter managed to complain almost the entire time. It's my fault as I had forgotten to bring water for him, so starting about halfway down our block he started complaining about it and continued to for the duration. He also complained about how tired he was and kicked Oz out of the stroller after awhile. (this from the child who can complete a 3 mile hike in hilly terrain without difficulty).


The haul. M&M's were the most popular thing this year.

Andrew and I went out again on Saturday night. Details of the adult debauchery can be read in Andrew's blog.


I also let Carter watch The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time. He loved it to pieces so we enjoyed watching that together a few times since I think it's an awesome movie too.

We Visited the W.R.

Andrew's 10 year high school reunion was in September so we headed up for that. I seem to have not actually taken any pictures of the weekend, which probably has something to with me getting horribly sick and spending all of Friday night throwing up ham (which is HORRIBLE because it still tastes like ham). Needless to say I am now boycotting ham until at least Christmas when the lure of ham gravy may be too much for me.

Someone took this picture of Andrew and his high school BFF Jay at some point.



I did manage to snap these pics with my blackberry.





I feel like the Oktoberfest theme really shines through in them.



Behind Andrew you can see the delicious food spread. O_o

I'm not exactly sure where our $70 went, but it certainly wasn't spent on decorations, food or that awesome Miller 64 they served (which I couldn't drink b/c I was still feeling sick).

Stupid Blogger

Are the landscape oriented pictures cut off for all of you? I didn't realize my photobucket account was set to a larger size than normal and uploaded them all at that. I went back and changed them all to a smaller size so you could see the entire picure, but it won't fucking change. Seriously? Why? I'm quitting for tonight. This is why I had updating this site. Lame, Blogger. Just lame

I bet deep down you still wish your mom would take you clothes shopping every August for the new school year.

August meant no rain and a very crabby and hot mommy.



Carter wanted a chest piece one day. Directions were a whale, an ocean and a garbage truck. I'm a super awesome artist.


Carter drew on Oz's.


I celebrated my birthday. (OMG!IFEELSOOLD!!)









Grandma Lawson, Auntie Jennifer and Emily came to visit. We visited the zoo and watched Andrew play hockey. It was Jennifer and Emily's first visit down here so it was nice to have them. (Which is not to say it wasn't nice to have Suzanne, but she comes pretty regularly so it wasn't that out of the ordinary)

We also went to Great America. Carter loved it.

Bumper cars






Andrew and Heather steal a moment before the ride starts.



Lastly, Meghan was able to visit. We hung out, she got to meet my friends when we had a playdate at the cemetery. It was nice. Kristin also came to visit this summer, but I have no idea where those pictures are. Seriously, where did they go? Did I take any? Were there only the ones that Kristin took? Kristin, do you ever send me those pictures? You probably did and I just suck.

Hot July brings cooling showers, apricots and gillyflowers.

In July we visited Wisconsin for my 10 year high school reunion (OMG!IFEELSOOLD!). It was at a bar in downtown Milwaukee which was nice because the only cost was the beer I chose to drink. Heather went with me because Andrew just didn't feel comfortable going. We ended up driving down with Chester, who decided to go at the last minute. I was able to reconnect with some old friends and was surprised by how a few turned out, but overall it was good. Heather's friend, Megan, met us down there too so all in all it was great. We stayed with my dad.







We visited Summerfest in hopes of seeing the strongman competition. That ended in disaster, but other parts of the day were fun.





Fireworks at Sussex Park (while Heather and I sent picture texts back and forth, me of our fun, her of sad faces on the empty patio at Pete's).







We hit the Milwaukee County Zoo with Heather, my BFF Meghan, her husband Dan, and their kids Noah, Xander and Sera. Oz walked around in his diaper for half the day because I didn't change his diaper in time and forgot extra pants.









We also visited with Urgrossmutter. We actually made her smile a real smile.



And we probably did other stuff the rest of the month, but I guess it wasn't that interesting. I really hate summer so we probably spent a lot of time in the basement playing with toys.

There are two seasons in Scotland: June and Winter.

Bam! Picture update time!






Zoo






and Pool.


I'm not sure we did anything else that month. If we did, it must not have been interesting enough to document.

Overheard:

Carter yelling through the bathroom door:

"I have to poop dad. Are you pooping too?"