We love COSTUMES! We took the easy road this year and dressed as homicidal maniacs (they look just like everyone else) but here are a couple costumes from Halloweens past...
Hocus Pocus skeleton, Darth Maul, and MJ
Holly Golightly
Vincent Vega, Mrs. Mia Wallace, and Jules
...next year ideas (if I have my way)...
We love that it's Hudson's first Halloween!!! We didn't buy him a costume, but he dressed as a baby bear today...I was going to curl my hair and put makeup on to go as Goldylocks but, wierd, I ran outta time...
"Waaah, who ate my porridge?!"
We love carving pumpkins...
Hudson's 1st vintage jack o'lantern and daddy's Boba Fett pumpkin
We love The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown...
...and can't wait to share this fave with our babe!!! "He'll come here because I have the most sincere pumpkin patch and he respects sincerity."
And I love anything Halloween-vintage...partly because it reminds me that Halloween wasn't always the one day a year where women dress all slutsville.
Not sure I'd be so calm (and you'd better believe my dogs wouldn't be) if I ran into this!
We can't wait to host Halloween parties for H and "scare the crap outta his friends"~ Alex
And what we love the most about this Halloween is that our baby boy smiled for the first time today, TWICE in response to mommy's smiling and goo-goo-gahing!!! SIGH! What a treat...makes it all worth it!!! You better believe I'ma be acting like a total fool to try to get more of those!!!
Hope your day is full of treats as well! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Will someone please remind me in 10 years, when it comes time for child #2 (right before menopause kicks in) to have a spring baby. While we are enjoying the fall and the colorful photo ops it provides, today is just too dreary and cold to venture outdoors with the babe in his radical purple stroller. I have visions of a baby #2, who will be born in early May (because I have complete control over that) just in time for morning summer walks in the sunshine. What today is good for is a right-hand-finger-pecked-blog-post (baby's in my left hand) followed by gobs of snuggling and made-up song singing on the couch with my gorgeous 3 week old.
Pics from our previous not-so-gloomy weekend
Daddy is a bottle feeding pro...wook at dat widdle punkin!
Thank you fall...H in the fiery leaves
A really hard to see picture of the infamous rocker mullet
rainy day fave #1: my 3 week old lover bear
Week 3!!?!? I think Hongro and I deserve a medal or cookie or something for having made it thus far with our child still intact, healthy, & happy. Seriously...we haven't dropped, stepped on, rolled over onto, or tripped with Hudson and he's nearly a month old...whooo hooo!!! GO US! Kidding...kinda
So what's new with our BOJ (bundle of joy) & his totally outstanding capable parents these days, I hear you bellow in your thousands??? ;) Hudson is a head-banging, judo chopping, little froggy. I'll explain; this little man has some strong neck muscles and is already movin' that head around and can lift it off daddy's chest like a champ. Sometimes when he's bouncing that head about I wonder if he's actually trying to tell me in his way to turn off the Coldplay and turn on some heavy death metal?? Well little man, the closest this mommy comes to death metal is an instrumental cover of Enter Sandman, sorry. This morning he was getting his judo chops on and wax-on, wax-off-ing with his totally built baby man arms, which of course look adorable when he's wearing those goofy mittens. And I call him my little froggy (widdle fwoggy, in baby language) because he perches on my chest with his "widdle fwoggy wegs" tucked under his tummy and his "fwoggy butt" sticking up in the air. It kills me, it's so cute.
Mommy has come to terms with the fact that sometimes what we are "GOING TO DO NO MATTER WHAT" doesn't exactly pan out...aka I need to learn to not be SUCH a control freak. After 3 weeks of struggling with very little, to no progress I decided to throw in the breastfeeding towel, or burn my nursing bras, if you will. It was one of the hardest decisions for me to make, but the lack of production on my part despite pills, 6 appointments with lactation specialists, the need for sleep, and the desire to enjoy (rather than fight against with the utmost dread) feeding sessions with my widdle cutie finally took their toll. I could go on and on about the mysteries of breastfeeding-that nobody tells you about...but I think I'll save that for it's own blog entry-seriously, why does nobody talk about this!? So formula it is...which still makes me want to vomit because that shiz is SO expensive! If you're wondering what to get us for Christmas this year, how's about a couple cans of Similac Sensitive?
Our other surprising disappointment is with cloth diapers. We were going to do our part to save the planet, save money, and save Hudson's widdle wee wee from chemicals by subscribing to a diaper service...but we've had to put that on hold because I think the intense wetness against his skin (and we change him very regularly) have caused him to break out down there. We also have to change his outfit every other time he pees because the wetness seeps out from the "protective" vinyl liner onto his adorable jammies...wtfrench? I'm not throwing the towel in on this one just yet, but waiting for his poor little circumcised area to heal first...yeah, after fighting against that one, visions of him being made fun of in the boys locker room made me change my mind on that at the very last minute as well. Geez, you're thinking...Holly Go-Flighty!! It just goes to show how wonderful it is to be able to go with the flow when you have baby-chillins, otherwise you will drive yourself stark crazy. It's like my cousin-in-law Kayla so beautifully put it, 'cloth or dispoable, breastmilk or formula, what your babies need is love from YOU". Well, "love from US" is what Alex and I are giving Herbie plenty of and there is no bottom to that well!!! Thank you Kayla (and all you other supportive friends/mommies out there) for your support.
fave #2: bountiful baskets
We were introduced to Bountiful Baskets by our friend Rochelle. Rochelle is one coupon-clipping, bargain-hunting, money-saving diva...and when she utters the word "deal", WE LISTEN!! She told us about this great co-op program where you can get $50.00 worth of in-season LOCAL produce for $15 BUCKS ($25 bucks for all certified organic)!!!!The endless list of produce she got for 15 bones had us drooling-not only because it sounded delicious, but because it would end up saving our family money and shopping time! Her second great idea was to slice everything up to make it convenient and available to snack on throughout the week! You better believe we're going to give this a whirl in the coming weeks-as soon as we can volunteer as a family!!! If your family is interested there are sites throughout the country including Loveland and Boise-who loves ya?!!!! Check it out at http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/
fave #3: "mila's daydreams"
Check out the video below...
This mamacita obviously didn't heed the advice, "sleep when baby sleeps"...evidenced in the above video. Mila's creative mama imagines her daughter's dreams then creates a backdrop out of randomness from around the house & photographs them. Brilliant!! I love how whimsical and funny some of Mila's dreams are....I would love to do something artistic like this with Hudson, but sleep deprivation is wreaking havoc on my creativity as of late...thank goodness I'm no longer in design school! Plus my baby won't usually sleep more than 3 inches away from his mom&dad unless, of course, the hairdryer and/or shopvac are running...little wierdie.
We'll leave you with a pic from 3 short weeks ago of a handsome little fellow, if we do say so ourselves, and wishes for a fantastic weekend...CIAO!
You officially made our family a family 15 days ago, Friday October 7th at 9:35 am. Whoa baby you were/are a tall one…just like your dad, measuring 22.5” long and weighing 8lb 4oz. Measurements aside, you were healthy and beautiful even when you were still covered in goo and placed on my chest. You wailed nice and loud as if to say, "there’s no place like placenta-aaah", and your dad cried. I thought for sure I would too (as I’ve bawled over every birthing video I’ve seen since becoming pregnant) but I didn’t until later that morning when I got to look you over in private-every perfect little part of you- I couldn’t believe I actually helped create you! I couldn’t believe I carried you inside me-what an absolute miracle! Ah-I felt like the size of my heart quadrupled- AT LEAST! I was so overcome with an insanelyprofound love (one people had attempted to describe to me-but I never got it till this point) GOOD, GOOD LOVE!
So little lovie, time flies when you’re ADAPTING to life outside the womb, and your padres to life with a little angel who needs constant TLC.
Adaptation:
You love sleeping in your new carrier.
I love being able to get a bit of housework done.
How our lives have changed since you’ve arrived! A little then and now…
THEN: I showered and applied makeup daily.
NOW:-I can smell my own B.O. but am helpless to do anything about it...have YOU tried putting on deodorant with a newborn resting comfortably on your chest? And I tried putting on a little mascara before a doctor’s appointment with you in my arms=whoopsie daisy I’ll never attempt THAT again!
THEN: 4am meant I had at least 5 more hours to sleep in.
NOW: One of your most awake times is from 4am-6:30am. Mommy is now “liking” her friends facebook pics/updates at 2:15am.
THEN: Mommy ate what she wanted, when she wanted…runs to Taco Bell-no problem!
NOW: Did I eat breakfast??? I can’t even remember! My hands are so full that even if I had a quesadilla I wouldn’t be able to enjoy its warm cheesy meltiness until bebe fell asleep.
THEN: Sailor mouth!
NOW: MUCH cleaner mouth with only a few softly uttered curse words.
NOW: I am addicted to sniffing you-in longggg contented inhales, kissing your teeny toesies, slow dancing with you and Al Bowlly in the kitchen every morning, rubbing my cheek on your softest little head of hair, & admiring your baby rocker mullet...there is no "then" to this "now"...love it!
Oh, but I wouldn’t trade a sleep deprived minute of it. In fact, I am starting to enjoy being up when the sun rises. I have learned to really appreciate the once a week (instead of twice a day) trip to the Starbucks drive-thru. Showers feel heavenly these days. I’m proud of my new cloth diapering and diaper rash ointment application skills-one to add to the resume, no doubt. I’ve fallen in love again (after a 5 year television hiatus) with Matt Lauer and the Today Show! And I love that we are finding our way together…learning how to make things work in this place, with these people, at this time-and doing our very very best. The song that has been playing over and over in my mind for the past 2 weeks is “This thing is difficult”…but for the record I want to dedicate a new song to you, a lullaby (written by Thom Yorke for his son) because despite the difficulties, you have sailed us to the moon sweet babe.
Thrifty Thursday: Life Edited Our house has plenty of storage. In fact that is the understatement of the month: we have a full unfinished basement, a shed, and 2 large bedrooms upstairs; 1 that we store some furniture in and has become the cats domain (and smells like it quite sadly), the other we use solely for more storage. I hate clutter, so finding a house with such large areas to store all the stuff we've accumulated since our first apartment way back in '98 was a dream-a dream come true to the wife of a pack-rat husband!
Alex: "But babe, I might want to use that old use-your-imagination-to-fill-in-the-blank-here-with-some-ridiculous-decrepit-item-from-1997some day...lets keep that in the tote just in case."
In case of what?? In case we get locked in our own basement someday and are forced to entertain ourselves with the contents of our totes ("Yay-I never thought this day would come-lets organize our collection of Lil' Homies dolls!!!!!")...
(no really, we have a collection of these)
Anyways, when we bought the house, we kept thinking about how great it would be to just throw all that crap in the basement and never have to look at it. Wicaa-wha? Wait one darn second; there's something really wrong with this picture!!!! If we never look at it and don't even know what it is...why the heck are we holding on to it????? Seriously. My basement is full, my upstairs is a hot-mess of random junk, and I have NO idea what is hanging out in all these boxes anymore. TRUTH: Having a ton of storage space is actually a curse...we don't know the word edit anymore...another useless piece of junk? Just throw it downstairs! If we were to move we'd need to upsize to the BIG mama Uhaul-and there's only 2 of us!!! Ugh-how I hate spending money on anything I don't have to!!! I have been thinking about doing this for a few years now, but seeing as how I lived at school I didn't want to spend my 1.5 free minutes per week cleaning up my basement of all things, I just never got around to it...but this mornings Ted Talk inspires me to tackle our own Life Edited Project. Take a little looksy...
So begins our family project: the CRAIGSLIST (we're going to see just what people will buy or take free from Craigslist-hope we have some lil' homies fans in town) RESELL/REMOVE (of things unnecessary & never used-with the exception of keepsake items) AND (I need an "A word" here for the acronym to work-wait for it people) PROSPER (make some extra money to put towards Herbies college fund) PROJECT! or CRAPP! for short.
CRAPP! will be one of those ongoing family projects as I'm guessing we won't have a LOT of free time for CRAPP! after the little one arrives and all....but I promise to update with what people have purchased and post some before&after pictures of the basement and upstairs. I've already sold some curtains (that I was just gonna donate cuz I figured no one would buy them from Craigslist). Do you have a room(s) that is full of stuff you never look at? Ever wanted to simplify??
In baby related news, it's our due date...and still no baby...can you tell how bored I am by the blog post above?? I started having contractions Saturday night-never before was I so excited and smiley to have lower back and menstrual cramp pains! I thought for sure I was going to go into labor that night-talk about getting NO sleep! But then they all but stopped and I got sick with a nasty little cold. Last night I started feeling better and voila...the contractions started again in the middle of the night. I've had them all morning spaced anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour apart. Had my doc appointment today, and he said I'm in labor and our boy may come tomorrow or Saturday!!! CAN you believe it?!!!!! (Oh, and I may have gone into labor sooner...but the Dr. said the body often won't go into labor when a mama-to-be has a chest cold as she needs to be able to breathe fully to birth her babe-he he hooooo.)
10.6.11 40 weeks...our last bump pic and on our way to our last doctor's appt.
(well little bun, your loving padres cannot WAIT to meet you-here we GO!!!)
Hocus Pocus skeleton, Darth Maul, and MJ
Holly Golightly
Vincent Vega, Mrs. Mia Wallace, and Jules
"Waaah, who ate my porridge?!"
Hudson's 1st vintage jack o'lantern and daddy's Boba Fett pumpkin
...and can't wait to share this fave with our babe!!! "He'll come here because I have the most sincere pumpkin patch and he respects sincerity."
