I'm not kidding when I say Halloween is my favorite holiday. Christmas is a very close second (it gets closer every year), but Halloween still takes the cake. My favorite parts are decorating my house and picking out costumes (which will be featured in another post--oh, the suspense!).
Unfortunately, I'm picky about my Halloween decorations. I'm not a fan of the cutesy, crafty, country style:
The family room:
I found the tattered curtains for $1 each at Dollar Tree. Love them.
The dining room:
Notice the black flowers in the vase (behind the laptop)? I spent a lot of time (and money) hunting them down at Michael's before Wal-Mart even thought about carrying black flowers during Halloween. That's right--I'm the original.
The living room:
Not much in here. Spiderweb tablecloth made by me, plus some decorations on the shelf. Wasn't worth totally redecorating this room.
The piano:
The pirate collection. Leftovers from my Jonny Depp obsession days. Remember that sign you bought me as a "wedding gift", Alisse?
Front entry:
My personal favorite. I LOVE the candleholder. And yes, Seth does demand candy corn whenever he walks by.
As you can see, I have my standards. No spiderweb on any church pictures--that's pushing a bit too far for my taste. Family pictures, however, are free game for spiderwebbing.
I saved the best for last--the outside of our house:
The spiderwebs on the windows are a bit too overwhelming--next year I'll make them smaller. But other than that, I love how it turned out. (Those are little ghosts in the tree, in case you can't tell).
The front door says "Laciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'intrate." I'll let my Italian translator, Kristina, tell you what it means. I'll bet she's even talented enough to give you the reference.
I love Halloween.
I've been pretty proud of myself this year: I've finally finished off two projects that have been nagging at me for years.
Project #1: 72 Hour Kits
I've been worrying over this ever since we got married. Sure, it took me almost 4 years, but they're DONE. Okay, almost done. We're just short a few important documents, some gloves, and a Scout Handbook. 
Now let's just pray we never actually have to use them, considering I can barely pick mine up...
Project #2: Three Month Food Storage
This ended up being easier than the 72 hour kits, so it got done first. We still have to tweak things every once in awhile, but that's to be expected. 
Next on the list of things I stress about getting done? Long term food storage. It would help if I could figure out where the local cannery is, but I can't (help, anyone?).
Along the same lines, we also tried growing some food in pots on our deck (no room for a garden in a town home). 
My chives are thriving. I'm throwing chives away because we can't eat them all. The tomato plant spit out a decent amount of smallish tomatoes before it succumbed to the cold weather. Or the fungus plague it got because we had two straight weeks of rain right after we planted it. Either way, it's sitting on our deck with about 20 tomatoes on it that will never ripen. And I was really looking forward to them, too. Next year: two tomato plants and some PEAS. Yum, yum.
Now, some projects that are a bit lower on the over-arching priority list, but were high on our "things we should probably get done around the house" list.
First, BLINDS. Now our neighbors won't have to avert their gazes every time they walk onto their deck. I can't believe the people before us lived here three years with no privacy in their kitchen. 
(Jon putting up the blinds with the assistance of Seth)
And, thinking way in advance, we bought a bunk bed at Ikea for when Seth gets out of the crib. The bottom is a full size, so it doubles as a guest bed. And yes, it definitely takes up almost the entire room.
The baseball ceiling fan will be leaving soon. It's all yours, Sommer! Once we get that taken care of (and the blue bordering painted white), we'll have a little break from house projects until next summer. Hallelujah. Seth will be disappointed--he's been loving having all these power tools hanging around. 100% boy...
Saturday, October 10
All the youth in our stake were invited to a pumpkin patch near our house for a fall activity. Since I was required to participate, I figured I might as well bring Jon & Seth and call it a family outing.
We had a pretty good time. They had a corn maze, which was fun. Not $6 worth of fun, but the stake paid for it, so whatever. Jon, with all his cleverness, had us out of the maze in less than 20 minutes. Some of the youth wandered for an hour or more...
While we waited for the tractor to take us to the pumpkin patch we let Seth run in the little hay maze they had set up for kids. He had a blast, but he sure wasn't interested in doing anything besides running in circles.
We basically just let Seth run through the pumpkin patch. He's still too little to care about the pumpkins, so we didn't buy one there. Maybe next year. My Beehives had a great time chasing him around, and he loved whacking the pumpkins.
By the time we got back, it was getting pretty chilly (plus it was dinnertime). We grabbed a doughnut (okay, I took two) and left the youth to their chilly fireside.
Seth survived his 15 month check up yesterday. He barely cried when they gave him two shots in his thighs--he was more mad than anything.
Official Stats: 22 lbs, 4 oz. 31 inches. ( I can't remember what they said for his head circum.)
She was impressed with his vocabulary. He spent the entire session saying "Car. Crash. Car. Crash" over and over again. He even threw his cars at her a few times. (Does that count as a sentence? "Car crash"? How about, "Cheese, mmmm"?).
We did have one conversation that amused/upset me. Seth hates, hates, hates being confined. Examples include his carseat, the pew during sacrament meeting, and (occasionally) his stroller. So waiting in the tiny examination room for an hour? Not fun for Seth or Mom.
By the time the pediatrician actually came in, Seth was done. He was whining, arching his back, and clamoring at the door. At this point she said to me, "He's most likely starting in on the terrible twos a little early." Check. Already established that one.
But then there was this tidbit: "Has he ever bitten you?" Nope. Never. "Well, you should keep an eye on him. He seems like he might have the sort of temperament to bite other kids."
First, it was funny. Seth never even takes toys from other kids, let alone bites them. Then I thought about it, and I was kind of upset. She's categorizing my son as a bully after locking him in a tiny room for 40 minutes and observing him for 5? That hardly seems fair.
I'm not upset enough to switch doctors or anything, but still. Maybe when he goes in at 18 months I'll tell her we had to take him out of playgroup because he took off two fingers with one chomp.
We each spent Christmas with our own family. It was nice to have time to celebrate without constantly thinking about the wedding, but it was hard to be apart, especially since we hadn't seen each other since Thanksgiving.
My family and I made the final preparations for the wedding: collecting RSVPs, putting the flowers together, and taking my bridals. I think I missed Jon the most the day I went through the temple for the first time. It was a wonderful experience and I had a huge group of family members who came with me, but I missed him.
He flew in the day after Christmas and spent some time hanging out with me and my family. I wasn't stressed at all about the wedding, but I was stressed about meeting his parents for the first time. That's right--I met my in-laws the day before we got married.
December 27, 2005
Despite my worries, we ended up having a really good time. My parents drove Jon & me down to Salt Lake where we met up with Jon's parents, plus his siblings Daniel, Mary & Elizabeth and their spouses/fiance, Wendy, Scott & Kade (Elizabeth & Kade had just gotten engaged and Mom Blood spent the first few minutes after I met her telling me over and over again how big Elizabeth's diamond was). We all had lunch together in Salt Lake. It was nice--we spent a lot of the time laughing. I really love Jon's family.
To make things easier the next morning, we rented some hotel rooms in Salt Lake. My sisters and I, plus our cousin Amber (our official hairdresser) were all in one room. The girls thought it was great--they were having all kinds of fun for my 'bachelorette party'. I wasn't even there for most of it. I wasn't in the mood for too much craziness. I spent the evening with my parents and Jon.
After we took Jon back to his aunt's house, I came back to my parent's room. My dad gave me a beautiful blessing assuring me that everything would be okay. It's one of my favorite memories of our wedding.
December 28, 2005: Wedding Day
Contrary to all my expectations, I did manage to get a decent amount of sleep. We purposely chose an afternoon appointment (12:20pm) so that we wouldn't have to feel stressed trying to get everyone up and ready. Amber did a wonderful job on my hair and had enough time remaining to do Marah & Bethany's hair (and her own, of course).
My parents and I headed to the temple where we met up with Jon & Dad Blood. It was kind of awkward for both of us--that weird "not quite married, but really, really close" stage. We got all the paperwork settled and then went our separate directions to get ready.
Being with my mom in the Bride's Room was another of my favorite parts of the day. We had to be careful not to catch each others eyes in the mirror or we'd both tear up. Even though there were lots of other brides getting ready, too, I felt like it was a special time just for me and my mom.
It didn't take long to get ready. My dress fit just like it was supposed to, meaning that it was incredibly tight. I spent most of my time in a state of overheated asphyxiation. And my bustle broke, but it didn't bother me too much. I just had to carry my train the rest of the day.
My very favorite part of our wedding day was waiting with Jon in the Celestial Room while our friends and family were gathering in the sealing room. It was so nice to have a quiet moment to enjoy being together and think about what was about to happen. I never felt nervous--just very calm and happy.
I wish I could remember everything more clearly, but the day was a blur. I loved kneeling across the alter from Jon and knowing that I would get to be with my best friend forever. The ceremony was simple, but powerful and beautiful. I'm so glad so many of our friends and family could be there with us.
From the time we walked out of the temple together until our reception ended that night, we were constantly doing something. Pictures, then our luncheon, then a brief break before the reception. We barely had time to eat, and I have absolutely no memory of what our cake tasted like (but it looked amazing). It was crazy, but in a good way. Neither of us had anything to stress about--we just got to enjoy our day and visit with our friends and family.
It was an exhausting, but wonderful day. There's nothing I would have changed--everything was perfect.
You'd think 15 months would be too young for a kid to have a best friend, but you would be wrong. Seth has a best friend, and her name is Angelina.
Here she is drinking from Seth's sippy cup (Seth had hers, so it was a fair swap).
Seth is a very mellow, observant kid. Angelina is a fireball. Yesterday at church Jon watched her walk right up to a kid twice her age, grab his car right out of his hands, and run away. Since Seth is pretty content to let Angelina do whatever she wants, she's pretty good about not taking his toys. It's a strange balance, but it works.
Seth loves to be babied, at least when it comes to food. He'll feed himself, but he prefers that we put the food directly into his mouth. Like a baby bird. We used to have to hold up his sippy cups for him, too, but now that he's discovered straws we're off the hook.
These two are clever. And sneaky. While Debbie and I were chatting, they snuck into the kitchen and were quietly munching away on the poppyseed muffins they stole. They make a great team.
(No, I am NOT wearing makeup)
I just stumbled across this quote and couldn't stop laughing. I knew there was a good reason I love Barbara Kingsolver...
