HAPPINESS IS...

...your first time seeing a movie on the big screen!

Inside Out was darling.  And Brinlee loving it was even more darling.  

Even though she spent the entire movie not quite getting the concept of whispering  :)

And McKenna slept, the whole time!  

Perfect family outing.

A Little Halloween-ing

How in the world did Halloween come and go again?  I feel like we were just doing this!  This year rolled by fast.

As I think I mentioned, October was a little wild for us.  It's kind of a miracle anything even happened for Halloween.  But happen it did.  And, I even found myself actually enjoying it this year!  Brinlee was our family's Halloween Coordinator, and she was totally into it.  She decided on costumes for everyone, picked Jack-O-Lantern faces, chose the dinner menu, and helped with the house decorations.  And she did an awesome job!  This holiday is way more lovable when you have a darling 3-year-old taking charge. 

Pumpkin carving this year was up to us ladies.  I wasn't very excited about that.  But it turned out alright.  I tried to get Brinlee to help gut pumpkins... but when she kept wanting her hands completely washed after every handful, I decided it would be easier to just do that part myself.  She did get into the cutting part though and designed us some faces that, I think, turned out pretty dang cute!  Thank goodness she only wanted simple ones  :)

Dinner was a general success.  Meet Scout the Skeleton!

And our meatball mice and ghost potatoes.

Brinlee went the rounds with the costume theme, but finally decided on Peter Pan (her current favorite movie).  We had a Peter Pan, a Princess Tiger Lily, a crocodile, and a pirate.  We couldn't technically have a Captain Hook, because "he's too scary, and daddy isn't mean".  

Let's get a closer look here shall we?

McKenna was actually terrified of Tim.  He came down the stairs in his outfit, and we have never heard her scream like that!  

But seriously.  Is she not the dang cutest little crocodile you've ever seen?!  I've said it before and I'll say it again, babies in costumes are the best!

The best view was definitely the butt view.  When she was crawling was when that costume really dazzled.

You would not believe how in love with this costume Brinlee is.  She has worn it every day since she got her hands on it, and I have a feeling it will be her outfit choice for a while longer.  And who can blame her really, she looks darling in it!

They had a little Halloween party at Joy School and invited the parents to a costume parade/recital where they sang for us some Halloween songs.  It was pretty precious.

Overall not a bad Halloween.  And it was fun!  Brinlee really has a knack for this, I'm genuinely excited to see what comes out next year  :) 

Love these Halloween babies.

Oh Baby

I hosted a baby shower a couple weekends ago.  My good friend (who also happens to be our cute neighbor) is expecting a little girl in December, so a couple of the gals from the ward and I put together a little shower for her.  This was a first for me!  And I actually didn't do a ton of work... just mostly made sure my house was clean. But it was fun, and turned out pretty good I think! 

Nurse's Note: Oh, So That's Croup

There's a tree on our street that always seems to get into the Autumn Spirit early, and I don't blame it.  It's quite the actress (of course it's a girl!) and really puts on quite a show!  Just a couple days into October we saw the first hint of yellow in its leaves, and for the last few weeks we've watched it change from yellow, to orange, to red.  In fact, all of Ohio has become something like a painting.  It's really been just dreamy!

On a less dreamy note, I guess Fall decided it didn't want to come without a buddy.  That's kind of lonely.  So along with all the dazzling colors, this year the first week of October brought us some Croup!

It was terrible.

Tim actually diagnosed the girls.  The smarty pants.  He had just finished learning about croup.  And I actually remembered a few random things about it and had seen some croupy kids during my crash-course in pediatrics way back in nursing school. So we kind of had an idea of what was coming. We knew it was viral, knew it was miserable, knew a few basic treatment tips that might help a little, but knew that we were mostly going to have to tough it out.  Sometimes it does help to know a little, so I thought we were pretty prepared.  Bring on the bad nights, high fevers, and sick, sad babies, we are ready! Right?

Wrong!   

I sure did not realize that croup could be so bad!  It was rough!

Both girls got it, but McKenna got it first and had it the worst.  On her Croup night #2 she spiked some pretty scary fevers and ended up spending some time in the emergency room.  Well two emergency rooms actually.  She didn't turn around like they thought she would at the first hospital, so the little sweetie got an ambulance ride to the Children's hospital and spent a few hours there too.  Poor thing.  Not our best night.

Brinlee started in with her round of it the very next night.  And from there, they spent a good solid week in and out of fevers, coughing like crazy, sitting up at night next to open windows, trying to choke down fluids over a raw, scratchy throat, soaking in hot baths, and crying... a lot.  It's enough to break a poor mama's heart! 

These babies really were troopers though.  They both completely lost their little voices, and were obviously about as miserable and exhausted as two little people can be.  But they stayed just as sweet as ever and toughed it out like champions.  They are so awesome.

Once things had settled some, I did feel a little sheepish for getting so frazzled.  A hospital visit?  Hmm.  I mean, we do have a decent medical background, and it was "just croup"... but I didn't feel sheepish for long.  As it turns out Croup is a bummer of a bug! And apparently not as textbook as we thought.  We were glad we decided to go with our gut on this one.  I just hope that we can say this was our lesson in Croup, and we can now log it away for safe keeping and never re-visit it again, ever.  I don't think that's too much to ask, do you?

Here's hoping!

Enjoying Joy School

Our house has been waking up a little early lately.  

Well, at least what I would consider early.  Tim's always up before the sun, so that's nothing new.  But us ladies don't have to function that early.  If I had my way, a day would never start before 9:00... maybe 8:00, if you slept fantastically and felt awesome!  But the girls have been trying to get up by 6:00.  That's just rough!

Most days we can get McKenna back to sleep and I can convince Brinlee to doze off with me for a while longer in our bed before the day has to really get going.  But a few weeks ago I woke up hearing Brinlee dancing her way down the stairs. I looked at the clock, 6:15. Boo.  So I grabbed my glasses and stumbled down the stairs to find her sitting patiently on the couch in the dark, and this sitting out on the kitchen table.

When she saw me she said "Hey mom, can I be awake?  I have breakfast ready, and I'm so excited for Joy School today!"

Yes, the excitement hasn't faded.  She is still loving Joy School!  She goes twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, and it's all she can do to get through the boring regular days in between. It's really cute to watch.
Back at the end of September we took our first turn hosting school at our house, and we had round #2 just a couple weeks ago.  I know it's weird, but I have been ridiculously giddy about teaching Joy School.  It brings back so many good memories of me sitting with my own little friends in our living room watching my own fabulous mama teach.  Maybe it's not the most school-ish, but I couldn't help snapping a picture or two.  They are so cute!  And this is so much fun!!  Yay for Joy School  :)

Take That October

Well, now that it's been an entire month I suppose it's probably time to go ahead and get some new notes up here...

...sheesh

October came in a blaze of hectic glory.  

I don't know why, but this month was kind of a frazzled blur that we're still trying to recover from.  It was frustrating.  I felt like we were SO busy, and yet really got nothing done.  Sigh.

For my own sanity, I'm really hoping November is a little calmer.  

But we do have updates.  They are now kind of out of date updates, but updates nonetheless.  

At times like these I usually default to a mega post packed with tons of pictures and abbreviated notes about our lives, which I generally feel good about.  But not today!  

This month hasn't completely bested me yet.  Even if they are super late, I'm determined to still give all the recent happenings the individual press time they deserve.  So gear up, because here comes our month!  

Take that October!