First "Real" Halloween

Last year at Halloween Elijah was only 2 months old, so needless to say we didn't do much of anything. I bought him a giraffe costume, he wore it for about 30 minutes at our house and we handed out candy to neighborhood kids.
This year, I was determined to make his own costume, for two reason. One, I wanted it to be cheaper than a store-bought costume. Two, I wanted it to be original. As you can tell from the pictures, he was a skunk. The cost thing didn't work out like I expected. It was a simple costume, but it still turned out to be about twice as much as something bought at a store. But, the idea was that he would have a new black sweat shirt and pants that would last him through the rest of the fall and winter, thus justifying the cost. I was determined to make that stripe stick while still salvaging the sweatshirt, but I was not successful. So, he has a pair of pants to wear throughout the winter, but as far as wearing the hooded jacket, he now has a permanant skunk jacket.
My second reason for wanting to make the costume instead of buying was to be original. That was successful. I never saw one other skunk all night long, and only a couple of people mistakenly thought he was a cat. But those few people also thought he was a girl.
So, Halloween was much more fun this year. We went to the outside festival set up at our church where Elijah played a lot of games that involved throwing balls into buckets, and won a lot of candy for his parents!

Thoughtful Gavin

I just wanted to brag for a minute about my wonderful husband. Several weeks ago he received his annual pay raise at work. And a couple of days later I received some beautiful flowers at my door. The note with them just said that I was his partner in everything, even the work that he does at his job. Very sweet.

I realized I don't have any pictures of my little buddy and me on my blog, so I went looking for some and this is the most recent I could find! Pretty sad since this picture is 8 months old! Someone needs to take more pictures of us. This was hiking in Gorum, La when we visited Grandma.

Second Pregnancy Phenomena

I've discovered a couple of interesting things with this second pregnancy. First is the whole idea that you're not supposed to be lifting anything too heavy while pregnant. Since I am a stay-at-home mom of a 14-month old that's not walking yet, all I ever do is pick up and put down 25 pounds of baby, all day long. So, it just boggles my mind when someone notices that I'm carrying a plate, a little tv, a broom, a glass of water, etc. and they insist that I let them take it because I'm pregnant. But, when they see me bending over and picking up my heavy little boy, there's no offer what-so-ever to help me out. Interesting.
The second thing I've noticed is that I forget I'm pregnant with this one. I'm so consumed with Elijah all day long, that I don't have time to obsess about this new baby. I remember with my first pregnancy all I ever did was think about it, wonder what was coming next, worry that I was doing everything right to be healthy, and get impatient that I had to wait so long to meet this baby. Now I don't think about any of that stuff unless someone specifically asks me about it, or I have a doctor's appointment. For example, yesterday someone asked me how far along I was and I told them 12 weeks. Then I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon only to find out that I am actually 14 weeks along. Somewhere in the last month, I stopped counting and lost two weeks. But, it's probably a blessing since I stressed out so much over my first pregnancy. I'm obviously much more relaxed this time!