Catching up...and a confession

Let's start with the confession first. A lot of people take a look at our life and assume we've got it all together. Full-time jobs, three kids, mostly clean house (or so it seems in pictures), crafts and activities, volunteering, and the list goes on and on. Well, we don't actually have it all together. With both of us working full-time and still making time for our three kids, well, some things have to slide. So yeah, the laundry is constantly piling up and we often go to bed with toys still strewn about the playroom...and sometimes the living room. And yeah, it DRIVES ME CRAZY, but I think it makes me even more crazy running around trying to do it all. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't judge the life by the picture. Our house may seem put together in pictures, but it's likely I just threw some of the toys and mess over to the side to get a clean pic. Tricky tricky.

On to catching up. Life got crazy busy since Stasa started kindergarten. Tom and I have been trying to volunteer when we can, which only helps fill up our already full calendars. I also somehow found myself not only signing Stasa up for Girl Scouts, but myself as a leader. WHY? Because I'm crazy. But really it's been okay so far - I have two other moms helping and we only meet once a month. It's manageable for now. We'll see how I feel by the end of the school year.

Now that we're thisclose to Thanksgiving and then rolling into Christmas, I thought it made sense to actually share everything else that's happened between the first day of school and now.

Right after school started we took off for a Labor Day camping trip with family at The Cove. I think I may have spent the majority of my time walking back and forth to the bathrooms with both girls. I so love these camp grounds, especially the fact that there's a small lake beach.




Funny thing about that bathing suit I'm wearing. We packed what felt like our entire house to go on this camping trip with the kids. Every time we try to whittle down the pile, but with five of us there seems to be so many things we need. It wasn't until we drove all the way there, set up camp, and started getting the kids ready for the beach that I realized I forgot our bathing suits. Good grief. Since Tom wanted to chop firewood for later, I packed the kids up and drove 45 minutes into town to the closest Wal-Mart in the hopes of finding something for me and Tom. We hit the jackpot. The girls picked out Tom's new trunks, which featured the Dude from the Big Lebowsky. It was that or trunks with an eagle and flames. The girls couldn't stop laughing at the dude. So the dude it was. My options, however, were pretty slim. I finally found a top and bottom that sort of went together. We grabbed our stuff, paid, and hightailed it back to camp, where we changed into our suits only to find that the top I bought was waaaaaay too busty for me. Good thing I brought a bunch of sports bras. We had a great time with the kids and family and can't wait to go back next year!




On to...regular days hanging around the house.








Then between huge work events we had Halloween. I barely got the kids costumes together before the trunk-or-treat at Stasa's school. This was our first trunk-or-treat and Tom was going all out with decorations, which I thought was a bit much for a school thing, but I couldn't have been more wrong. People went waaaaaaaay all out. When the deuce and a half rolled up next to us with a big screen and fog machine I turned to Tom and said "not enough." Next year we'll have to amp it up even more.





And then again between even more work events we wound up in the hospital with Tommy. It started with what looked to be a bug bite which then got infected and drained, but then got worse. We had started taking him to the doctor on a daily basis for meds and monitoring and then ended up taking him to the ER one night after his fever spiked. And thank goodness we did because the infection was serious. They admitted us and put him on a few different IV antibiotics for four days. We were finally discharged, he finished all of his meds and is just now getting back to a normal routine (and diaper changing schedule). We didn't tell a lot of people that we were in the hospital since news was changing every day and we really couldn't have visitors. Tommy was in pretty good spirits for the majority of our hospital stay as long as no one was touching him or his IV.




That brings us to this past weekend, where Stasa was the lucky duck of the week and got to bring home the class mascot, Brown Bear. We had already gotten an earful on what everyone else had done with Brown Bear, which included bounce houses, play places, exciting (and expensive) outings. Well, we showed Brown Bear a GOOD TIME. First stop: the spa (aka our washing machine). Then he met a bunch of our bear friends, learned the fine art of mancala (and got his butt kicked), played dress up, went to dance class, the mall, Cracker Barrel and dinner with Grandma. Basically went and did whatever we already had on our schedule. And Brown Bear LOVED all of it. At the end of the weekend Stasa put together a poster about all of the fun she and Brown Bear had together. And since she got Brown Bear she also got to share her poster with the class, be the line leader for the week AND bring up the gifts at school mass.






And that about catches us up...for the most part...there are still a lot of things missing, but that's life, right?

Happy Halloween!

I still can not believe how October flew by and it was apparent that the month got away from us on Wednesday night when we were making a late night run to the pumpkin patch so we could carve jack-o-lanterns. Thankfully the kids didn't care that we were so delayed in carving pumpkins and happily picked out their perfect pumpkin and face they wanted carved into it. Stasa was really helpful in cleaning them out and Lexi tried, she really really tried, but was picking out one seed at a time. LOL

Tom had decorated the yard the weekend before, so after we finished carving our pumpkins, we nestled them among the graveyard that is our front yard and they looked fantastic!

The girls woke up yesterday so excited for Halloween - dressing up at school, the candy, dressing up at home, the candy, a school parade, CANDY, CANDY, CANDY. LOL Eyes on the prize. When I came downstairs to leave for work I found Stasa inhaling the scent from the candy bag. ::deep sniff:: This ::sniff:: smells ::sniff:: SO. GOOD. ::sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiff::

When Tom and I showed up for the school parade, the teachers were still getting the kids dressed in their costumes and trying to keep them somewhat calm. Lexi was literally vibrating with excitement. Her little body just couldn't stand all of the excitement and had to release all of her energy in the form of jumping and shaking. The kids were crazed. Half of them were overly excited and jumping and the other half were wailing and melting down.


Tommy was ADORABLE in his sailor suit.



After the parade we grabbed the kids and got away from the madness. The girls were already dying to tear into their candy bags, and we let them have a few pieces while we got dinner ready and them in their costumes.



We wound up both taking all three kids around the cul-de-sac, then Tom and the girls walked over to our favorite trick-or-treating neighborhood while I packed Tommy up in the car to drive over since it was threatening rain. Well, the minute I got in the car it started raining so I brought Tom and the girls umbrellas and then followed them along in the car since Tommy was in and out of sleep and I wanted to be able to pack the kids in if it really started pouring. They managed to get through a few streets before the girls started getting tired. Lexi finally announced that she was done and we packed it in - they had more than enough candy for their age anyway. We got home and they dumped their bags and immediately started sorting through their goodies. We let them have some candy before calling it a night, brushing teeth, and tucking them in bed.

Yesterday Lexi looked at me and said, "Mommy, you know what's after Halloween?" I asked her what was next, she smiled and said "CHRISTMAS!" HAHA

Happy Halloween!

I love how with each year each holiday becomes more special with the kids. Stasa's really getting it and I love the anticipation that builds as each day passes. She's been so excited about Halloween and took forever just to pick her costume. She finally settled on Ariel, the Little Mermaid. No shock there really since that's her favorite Disney movie right now. Well, that and Monsters, Inc., but Sully and Mike weren't attractive costumes to her. Lexi was just excited because Stasa was excited. And now I can not wait for Christmas. Imagine that build up. AHHHH! It's going to be so much fun every year.

So. Back to Halloween. We started off a bit late with the decorations this year because we've just been so busy on the weekends and the weekends we had time it was gloomy and wet out. We finally decorated right before the hurricane only to bring everything back in, then put everything out again before we went out trick-or-treating. Talk about last minute, but it looks GOOD. I still need to go out and snap a few shots before we break it down. The girls even helped put some stuff out this year and had fun playing with the heads and rats.

We woke up last Saturday and Stasa asked for her face to be painted before we started with pumpkin carving. Easy request to fill and I turned her into a beautiful butterfly.


Then after breakfast we got started on carving up all of our pumpkins. We got Stasa started on cleaning out her pumpkin and baby's pumpkin. She surprised us with how well she cleaned them out and how patient she was making sure all of "the nuts" were out of both pumpkins.


Lexi saw what Stasa was doing and wanted in on the action. She climbed up in her seat and buckled herself in. I opened up her pumpkin and scraped all of the sides so all she had to do was pull the guts out. She stuck her hand in and immediately pulled it out, disgusted and scared. And then burst into tears.


She spent the rest of the pumpkin carving time like this.


Much happier.

Our pumpkins turned out looking good. Stasa requested a rainbow and butterfly on hers (well, honestly she requested Ariel, but didn't like my drawing so we scrapped that). Lexi kept yelling ELMO! so I went with that and didn't butcher his image too badly. And Tom and I stuck with traditional pumpkin faces for ours and new baby's.

Tom, Stasa, Lexi, new baby, mine


Lexi, Stasa, Tom, new baby, mine

I didn't get fantastic costume shots this year because we ended up rushing to get the girls fed and dressed and ready. By the time we got outside for pictures it was getting dark and I think most of my shots came out underexposed and grainy. I'll upload them later and add them to the post - at the very least I did do the unthinkable and got a couple with the on board flash because at the end of the day I just wanted to capture them. All that said, here's my grainy iPhone pic of Ariel and Elmo:


And here are the little trick-or-treaters with Daddy. Stasa remembered the drill from last year and had fun yelling out TRICK-OR-TREAT! but she did need a little reminding about saying thank you. She was so excited about showing us her candy she would forget her manners. Lexi was apprehensive at first, but after the first house it was like a light bulb went off and she thought "Candy for knocking on a door? I'm IN!" 


We hope everyone else had a fun Halloween!

Baby bats!

It is Halloween! HALLOWEEN!

The Princess and The Bat


Cheeseball forgot she was supposed to be a princess, but I suppose a princess can smile however she wants.


Chubby cheeks


We managed to get about an hour of trick-or-treating in before Stasa announced "I'm excited to go home now!"




And our little bat fell asleep about 5 minutes after we started.


Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

It's not even Halloween yet...

...so why do we need to dress like this?


Oh, right. Because we woke up to freezing rain with a side of snowy slush. I guess Trick-or-Treating at the Reston Town Center isn't going to happen this afternoon.

We're ready for Halloween