Trick or Treat

It is our first Halloween in the neighborhood and it is 7:00 and we have run out of candy. We were visited by a whole host of characters ranging from Hannah Montana, Raggedy Ann and Andy, a kid who was dressed like Spiderman but when asked who he had dressed up as he stated his name, and a friar pushing the devil in a stroller, among others. We had a good time and will be better prepared for the after-7 crowd next year.

Funny stories from our childhoods:
When Dave was little, he called jack-o-lanterns "jack-o-leens."
When Amelia was little, she was scared of jack-o-lanterns and her mom made up a song to sing whenever you were scared by a pumpkin. It went "Hey Mr. Jack-o-lantern / peaking out the window / We are coming / to spy on you." The funniest part is that Amelia did not know this was not a widely accepted way to deal with pumpkin fear until only a few years ago when she learned that no one else knew that song.

Here are pictures of our pumpkin turned jack-o-leen. You also get a couple glimpses of how big Joshua is getting too.


Before:


After:

Painting Party

There are many things about being pregnant and preparing for a baby that feel overwhelming. For me, one of those things was trying to figure out how to "decorate" the nursery. As you all know, Dave and I are not people who have strong opinions about such things which translates to indifference when it comes to decision making time.

After much looking around and searching, I decided we would do our own thing. The result...the room will stay that same color as the rest of the house, my sweet mom has made a beautiful bumper (all white blocks of different textured materials) and is working on the bed skirt, and to adorn the walls and bring in some color, original art work by various members of Joshua's family.

Dave's parents were here a few weekends ago and his mom painted wooden initials for his room. Then last weekend, my mom, sisters, aunt and grandmother had a painting party Friday night and painted canvases to hang on the wall. The rules for the party were: 1) paint whatever you want on the canvas; 2) it doesn't need to be perfect; 3) no stressing over what your finished product looks like.

Of course all the paintings turn out wonderfully. We have several more canvases to be painted by the boys in the family at a later date. Once they are all done, we will hang them up around Joshua's room. It really was a fun project and I am excited to decorate the room with things made especially for Joshua by people who love him.

Here are pictures of the process and the finished products.

Dave's mom working on the initials:


The finished product:


Aunt Glo and Aunt B painting:


The painters hard at work:


Finished products:

Another Work Funny

I promise to post some pictures from the recent baby shower and painting party. But this post must be devoted to a hilarious comment made by one of my patients this week.

Let me build the scene: Mr. "C" lives next door to his granddaughter who I am pretty convinced is addicted to meth and breeds pit bulls, rottweilers, and chihuahuas and in her spare time checks on him and brings him food throughout the day.

I visited Mr. "C" on Monday. He gave the usual answers to the usual questions. But then started telling me about his weekend. He reported that he thought his granddaughter was going to die this past weekend because her heart had stopped beating. Stunned, I asked what happened. He stated, "I don't know. Her heart stopped beating and some man, who happened to be at her house, performed that artificial.. (pause for thinking) artificial.. (pause for thinking again) artificial insemination and got her heart beating again." Stifling laughter, I asked him to tell me again what happened. "Oh" he starts again, "her heart stopped beating and the artificial insemination got it working again. Then the had to do p-c-r because she was inhydramationed. After that they took her to the hospital and she got an iv and is doing better now."

I tried to look as concerned as I could while at the same time trying not to laugh and trying to decipher what in the world he was talking about. We still don't know exactly what went on this weekend. But I did see his granddaughter pulling out of the driveway a few minutes later and she didn't look "inhydramationed" anymore...thank goodness!