Happy Halloween!

The idea for this year's Halloween costumes began as a tiny seed exactly one year ago and has been sprouting ever so slowly for 364 days in the fertile soil of my brain. Not everything went exactly according to plan. For example, I envisioned David being "bald" and found what looked to be the perfect product:

But then David put it on and exclaimed, "I don't look bald AT ALL!!!" Talk about false advertising:

So we abandoned that detail, but managed to pull off the rest including forearms bulging with "muscle," a can of spinach, and a pipe (aka scoop from baby formula):

So thanks to my mom's willingness to give me telephone tutorials on how to make ruffles and operate my sewing machine, and an extremely indulgent husband, I present to you Popeye...

...Olive Oyl...

and the ever so sweet Sweet Pea.....

A Popeye family portrait:

After a great night of trunk-or-treating at the church, Sweet Pea was all tuckered out!

But David managed to stay in character all the way home:

With so much effort devoted to our church activity the night before Halloween (which won us the1st place prize for Most Creative, I'll have you know!) by Halloween night neither David nor I had the gumption to dress up again. However, we didn't want to rob Caleb of the chance to go door to door (translation: we wanted candy) so we borrowed a costume from a friend (thanks Katie!) and headed out for Halloween pillaging.

Here's our little guy BEFORE the pillaging (not too thrilled about being dressed up in a ridiculous, movement hindering costume):

But here he is AFTER the pillaging (starting to realize the benefits of wearing a ridiculous, movement hindering costume):

Mamma's little Tigger!

Now...what to be next year..........?????

Getting back on the horse

As my astute older sister declared in a recent phone conversation, "Girl, you've fallen off the blogging horse!" Fallen I have, but I am attempting to remount the horse and hope I don't end up with saddle sores!

Our baby boy is becoming more of a man every day even if the pediatrician's growth charts don't show it. His new-found hobbies include:

***looking out the window to
a)watch the incessant rain drops
b)scare the deer that roam our backyard forest so they don't poop all over the grass
c)wave to cars that drive by our house and then not take it personally when they don't wave back.


***taking notes as we watch General Conference


***pushing buttons which includes remote controls, cell phones, TVs and best of all...DVD players. It took about 2 minutes of exploring the player to figure out which button gave him the most bang for his buck.


***"Reading" copious amounts of books.


At least once during the day he crawls over to his book box and spends in excess of 20 minutes looking at his favorite books. It's the best. A few minutes into this morning's reading session, he crawled over to where I was working on the computer and I saw this:


As we all know, when there's curdled milk on a baby's chin, there's a big mess somewhere else. But where could it be? Tile floor...clear, computer keyboard...clear, Gossie & Gertie book...NOT clear.

Poor Gossie got totally slimed by puke. Thank goodness for board books which can be easily cleaned with Clorox wipes!

Maybe I haven't forgotten how to ride this horse.

Where to begin???

Hello, out there to all those who have not yet deleted me from your Google Reader accounts!!! It's been so long I'm not even sure where to begin playing catch-up. How about with a recap of our adventures during July/August?

Caleb and I were quite the traveling duo driving to Dallas then flying to California, Nevada and Utah. Before sharing the highlights from each of those trips, I must first say thank you to the person who made this whole trip possible: the inventor of the bungee cord! Because of you, bungee cord inventor person, I was able to single-handedly trek through six different airports with the following gear in tow: 1 pack-n-play, one gigantic 49.9 pound suitcase, 1 infant car seat, 1 jogging stroller, 1 diaper bag, 1 adorable 8 month-old. And it was all made possible by you, bungee cord inventor person!


OK, now on to the highlights...

CALIFORNIA
We had an awesome visit with friends from our Stanford days including Howard and Helen...

...Clarence...

...and the Dements who were SO hospitable...THANK YOU!!!


NEVADA

Next, it was on to Reno for the Ludlow family reunion where Caleb touched sand for the first time...

...was stroller buddies with his cousin Trystan...

...chilled on the beach at Tahoe with his cousin Ellie...

...used Uncle Dan as a substitute for daddy...

...and had his first taste of black licorice from Grandpa Ludlow!


UTAH

Highlights in UT included a visit with great-grandma Costley (here's our 4 generation photo)...

...being reunited with David for a few days (pictured here with Uncle Joey and cousin Luke, with a guest appearance by cousin Ryan)

...being mascot for the "red" team at the Lynch family reunion

...convincing cousin Donovan that he should be Caleb's body guard once he can hold his head up and control his limbs (he's 6 months younger, but longer and nearly as heavy as Caleb)

...getting "kissy sandwiches" from mommy and Aunt Ali.


DALLAS

We finished off our travels with a few days taking care of the Costley cousins in Dallas where Caleb was showered with attention (and given an infinite number of rides in the pink and purple Jeep)


If those travel details weren't sufficient, Caleb will enumerate our adventures in his own words in the following video clip:

Red, White, and Blue

The first week of July offered new experiences with the red, white, and blue...

RED:

the color of my face after running my first post-pregnancy 5K. Turns out July is NOT the best month to run a race in downtown Shreveport...who knew??? I ran with friends from our ward and we were quite the site with three adults pushing three kids in three strollers. I felt like Andre the Giant in Princess Bride: Evwybody MOVE!!!

Judd & Brooke, Me & Caleb, Amy & Rylan

WHITE:

The color of David's official 2nd year doctor's coat complete with personalized embroidery. When you're a first year, they don't waste money having your name embroidered on your coat since the mortality rate is so high. Now I guess he's worth the extra $2:)

BLUE:

The color of the berries we picked in the mid-day sun from Shuqualak Farms (pronounced "sugar lock").

I had never picked blueberries before and learned a couple valuable lessons after our first time:

1)a fancy holster on which to clip your bucket works better than orange twine wrapped around your waist (that's what we used when picking raspberries in the summer as kids). As the orchard owner said in reference to the holster, "That there'll turn you right inta a TWO handed picka!" And that it DID.

2)at mid-day in Louisiana in July it's near impossible to keep yourself from overheating while picking blueberries and 7 month old babies don't appreciate being dragged along for the adventure...until they get their first taste of a blueberry popsicle which makes everything better.

Our attempt to cool Caleb off (note the battery-operated fan attached to the stroller canopy...also note the great scarecrow in the background:)

On a more serious note, we have made friends with many people who are stationed at the air force base here and our appreciation for all those who sacrifice for our freedom has increased tremendously. Thank you for protecting our red, white, and blue!

If you can't take the heat...

...you shouldn't have moved to Louisiana! That's what I tell myself each day I hear the weather man tell me that the 7-day forecast consists of heat, more heat, and the worst possible heat with a high probability of heat stroke and 100% chance of increasing your electric bill by 200%. On the plus side: at least this summer I'm not pregnant:)

We took Caleb for his first dip in the pool and he was brimming with enthusiasm (you just have to know how to interpret his poker face:)

Then we found this awesome blow-up pool for the backyard and David got creative with our balloon pump.

I think the ability for boys to imagine anything can be a gun must be innate because I certainly didn't teach my boy how to lock and load.

A dry run with the pool (pun intended)

Then it was out in the heat.

not so sure

not so bad

ooo, so nice!

Other ways to beat the heat include bumping our morning jog up from 9am (when it's 95 degrees) to 7am (when it's a mere 90 degrees)

and having the Dallas cousins push you around their nicely air-conditioned house in a walker that suspends your feet several inches above the ground. Thanks, girls!

That's it for now, gotta go have a popsicle!