It's November and after that is December...

I decided to run the Remembering Together Ornament Swap again this year. If you are interested in making a Holiday ornament for a fellow bereaved parent, please check out the swap blog for information.

52 Weeks: Week 44

Halloween with kids means lots of pictures and lots of happiness. Except when you say, "no more candy", then the happiness evapourates.

We did the fastest pumpkin carving we have ever done this year. We let D design the jack o' laterns and it went fast. Normally D.G. does a couple of elaborate designs that take 3 hours each to complete. C.S. wasn't interested in touching the gooey stuff at all. She stuck with colouring the newspaper we put down to contain the mess.

Here are the finished pumpkins with our lion. I was very happy that C.S. decided to like being a lion so that I didn't have to come up with a costume for her. She really got into roaring.

I am super proud of D's Winnie the Witch costume. All the clothes were upcycled from thrift shop purchases, except the cardigan which didn't have to be altered. The stripy leggings turned out perfectly. (Thank you crafty mommy blogger types!) The materials for the hat cost as much as the rest of the outfit combined, but it came out great and had a built-in wig. No the best picture of her, but it's the best picture for showing her whole costume.

I think the hat will get a lot of use in the future. The hat is almost as tall as our "Mini Winnie". She wore it to hand out candy with D.G. while I took D out trick or treating.

The last  bit of happiness is horribly cliched for a SAHM, but I bought a new vacuum this weekend and I love it!

52 Weeks: Week 43

Week 43 was spent trying to finish D's Halloween costume so there aren't many pictures that aren't more appropriate for Week 44.  I am happy that I got it finished in plenty of time and that no major disasters happened after it was ready. (I was put on bedrest with C.S. the day after I finished D's Tinkerbell costume 2 years ago.)

I am really happy that we have playgroups to go to in our neighborhood.  I lost touch with most of my mom friends that I met with D was a baby because they all had their 2nd babies around the same time that Reid died. That also means that they don't have kids the same age as C.S. so I need playgroups so that the poor girl can see kids her own age once in a while. Of course she may just spend part of the time at playgroup hiding, but that's alright too.

I was also happy that we got a nice outside day that Saturday to spend outside. All the yard work got done before it snowed on Sunday and the girls spent an hour and a half in the leaf pile.

52 Weeks: Week 42

Week 42 meant an extra day off from school and a road trip for my niece's baptism. All done with a nasty head cold so I again did not take enough pictures and the ones I did take feature people who have not consented to be displayed here. However, I got the proofs from our family photo shoot back so I can fill the space with these.

52 Weeks: Week 41

Things that made me happy in Week 41:

I made and canned a small batch of homemade salsa using garden tomatoes (mine and my neighbors combined). I neglected to take a picture of the finished product before I put most of it away but it is both pretty and tasty, although not spicy as I am a wimp when it comes to spicy food.

I baked a fabulous caramel apple pie for Thanksgiving dinner with my parents. (Again using apples from my neighbor). Both making it and eating it made me happy.

D.G. tried to get some fall yard work done, but ended up mostly providing entertainment for the girls. They loved the pile of leaves so he just kept raking it back up for them.

And since I can't have my son here for Thanksgiving, I'm going to at least have his flowers with me.

52 Weeks: Week 40

I don't know exactly what happened during Week 40. C.S. was sick and had the yucky rivers of snot thing going on for 4 days. The only pictures I took all week were selfies for trying to determine what to wear for our annual family photo shoot and a few featuring a very naked C.S. that I don't want to share in order to save my future relationship with her. We did do the family photos, so there will be pictures from that eventually.

(Just remembered that trying to figure out what to wear for the pictures ate up most of that week. I hate trying to be my own stylist and should have turned it over my blog readers like Angela does.)

D.G. and I also celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary that week. We even went out for a proper date and had a lovely meal where no one threw food on the floor or needed us to cut their meat.