Halloween!

This year I got into the Halloween-spirit and decorated for the first time. I didn't go crazy, all-out, but I thought the house looked really cute and inviting. Now I have the beginnings of a collection of decorations that I can slowly add to in the upcoming years.

Most of the decor I just went out and bought, but I did get a wee-bit crafty and made my own set of ghosts inspired by some ridiculously priced ghosts that I saw on Pottery Barn Kids (they were charging $52.00 for a set of 3!). I think that they turned out pretty cute and not far off point. Oh, and I made the set of 5 for about $15.00. I know what you're thinking, I'm a regular Martha.

Ghosts from PBK

I'm looking at these pictures and they really don't do the ghosts justice. I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that they turned out pretty cute. Not that I'm biased or anything. Here are a couple shots of the front of the house.

Maybe next year I'll step up my game and enter the Spooktacular Spectacular. Watch out, Mostess, I'm coming for you!

Yo and I got spoiled this year with invites to a couple of adult-Halloween parties. The Jacobs hosted a heroes vs. villains costume party. Yo wore his signature chicken costume and I went with my old standby, the pirate.

Don't ask me how these costumes fit into the theme, I was actually just proud of myself for dressing up at all. Word to the wise, Kaari, I'm probably coming as a pirate again next year, or a chicken. Just saying.

Some of our friends (ok, all of them) did a better job about getting into the theme.

Overachievers!

Luckily the next party that I attended did not require a costume. But it did put my pumpkin carving skills to test. My friend Rhonda and I knew our carving skills were lacking so we came with a strategy. One trip to the dollar store and $4.00 later, we managed to make a pretty cute pirate-pumpkin. If only someone had told us that we were required to carve a pumpkin based on the adjective that we drew. Luckily "stoned" (thanks a lot, Carters!) was not so far off from pirate. So we improvised and gave our pirate a joint and bloodshot eyes, but there was no way we were dropping the pirate gimmick altogether. We didn't win any prizes for our pumpkin (bunch of haters claimed we cheated) but I was pretty pleased with the result.

So Rhonda and I knew that when it came to the "Feats of Strength" we really had to step our game. How do feats of strength tie into Halloween you ask? I don't know, but I found out that I'm scary strong...more on that later.
 
By the un-luck of the draw Rhonda and I ended up having to go head-to-head in round 1 of the woman's arm wrestling bracket so by default one of us had to get eliminated. I won by a narrow margin, but bad luck struck twice and I had to go against, Candace "muscles" Ashby round 2 and didn't stand a chance. 

Kaari kindly edited her pictures because apparently my face looks kind of intense (i.e. scary) when I arm wrestle, but I snagged a few gems from Kaari's blog of some of our other competitors in the fits of battle. The guys got way into it. These two hooligans almost ripped the Carter's kitchen island off.

With my poor luck of the draw, and arguably lack of upper-body strength, Rhonda and I weren't able to put any points up on the board in the arm wrestling battle. But I like to think that I totally redeemed myself when I took out all of the competition (men and women) and outlasted everyone in a wall sit.

Unfortunately: There wasn't a prize for that.

Fortunately: That means we didn't have to go home with this:

Ok, you're onto me. The Carter's actually gave out awesome prizes that anyone would covet. Rhonda and I brought the above "consolation prize". What can I say? The dollar store can truly be inspiring and I had four quarters burning a hole in my pocket.

So I went home empty-handed, but with the knowledge that if my life ever hinged on sitting with my back against a wall and my legs at a 90 degree angle for the longest, I might stand a chance. I also had the satisfaction of announcing to Yo when I got home from the party, "Guess what? I'm really strong." He gave me a really weird look before he rolled over and went back to sleep. Sweet validation!

As for Kai, we had fun attending a Halloween-themed play group last Friday. You'll notice in the pictures that Kai is wearing his costume from last year year. It barely fit, but it wasn't as sweat-inducing as his costume for this year and I figured that the more novel his bee costume seemed, the more likely he was to actually tolerate it on Halloween night.

Last night we had some friends over for a little dinner-gathering and then took the kids trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. I was too busy running around to capture many of the pre-trick-or-treating festivities, but everyone seemed to have a great time. Looks like this might become an annual tradition.

I speak from experience when I say that nothing is cuter than a herd of toddlers in costume. This was Kai's first experience with trick or treating. He caught on pretty quickly. He marched up to each door and quickly learned to weasel his way to the front of the pack and hold out his pumpkin (although he insisted on being the one to actually put the candy in it). He refused to say Trick or Treat, but I was pleased that he said "thank you" more often than not.

All-in-all it was a really fun Halloween season. Now that Halloween is over I'm in full-on birthday preparation mode. I've got less than one week to pull off Curious Kai's 2nd Birthday Party. I'm feeling a little strapped for time, but I'm also pleased to announce that I am done, that's right, DONE, with Christmas shopping for Kai. Boo-YA!

Father/Son Trip

When the idea of a father/son trip to Norway first came up, I was still working at Woodlands and happened to be in survey window. So it made sense for Yo to take Kai to Norway without me, especially because we wanted to slip in one more trans-continental flight with Kai before we had to pay for him to fly in his own seat. By the time that Yo and Kai actually went to Norway, I was jobless and had already been through survey. Just my luck!

Truthfully, I was dreading the trip. I have traveled plenty since Kai was born, but never without Kai. In fact, I had never been away from Kai over night. That kid has been kissed good night by his mommy ever since the day he was born. So the thought of 10 days without getting to see him was torture! But I also recognized that it was a really cool opportunity for Yo to get to spend a lot of 1-on-1 time with his son and to get to interact with his family in a different way than is possible when I am there. So I recognized the greater good in the plan even if I was feeling a bit abandoned.

Not to say that I sat at home for the 10 days and cried myself to sleep. (Ok, I cried myself to sleep once, but I saved the rest of my tear shedding for the day time, just after ending my skype sessions with Kai. Don't judge!)

So what did I do with all of my new-found time? I ran a bunch of errands. Tried to sleep in (and failed). Stayed up way too late watching dumb TV or surfing the internet. Got my hair done in the middle of a weekday (luxury!). Decorated my house for Halloween. Planned Kai's b-day party. Visited my dear friends Jason and Gabby in Sacramento and got to meet their sweet new baby. Attended business meetings (sans Kai it was amazing what we accomplished in an hour). Caught up with a good high school friend over dinner. Celebrated my birthday with some awesome girlfriends. And marveled at how fast time can go with there is nothing that I have to do at all.

I capped off the week with a road trip to Southern California with my girlfriend. It was a dream. We shopped, we ate good food, we went to the beach and we saw Footloose.

So yes, I enjoyed myself, but I also woke up first thing in the morning every morning to see if Yo had sent me any new pictures of what they did the day before. The day that they were flying back into town felt like the longest day in my life. In my eagerness to see them I drove up to the airport an hour earlier than necessary. Of course their flight was an hour late.

I wouldn't want to make this a yearly tradition, but I am happy that I had a week to enjoy myself like I haven't done since my single years and that Yo and Kai had such a good time. I'm even happier that a week away from Yo and Kai made me appreciate the sweetness of a less convenient life that is full of love of my husband and son.

Yo will have to blog if he feels like sharing the details of his trip, but I, at least, will share some pictures of their time away.

Thoughts on motherhood

 
I have never experienced joy like I have felt in my role as a mother to Kai. Having a child of my own has given me so much greater appreciation of how Heavenly Father must feel about His children. I truly know what unconditional love feels like.

Beyond teaching me about love, motherhood has taught me the importance and rewards of selflessness. Although I still have selfish moments as a mother, generally speaking, the needs of my child always trump my own needs. So motherhood can be tiring in a way that is hard to explain, because a child is in a constant state of need. But it is also hard to explain how rewarding the sacrifice for a child's sake is. There is nothing that I do in my life that is more worthwhile than the time that I spend and the service that I give to Kai.

Yo and I created a baby, but we are molding a person. More importantly, the little person that we created is often the one who is molding us. Motherhood has made me more patient, more forgiving, more joyous, more compassionate, more selfless, more invested, and in many ways, more myself than I've been in a long time.

There is something about the unconditional love that only a child is capable of sharing that makes me feel most at ease in my own skin. When Kai looks at me there is no judgment. I don't worry about how I look or what I'm wearing, the silly things I might say or the embarrassing things I might do. He looks at me as though I'm his whole world, and in many ways I am.

The responsibility is an awesome one. I look at Kai and my heart melts at his innocence. There is no contempt in his eyes. He has not felt the hurt of the world. He loves simply and perfectly. He is perfectly trusting and perfectly forgiving.

There are times that I cannot fathom how God could trust one so flawed to raise one of his precious sons--a son that he loves with the perfect love of a perfect Father. But I also have come to realize that it is out of His love for me that He has extended to me this blessing. That through my role as a mother, I might become the woman that He knows I am capable of being.