Christmastime!

This year we decided to go all out on Christmas. We are going to spend the most money we'll probably (hopefully) even spend on a Christmas.

We are scheduled to close on our house December 23rd!

I hope to never move at Christmastime again. Usually we put up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving until New Year's day but I'm not decorating while trying to pack. It's counterproductive and sounds like a nightmare with a very inquisitive baby crawling around.

Speaking of Ethan, he has started to stand and let go for the briefest of seconds. He doesn't topple over as much and instead lowers himself to the ground. He has a knack for knowing what he shouldn't play with and makes a beeline for it. He also doesn't say any words yet but I practice Mama and Dada with him every day. He likes to imitate weird noises though and growls at me when he thinks I'm being mean. We could have gotten a puppy and spent less money.

Alex's teacher is back from maternity leave so he is adjusting to her. Class is going well and his GATE program is taking a very cool field trip in April to a camp where they have gourmet chefs that make macaroni and cheese for lunch. I didn't know mac 'n' cheese was gourmet. Also, his pop culture education is sorely lacking. He asked for some potato chips and I handed him the Princess Leia BBQ. He asked me how a princess lays a bbq?

Packing. Packing is the bane of my existence. I want to pack everything but then we just pull it out again because we are, in fact, still using pots and pans and towels. But they are easy to pack and make such a difference in how empty the house looks. The knickknacks are harder because you can pack 50 of them and its like they multiply and replenish the shelf! Pictures are hard too because if I take all of them down, we're stuck looking at ugly empty walls for three weeks.

Wait. Is it really three weeks until Christmas? Crap.

I love fall!

I love this time of year. The air is crisp and smells like leaves and woodsmoke. I can finally wear long sleeves and sweaters again and the power bill is a lot lower with the a/c turned off.

Halloween was fun. Alex was Harry Potter with my very first handmade Halloween costume. Grandpa made the wand and I painted/stained it. All in all, he looked great.

Ethan was an airplane pilot. I wanted to do coordinating costumes with Alex and have Ethan be Hedwig but I couldn't find an owl costume small enough. I felt ambitious enough to make Alex a cloak but there was no way I was going to attempt an infant owl costume. He looked adorable though and got lots of compliments. Dustin came to the ward party straight from work so we have a picture of my captain with his first officer.

We carved two pumpkins this year. Alex chose a vomiting design and I picked the spider. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I actually printed off the designs and we taped them to the pumpkins and did the outlines rather then just drawing them like we usually do.

The biggest news is that we're in the market for a house. We put an offer on one a week ago and it was rejected and we are currently waiting for a response to a house we put an offer on last week. I was hoping to be in our own house before Christmas but if its not the right house, we're not in any hurry. Apparently what we need/want in a house and what is actually available is a pretty small overlap. But I'm looking forward to owning our own home and making it exactly what we want it to be.