Can you jump rope better than a 12-year-old?

This was 8 minutes well spent. I think this might have resurrected Miriam's interest in skipping rope.

Chuh!

Or, to translate from Josephspeak:

TRUCK!

Remember me whining about how our beloved HOA saw fit to tear up all the sidewalks just before Halloween? Today the construction crews came through and poured all the new sidewalks. It was a BIG day for the resident small fry. We halted school so we could all watch.

Even if they watched from safe distances.

Amazing to think that this disgusting glop turns into beautiful, smooth, bike-able, non-litigious sidewalks. It was interesting watching the workers get right in the middle of it and smooth it all down, over and over. They must have spent a good 10 minutes just on that little stretch there.

Making sure they got it right.

The only annoying thing was that I had to park like a half a mile away, because you weren't allowed to park anywhere near where they were going to pour, unless of course you WANTED to be towed (as I was hunting around for a spot, I thought it almost might be worth it to have THEM find me a parking spot!), and of course all the free street spots were full b/c everyone else for two blocks had to park somewhere else too!

But now we have a beautiful new sidewalk, poured just in time for the afternoon rain shower...

Here we go again

blah blah Halloween blah blah sewing blah blah HOA blah blah...

Let's get to some REAL news.

Drumroll, please, Maestro......
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Introducinnnnng,

for the Very First Time on the Internet,

(and surely not to be the last),

the Newest

Member

of the Pickles Family!!!

Toot-ta-toot!

(c'mon, it's the fourth kid -- it deserves a little pomp!)

(and WHY do doctors always give you the ultrasound that makes your baby look like a peanut-shaped lump, and never print out the cute teddy-bear ones where you can see their little hearts beating? WHY?)

So, here we go again! We officially have Too Many Children (depending on whom you ask). I'm going to get a little notebook and carry it around with me, so that when I inevitably get asked the inevitable questions that everyone believes it's their business to ask, I can tally that particular question, and respond with the handy previously-decided-upon answer. (Like, "No, I guess we DON'T know what causes that! Can you please explain it to me?")

Well, all the rest of you are so nice, ONE of us has to be snarky and shut the busybodies up. Or at least make them go home and re-think their purpose in life.

So, the pregnancy is going really well -- all hormone levels where they should be (praise God), baby's heartbeat looks good, it wiggled around for us on screen, so now we can draw a collective breath of relief and really start to feel glad. A miscarriage really changes you forever -- every rejoicing at a new pregnancy is carefully measured, until you feel you're "safe." Still, prayers are much appreciated.

So far I feel pretty good -- the nausea is really understated this time (again, PRAISE God!) and I haven't noticed any true moodiness -- but I am unbelievably, overwhelmingly, t-i-r-e-dddddd. I could get 11 hours of sleep at night and still wake up tired, need an afternoon nap, and go to bed early. (I actually did that once.) I am sleepy ALL the time. This is making driving reeeeeally interesting. I'm happy though -- I will take crippling exhaustion over mild nausea ANY day. Tiredness, I'm used to -- I'm a mom who likes to stay up late, for goodness sake. But nausea I could easily, happily, joyfully live without. I haven't escaped it completely -- it still likes to creep up on me, particularly whenever I'm making dinner.

So, stats -- I'm about 8 weeks along, due date mid-June-ish. (Happy Birthday, Uncle Dave!) It will be nice having a summer baby. School will be finished, PLUS I can spend the last few weeks of pregnancy floating in a pool! Ah, bliss.

It's going to be a busy summer for the family -- there will be baby cousins born in March, May, and now June!

Life is a beautiful thing.

(art credit: "Hope: Baby Hands and Feet" by Laura Monahan from art.com)

So how did YOU spend the last week of October?

Well, I spent it chained to my sewing machine. Because, total shock to all of you who know me, I put off starting Halloween costumes until the last minute. (I know! SO unlike me!) However, nothing helps you focus better than a mild case of panic, I've found. And I'm happy to say they were ALL done in time. I may or may not have finished the last bits that afternoon, and Mr. Pickles may or may not have had to child-wrangle independently for several nights in a row. However, we all agree it was worth it.

Two colonial girls (with non-period turtlenecks), and an elf (with non-period glowstick doubling as a sword). I just want you all to admire the elf's hat for a moment, because after all my hard work adjusting and redesigning the resizing the pattern and then putting it together, said elf allowed it to grace his head for all of .024 seconds (or however long our camera's shutter speed is). (I'm not the numbers person in the family.)

This is how Joseph feels about hats in general. Oh, going outside in winter is going to be SOO fun!

Like the good community-minded citizens we are, we supported our local high school's athletci boosters and bought their overpriced pumpkins to carve. I let the girls choose their own pumpkins (with the caveat that they had to be able to carry them off the lot -- with Katie I compromised by having her carry Joseph's while I took hers -- she's such a lightweight most of the pumpkins weighed more than she did). They also designed their own faces, as is pretty obvious.

Sorry, no Homestarrunner themes this year. I thought Katie's white pumpkin was pretty cool. It smelled like cucumbers while we were carving it.

I need to remember to take Halloween pumpkin pictures while it's still daylight out.

For dinner we had ghouled cheese sandwiches and gory soup. The previous night we had kept up family tradition by having Witches' Brew, with heads of lizards, tails of swine, chicken gizzards soaked in brine... that sort of thing. Although Miriam said she wasn't fooled and insisted it was just plain chili. But what does she know, she's only 7.

When it was dark enough we headed out to load up on more sugar than should legally be allowed in the possession of 3 children. I don't think the 3 children would agree with that, though.

(Joseph is pretty good at raiding the pumpkins for loot.)

Joseph was a very cute trick-or-treater. He figured out the loot-for-cuteness pretty fast. He's in the parroting stage, so after about the third house, he began to chorus with the girls, "Tweeeat!" Then he would blow kisses as he was leaving. Naturally, this earned him extra from all the middle-aged ladies in the neighborhood.

The kids were troopers. Amazingly, Joseph walked most of the way himself. For some inexplicable reason, our HOA chose the week before Halloween to tear up the sidewalks -- in between rainstorms -- so getting around the neighborhood was... interesting. And muddy. Katie's arm gave out towards the end and we had to carry her pumpkin for her. It drizzled almost the whole time -- and at one point it even opened up and began to pour -- fortunately we were close to home, so we ran home and were able to wait it out in comfort while we sampled some of the haul. We brought one of Miriam's friends along with us, too, which made things even more fun.

Ahh, just desserts!

The next day our homeschoold group had an All Saints' party with a parade, games, and again, more sugar than should be legal. Because of course no kid got enough the previous night. We ran a game called "St. Martin's Mice" in which contestants would race to push a "mouse" (small balls) across the room with a push broom. This was a big hit with the boys, especially. Mr. Pickles dressed up as St. Martin, in a white bathrobe with an old black T-shirt he had cut up to look like a Dominican habit. It was awesome. And naturally, I forgot the camera. RRRGH!

On the way home we picked up a pizza for dinner. I offered to go in and get it, since I'm not sure how many locals would recognize a Dominican habit when they saw one, or know it was All Saints' Day. :)

It was a fun, fun weekend. And now we are all flossing obsessively.

How soon before ThinkGeek comes out with a T-shirt in Cosmic Latte? (if they haven't already)