Halloween Hangover

We had a lot of fun on Halloweekend. It is a lot more fun with a girl big enough to be excited about trick or treating and understand the idea of going door to door and saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" to each house. Abby had a great time. We had a party and went trick or treating with all her best friends. When I say we went trick or treating I mean Abby and Steve - Olivia slept through the entire costume part of the party. Now the hard part is regulating the candy consumption, since we had quite a bit of leftover candy (I may have overdone it with 4 bowls...).

Olivia is getting quite close to figuring out crawling. She's been practicing picking her belly up off the floor for the last couple of days. She's going to have me running around chasing her soon. And I'm going to need to get my baby gates up before I want to. Olivia's also working on night 3 of the Cry It Out method of sleep training tonight. I wish she could have been easy like Abby, who started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks and never stopped after that. Olivia, on the other hand, has been up once or twice each night since about 6 months (we had that brief interval from 4 months to around 6 months where she slept all night, so I know she can do it). We started Sunday night with the CIO plan. Olivia woke up at 11:45 and after Steve checked on her and put her back into bed she cried until after 2:00. It was a long, long night laying in bed listening to her cry. I hated every second of it, but I hate feeling exhausted even more. Last night she woke up twice, but only cried for 10 or 15 minutes each time, so I'm hoping after another night or two she will have the system figured out and will just put her little thumb back into her mouth and go to sleep.

Abby is still cracking us up. She has been really into barbies and dancing lately, so we had a barbie dance party last night. She had all her barbies lined up around one of Olivia's blankets and they were all taking turns dancing. She also dances at any opportunity (music on t.v. shows, songs she makes up, even the nintendo wii dancing game). I think dance class will be in her future - and I know her dad is not looking forward to all those dance recitals.

Can A Mom Get A Break Around Here?

And lately the answer has been no. But that's okay - like I told Grandma Jennie, there will be plenty of time to rest when I'm dead. Or when they grow up and move out. Then I'll probably wish I was back to the craziness and exhaustion that has defined my last few days. In fact, as I am typing this, my children are both confined in Olivia's exersaucer and jumper (yes... Abby climbed into the exersaucer again and she can't get out. I am leaving her there for now. It is safer).

So... our craziness started Saturday. We took the girls to Mackinac City for the day with the intention of getting Abby some winter appropriate shoes of some sort and we heard that the Hush Puppies store was having a sale. It was a great sale, so great that they were all out of Abby's size. But we had a good time being tourists and checking out the other stores. Sunday was also busy - we attended the birthday party of Abby's friend Autumn and tried to get cleaned up a ready for a busy week. And I committed myself to helping our friend Andrea with two extra emergency foster kids (she already has 2 adopted foster kids and another that she has permanently and will be adopting). So yes... I willingly put myself into a situation where there would be 7 kids and 2 adults with all the kids under 5 and two of whom didn't speak English. It was a hard day to begin with, then my friend Kimberlee called to tell me that the doctor thought her water had broken and she needed someone to take her two little boys so she could go get that checked out. So... 9 kids, under 5, two who can't communicate with Andrea and I. Yep... I'm tired. Still. Luckily, Kimberlee's water hadn't broken, so we are still waiting for that baby to arrive in a few weeks. And the Spanish speaking foster kids were moved to a Spanish speaking foster home near the school where the little boy attends. But boy, did that day wipe me out.

Olivia hasn't helped matters any. She has reverted to newborn sleeping habits at night. She is up at least once, and some nights twice. And if I don't nurse her, she is not going back to sleep. We tried Monday night to get her back to sleep without nursing. After 1 hour I gave in and fed her. After 2 hours she finally was sleeping soundly enough for me to lay her down. Grr..... Some days I wonder why she can't get with the program. It wouldn't be so frustrating to be up in the middle of the night every night had she not slept for 11 hour stretches just a few months ago (for like 9 weeks). I know she can do it. I don't know how to get her back into the sleeping habit without depriving the rest of us of a lot of sleep. The Ferber (cry it out) Method does not work for this child. So yeah... I definitely have 2 strong willed children. This could be a long, long 18 years.

And all of that only brings me to Tuesday, when my willingness to watch Kimberlee's kids for a dentist appointment and house viewing turned into another 5ish hours of extra children. They had a lot of fun. Maize, maybe, did not. I am happy to have them around to entertain Abby, but it makes resting or getting anything done impossible. Abby loves having "her boys" Rian and Huron over. She even thinks they are her brothers. So, we'll keep them around. Then she can have 2 "brothers" without me having to have 2 more kids.

Now onto Thursday and Friday and then Trick or Treating. And maybe by December my life won't be so crazy busy. Or Olivia can sleep through the night. Or something...

Trick or Treat

Alright... I know this looks like she is crying, but I swear she was not. She did not like getting the candy from costumed people, but she didn't mind asking older people for a treat. Abby's friend Maddie went with us and was way into trick or treating - she even walked straight into the first house.
Mom and the ballerina trick or treating - she had cute little tights and a shirt on, but at 40-ish degrees you get to wear extra pants and a coat to trick or treat.
Abby and Dad trick or treating. Abby only took a 30 minute nap at 5 pm (we had to wake her up at 5:30 because people were here and ready to trick or treat). She did pretty goo for being tired.
Ballerina before the party. She was way cute :-)

Pumpkin Fun

Of course, pumpkin carving wasn't nearly as fun for Abby as it was for Steve and I, but we are pretty sure she still had a good time. Abby and I made her pumpkin a Blue's Clues pumpkin, so she was excited about having a dog in her pumpkin, especially when we lit it up with the candles. We also made a traditional-ish jack o'lantern. Of course, it couldn't be totally normal so we gave it a Michigan "M" for one eye and Steve gave it teeth for ears (an incisor and a molar, in case you are wondering). He didn't have that pumpkin done in time for us to take it's picture, so we only have Blue to show you today.

We left Abby with her babysitter Kitty on Tuesday and she has been talking non-stop about it. She must have had a great time because she keeps telling me about Kitty reading her books and keeps asking if Kitty is coming. I'm so glad we have someone to watch her that we all like a lot.
Here is Abby's pumpkin lit up. Carving it was quite a trick. I have a lot of knives and drills to wash as a result.

Abby exploring the insides of the pumpkin (after I had done all the yucky work).

Pumpkin Carving

We are carving up Abby's pumpkin tonight and she and I already gutted it so that it would be ready to go when Steve gets home. Now we just have to figure out how Abby is going to carve it. She said it had to be a girl pumpkin, so it will need to be something cute. I'm sure we'll have lots of cute pictures tomorrow - that is if Abby will actually do cute smiles instead of her cheesy ones.

We had a first last night - Abby's first time wetting through the diaper and soaking her sheets and mattress. I'm glad we made it over 18 months before it happened, but it was still no fun to clean up. We just put the last load of blankets into the dryer, so hopefully by bedtime we can get the bed back together. It was not the way I wanted to start a busy morning, but hey... sometime you just can't make it all night.

Tomorrow is Halloween Already?!?

Ahh... where did our week go? Tomorrow night we are hosting a Halloween party for our small group and I don't even have half of my to do list done. For example, we need to get packed ASAP! Saturday morning is going to be busy enough, so we need to have our stuff together. And we need to clean. And we should probably decorate. And we should probably have a way to entertain our guests. Oh... and food. Ahh... What are we doing wasting time on the computer you may think. Frankly, I am thinking that too, but Abby wants to watch Little Bill and she was rudely awakened from her nap an hour and a half early by her dog, so she is nice and crabby. So she is doing whatever makes her happy until I can get her back to sleep.

We also have to make a trip into the office later today to see Steve and all Abby's friends that work with her Daddy. Plus she got the dentists some dental Halloween shirts for tomorrow and we need to deliver them. We will be glad to be in Hastings next week, where we don't have to host anything.