the beginnings of Halloween

This week marked some activities that are getting us in the mood for Halloween. First of all, I was in charge of a Halloween activity for the ladies at church. The purpose was to swap old Halloween costumes with each other and brainstorm ideas for homemade costumes so we could all save money. I used it as an excuse to make all the fun Halloween treats and some decorations that get me so excited about this holiday. We had wormy apple punch, mini caramel apples, dirt cups with worms, eye ball deviled eggs, bone breadsticks, ect. Our family got to carve a pumpkin too as a centerpiece that had dry ice induced fog rolling out it's face. Ada really got into pulling the seeds out, Odessa would only touch it with a spoon. It's so funny to see the differences in one child and the next.

We also looked into moving this week. Crazy, I know! But we got curious about some cheaper apartments in the area. We are paying a little more in rent than we would like (we didn't realize when we moved here that groceries were going to put us through the roof!!) Plus we really would love to have a place with a yard or a couple other amenities. I am including this picture of our duplex in Chicago (Park Ridge) last year when we had it decorated for Halloween. I didn't realize how nice it was to have a front of a house to decorate for holidays or an alley to try and garden or a little fenced yard for the girls to play in. I don't really have a place for our yard decorations here, so we had to get creative and just play with them. Here Odessa is saving me from an attack of a giant spider. So we did go and look at an apartment yesterday that is quite a bit cheaper than ours and came away realizing why we pay more! Once you feel you are not really getting ripped off, it's a little easier to handle. Stephen really wants to stay close to work for now and so we will stay here at least a year. It may mean a few more really budget savvy meals, but ok.

Probably the most life changing thing that happened this week was that Odessa finally turned that corner in potty training. She went more than 5 days without any accidents and got to take 3 straight rides on the Seattle Center carousel as reward. Whew! We finally found something that motivated her enough to keep her excited about getting up on that throne. Now I have entered that realm of mothers of children who are wearing underwear and just maybe, they shouldn't be. That realm where you find yourself asking your child all the time if they have to go, where you worry about accidents at the store and bringing extra clothes and an emergency pull-up (I have to carry a larger diaper bag!) where you DO NOT HAVE TO BUY DIAPERS EVERY WEEK (ok, at least for one kid). It's amazing, it's liberating, it's very time consuming. Now I understand why those moms do the things they do, because I am doing them now. Big step, we hope mom can handle it.