Happy Halloween

 We went out trick-or-treating and hit all of two houses.  It was getting chilly quickly and while we started out our journey with a smile, by house number 2 we were coughing.  So we quickly proceeded to head back home.

 Bella has a costume parade and party at preschool tomorrow, so she will get to show off her pirate costume one more time.  I'm not really sure what she thinks of all of it.  But as shown above, she did smile while out and about.  And she did cry when I took the outfit off (an no, it wasn't hurting her to come off).  I actually have no idea why we cried, so I'm going to say we loved our outfit and like most kids wanted to stay dressed up!

Go Huskers

This weekend was our annual trip back to Nebraska for a football game.  We usually meet up with some of Jesse's friends from college and enjoy the day tailgating.  Some years we actually go into the game, but this year we decided not to.  It was a great game and we actually got more out of it seeing it on TV.  It also helped that we were still with a large crowd watching it just across from the stadium.

It was great to see everyone again, and thanks Kristine for the hospitality!

We were partially bad parents in that we left our sick child with her grandparents in order to be at the game.  It was just teething, but unfortunately she was running a fever and didn't want to eat much.  But like all of Bella's episodes the fever and not eating only lasted for a day (conveniently while we were away!  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Sneller!)

Watch Out

I have this obsession with Dr. Pepper.  I love it, and I would drink it all day long.  Except it isn't good for me, and I know this.  So usually I limit myself to one a day.  Well I have been saying I need to drop the soda for quite a while, but I can never quite start it.  I know it will mean a week of headaches, and who wants to voluntarily have that.

Well on another blog I read called "Young House Love", the guy also has an obsession with Dr. Pepper.  And he decided that for all of October he would drink only water.  Well if he could do it, then I could do it too.  Granted I waited until the end of the month to start.  And I did have headaches, for 2 days straight.

But the biggest thing I noticed is that I have been in a very bad mood these past couple of days since giving up my Dr. Pepper.  I'm not quite sure it has anything to do with it, but it might.  Every little thing bothers me.

And Bella, well Bella is not helping the cause.  I'm not sure if she is feeling under the weather, or what is going on, but she refuses to hold her head up while eating.  And doesn't want to eat as much as she normally has.  Not to mention after 3 weeks we are still having to get up during the night 2-3 times to console her from coughing, crying, etc.  That is a long time, and I'm not sure it's really warranted (meaning she doesn't really seem to have anything wrong with her, so I'm wondering if we are getting played).

Regardless this is all adding up to me wanting to crawl in a hole, a nice black hole, and maybe sleep for a couple of days, and when I get back up maybe the world will have righted itself.

Well, at least Colby hit the jackpot.

TV Shows

Most times when watching tv shows, whether they are sitcoms or dramas, I don't usually think they represent real life very well.  Recently I have started to watch the show "Parenthood".  I don't know if anyone else watches this particular show, but one of the couples have a son who they have just found out has autism.  I don't have any real experience with autistic children myself, but I understand the struggle this family goes through.  In fact in almost every episode it makes me tear up, because I get it, the issues/problems may not be exactly the same ones Bella goes through, but the way it makes us feel as parents is the same.

I remember in particular last week, the parents attended a support group for others like themselves, and one of the mothers said. "My husband goes off to work every morning and doesn't come home until dinner time or later.  I am the one who deals with our son, and don't get me wrong I love him, but sometimes I feel like I am on an island all by myself, with a son who doesn't feel my emotions or react to what I am doing, it's very lonely."

I get that.  And when people wonder why I chose to go back to work, that is part of the reasoning.  I know that Bella can benefit from me being home.  But she can also benefit from being out in the world reacting with other people, in school, and at the babysitters.  And in that way, we can get off of the island.

A failed attempt

My work was hosting a family day at the Louisberg Cider Mill on Sunday, and we decided to go.

Major problem being it was outside, and today was sunny, and Bella would have nothing to do with holding her head up.  She pretty much looked like this the whole time.

We quickly had some apple doughnuts (which were delicious) and some hot apple cider.  And I ran into the general store to buy some apple butter, and we called it a day.

We did manage to get her to hold her head up briefly in the tee-pee, although you can't tell that is where she is.

I think we are going to have to stick with indoor activities if we expect Bella to be able to enjoy herself.  But we will keep trying periodically in the hopes that someday we will get over our aversion to the sun.

Well...It's Brown

Any Guesses Yet?

Bella will not be a fictional character.

I have all the pieces cut out, good thing I only have one weekend left to sew 4 different pieces of the costume.

Painting is Done

The painters have been paid.  We thought we were getting a decent deal, and while they had a lot to do with 3 different colors, we still had to stay on top of them to make sure they were doing what we had asked for.

We will be taking pictures tonight (they literally just finished up).  The house looks good, but unfortunately in the front since it was predominately brick, and still is predominately brick, there isn't a big WOW factor.   Which is kind of depressing since we just spent all that money.  And for all those curious people the total came in at:

$2600 - labor (they painted for 5.5 days)
$1100 - paint (we went through 28 gallons)
$600 cedar braces

ZZZZZzzzzz

I like my sleep.  In fact I am one of those unlucky people who need about 9 hours a night to function.  I say  unlucky because I know those rare people who only need 6 hours of sleep, they get to stay up later, and wake up early with no problems.  I am extremely jealous of those people.

It isn't very often that I get 9 hours of sleep.  Although I would say on average I get between 7 and 8 hours.  Granted I have to go to bed around 9:30pm, because on a normal good sleeping night, Bella wakes up at 5:30 or 6am.

But we haven't had normal for awhile.  We seem to be stuck in this rut of coughing all night long.  We just went through a week of bad sleeping, had one or two weeks of normal sleeping, and are now back to bad sleeping again.  And by bad sleeping I mean waking up and coughing every 1 to 2 hours.  Which is pretty much worse than a new born, or at least Bella when she was a new born.

I feel so bad for her, I know she isn't getting a good sleep either, and it's not like she wants to cough so badly she can't stop.  But we can't figure out what to do about the cough.  It's not from a cold, we are pretty sure it's from teething.  She pools the saliva in the back of her mouth and when she is sleeping she can't swallow it, so she just starts coughing.  And unfortunately she doesn't realize when she wakes up coughing that all she needs to do is swallow.  Instead we have to force water down her mouth, so that she will swallow the water and saliva.

So this is pretty much just a long post about saliva...and not sleeping.  And how frustrating it is to have a child who teeths for eternity.  I know everyone knows how bad teething is.  Now imagine it lasting for EVER!  I am not exaggerating either.  At 3 years old we still only have 5 teeth on top and 4 teeth on bottom, and 3 incisors poking through.  Which means we have more than half a mouth to go.....

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

I have gotten a lot of questions about the recipe for the pumpkin muffins.  Now I qualify them as muffins because I eat them for breakfast and they don't have frosting on them.  Really they are called pumpkin cupcakes.

What you Need:
1 pkg (2-layer size) cake -white,spice,yellow,whichever you have on hand
Ingredients listed on cake mix
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 pkg (8oz) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice (or a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg)

Make It:
Heat oven to 350 degrees

Prepare cake batter as directed on package (I substitute applesauce for the butter or vegetable oil to make it healthier).  Add pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice.  Spoon into muffin tin.

Beat cream cheese with mixer until creamy, blend in sugar and egg.  Spoon over batter, swirl gently with toothpick.

Bake 18 to 21 minutes.  Cool 5 min, remove to wire racks to cool completely.  Will make 24 muffins.

Enjoy!

P.S.  If you are not like me and don't stock up nf cake mixes when they are $0.79, then you can use this recipe from Ina on the food channel that I plan to try next, in place of the packaged cake mix use:

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil

Then follow the steps above.

Work in Progress

Originally we thought they would be done painting on Saturday.  It seems to be taking them longer than they thought, and now it looks like it might be completed on Tuesday.

I guess it's not just us when projects always go longer than they should, it's just our house!

Bella's Very Pink Bedroom

Bella's new bedroom.

It's just a little overwhelmingly pink.  The chair in the corner was a gift from my mother.  I would love to refinish it, make it look a little more modern (it was purchased at an estate sale).  Maybe when I have time.

 We have yet to hang artwork, finish the closet, etc.  All in good time. 

Bella seems to enjoy her new room, but then she can't really tell me otherwise.  I guess she could cry every time she went in there, which she doesn't, so we will call it a success.

Major Exterior Changes

Our house is being painted tomorrow.  This is the last time it will look like this with a peachy tan exterior and burnt orange trim.

We can't wait.

Tiny Changes

I had to show you my minor changes to the light fixture turned lantern.

I got a taller/skinnier candle, changed the leaves for more realistic ones, and added the raven.  I absolutely love the raven, it looks so real.  Now we just need to get out and buy some pumpkins.

Mom Cave

I think I'm going to jump on this new bandwagon of women designing "mom caves".  Basically rooms for themselves whether is an office, craft room, guest room etc.  We have officially moved Bella into her new bedroom (pictures to come as soon as the new bedding gets here).  Her old bedroom is going to become the new guest room/office/craft room.  I have some exciting plans, and I'm sure it will be awhile before it all comes together.  But I would like to base the design on a rug I found at Target the other day.

Can you even see it (for some reason I couldn't zoom in without distorting the image)?

Does anyone else notice that most of Bella's pictures are taken in the same location.  Well it might be that we mainly hang out in our family room and kitchen.  But also that she generally takes better pictures when sitting up, which tends to happen in the kitchen near feeding times.

We are practicing wearing hats in order to get used to our Halloween costume.  I got all the supplies needed this weekend and hope to sew it within the next week.  If I said the colors were black, brown, red and white stripped; would you know what she is going to be?  We also hope to incorporate her kidkart, that will be dad's job.  I'm really hoping the weather is warmer this year than last, so we can actually go out on Halloween.

More Brace Work

I thought you might want to actually see what these braces look like that we have been installing for the last couple of weeks.

The top ones were easier to install, except the very high ladder needed to reach them.

 The second level was our soffit which was sloping terribly.  We needed to jack it up to near level and then install the braces.  Here was our 17 foot garage side where we had to create a column and use the car jack to get it up.

 Jesse in action installing a brace.

 And Elle, who no matter what project you are working on, likes to drop her ball and will patiently wait for you to throw it.  Even if you are 17 feet in the air, she will place it next to the ladder and wait.

The countdown is on for our house to get painted.  The painting crew is coming on Thursday, so it will be a busy weekend outside prepping for everything.

What do you do with ugly?

 

We had this old chandelier in our entryway that we took down a couple of months ago.  They still sell new ones similar to it at the home improvement stores for $200.  I tried to sell it on craigslist for $40.  And no one wanted to buy it.  So I decided to spray paint it black.

I took out the chandelier part and replaced it with a candle.  I added some fall foilage to spruce up our entryway.

As you can see it's a work in progress.

I bought the wreath last year before we stained the doors, and it looks like I am going to have to come up with something else, as it blends into the doors.  I also haven't replaced my summer plants with fall mums yet. I might not this year, as it's getting kind of late in the season.

Maybe some day my entryway will look like this for Halloween.

The Pumpkin Patch

On Tuesday morning, Bella's preschool class took a field trip to the pumpkin patch.  I went along as a parent volunteer.  I wasn't quite sure how Bella would do out in the sun, but we were stylish in our sunglasses and did pretty well.

Our favorite activities were the petting zoo (only by default since it was inside and out of the sun).

We had a friend named Bria who got to hang out with us for the morning.

Our second favorite activity was laying on the large bouncy pillow.  Bria was nice enough to jump by us, so Bella could get some great bounces in.

Our favorite activity was the haunted barn, we didn't get any pictures.  The haunted barn was not only out of the sun, but it had pretty lights.  It got a few "aahhs" from Bella.

And here is a picture of Bella all strapped up in the bus.  She has her harness on and her lap belt from the kid kart, and then a harness and lap belt from the bus, and tie downs from her kid kart to the bus.  That child isn't going anywhere.  It also explains why it takes them so long to load her onto the bus, I didn't realize how much they were strapping her in.

Outside Work

We started working on the exterior of the house this weekend.  And no, we are not finished with the interior stairs.  Our goal is the get the house painted before the weather gets too cold, so we need to get a bunch of things done before that.

Originally we thought we would be doing the painting ourselves, but that would take us about 2 months, so we opted to have it done professionally.  As it is it's going to take us 2-3 weeks to get the prep work done before they can start painting.  We have brackets to install, landscaping to remove, trees to trim, etc.

On Saturday night we joined our neighbors around a firepit.  Does anyone else get together with neighbors and complain about their houses.....for hours?  All the work that needs to be done, the questionable things the previous owners did, all the money everything is costing etc?  Okay maybe it's just us, but at least all our neighbors are in the same boat.

Artwork

Bella did some coloring at school on Thursday.  The teachers help to hold her crayon in her hand, and she moves it herself.  Bella was asked to draw someone who was safe to go to.  They were learning about firemen, policemen, etc.  Bella's teachers thought she was drawing a person who looked like mommy or daddy.  Jesse thought it looked like an abstract Jesus.

 What do you think?

And on a separate note, here is a sneak peek of Bella's new bedroom colors.