Busy bees

My head is spinning. Our weekend was absolutely jam packed! On Friday night,  Emerson and I had a birthday party to attend at my cousin’s house for her daughter’s 3rd birthday. Isaiah came with us. We had a good time hanging out with the family and catching up. Em was all hopped up on cake. We left the party around 7:45pm, dropped Isaiah off, then headed home. I let Emerson stay up a little later than usual. It was the weekend, so who cares, right? The next morning, Em and I woke up, had breakfast, then got ready for the Halloween parade. It was pouring down rain, so I wasn’t sure if the parade would be canceled. Luckily, it wasn’t. They moved the parade indoors where the Halloween party was already set up. I dressed Emerson in his Jake From State Farm costume. We met my sister and nephew there. My nephew was a ”Cereal Killer”. He looked amazing! Too bad he didn’t win the costume contest. I’m not sure how he wasn’t one of the winners. Most of the winners were nothing, but store bought costumes. Our cousin’s daughter won. She was dressed as the Grinch. She looked great!  Anyway, the kids all got a pumpkin, Halloween books, then decorating kits to dress up their pumpkins. Lunch was provided along with a Halloween story, and parade. We had such a great time!  I love that the city puts free events together like this.

 

After the parade, Em and I headed home. He had a quick lunch, then went down for a nap. While he napped, I put on my deer make-up. Wow, it turned out amazing! That night, we were heading out to the lake for trick-or-treat. I thought it would be cute to dress-up with Emerson. Because it was cold out, I decided to dress him up as a hunter. He has a warm, fleece orange, camo jacket, so that would kill two birds with one stone: Warmth and a costume. My sister and I both did our faces like deer. Emerson had on his camo and had a stuffed deer head to hold. I tried to give him a fake beard, but he wasn’t feeling it. It ended up just looking like he had a super dirty face, which fit pretty well for a hunter being out in the woods all day. Anyway, we headed over to the lake after nap. It was adorable! The vendors outdid themselves. Every booth was decorated. The kids trick-or-treated around the entire lake. Vendors passed out candy and treats to the kids, and handed coupons to the adults. They also had a giant hay maze, a haunted house, spooky trail for the older ones, the dance company doing “Thriller”,  and characters like Beauty and the Beasty walking around. We truly had a great time. Em’s hands were like ice, or we would have stayed for snacks and refreshments. We ended up heading over to Dunkin Donuts for hot chocolate afterwards. We looked silly being in there with our faces painted up, but it made it so much more fun for my sister and I to be decked out too. Emerson ended up with a bucket of candy and treats. That night, I let him pick out two treats from his bucket. I do not let Emerson just sit around pigging out on junk. I’ll probably end up bringing the candy into work, or tossing it. That sounds terrible, but he doesn’t need all of that candy. I let Em stay up until nearly 9pm! He was playing so contently with his trains. Again, it was the weekend, so I was okay with it.

 

On Sunday, Em slept until almost 8am. I was having a dream that he was crying. When I woke up, he was actually crying to get out of his bedroom. It’s so weird when that happens. Anyway, we had breakfast and played at home for the morning. We headed to the farm for a hayride hosted by the animal shelter. First, we stopped by the store to grab some dog items to donate to the animal shelter. We got a couple of toys and dog treats. My sister and nephew came with us, which was so fun. They had a new horse at the farm too that was very friendly. We were all able to pet him. We took so many photos of the kids playing in the leaves too. After the hayride, we took the kids up to the massive playground that the farm has. They had such a nice time. Emerson was cranky from being hungry and tired. We headed home around 2:30pm. He napped until about 5pm.

 

My sister hosted a family fun night at her house complete with Pumpkin decorating, pumpkin seeds, cookies, hot cocoa, and Shrek 3! Emerson was all kinds of wound up, so getting him to participate in anything was nearly impossible. I was able to watch the entire movie though. Emerson followed my sister around the house, while she was baking seeds, cleaning, up, and making hot cocoa. Isaiah and I sat on the couch eating tons of cookies.  It was so nice to just hang out.  We had such a good time. We didn’t get home until after 8pm, so I let Em stay up again until about 8:45pm. He was so tired when I woke him up this morning. We’ll be back to our regular schedule for the most part this week. We do have Roller Skating with the minions on Wednesday night, then the library’s Halloween party on Thursday, but that shouldn’t throw us off schedule too much.  We also have Owl-O-Leen at the Aviary.

 

Let’s not forget that we added some more Halloween movies to our “watched” list. The nightmare before Christmas, Mickey’s Monster Musical, Curious George Halloween, Dinosaur Train Halloween, and Home. I loved Home and cried watching it. It isn’t really a Halloween movie, but fits perfectly into the theme considering it centers around Aliens. The same goes for Shrek 3. The witches attached with Jack o Lanterns, so that was Halloween theme enough for us. I’ll be requesting some more movies from the Library to finish out our last week of our Halloween theme.

 

We have really lived it up. We’ve done so many fun things, but have so many more fun things to come to wrap up fall. We’re taking a major break for November. We’re supposed to take three weeks off. I really hope I don’t go stir crazy being cooped up. If the weather is warm, we’ll play outside and go to some parks. That’ll all be free, but gets us out of the house.  Just cross your fingers I stick to this. It’s pertinent for my Christmas budget! Speaking of Christmas, Emerson’s race track and train table already came in the mail. Is it crazy that I already have Christmas presents purchased? Probably, but if I waited, I’d never be able to afford anything.

 

Today, I’m starting clean eating AGAIN. I just feel absolutely dreadful. I’ve been off of my meal plan for a few weeks and didn’t work out at all last week. I just need to buckle down for at least the next month, then I can relax a bit more for the holidays. If I continue on this train now, I’m going to be a house by New Years.  Anyway, wish me luck with that!

 

One more piece of news…I’m hosting a Friendsgiving the Saturday after Thanksgiving at my sister’s house! The fall party went over so well that I thought it would be nice to bring everyone together for Friendsgiving. It’s going to be a potluck, so we won’t have to incur the cost of providing all of the food. Everyone is to bring a bottle of wine too, so that’ll keep costs even lower. The hosts provide turkey, gravy, ice, water, a gorgeous table, and serving dishes. My sister and I can certainly handle that. Additionally, I’m going to provide drinks/snacks for the kids, and set up some games/activities too. I’m really excited about it. I’m all about building traditions for Emerson and the Fall party and Friendsgiving are two that I’d like to implement yearly. If all goes well with Friendsgiving, my sister and I are thinking of throwing something on Christmas Eve. I have a very small family. We see none of the extended family on any holidays. We keep it just to my parents. Growing up, we saw so many people on the holidays. My parents had so many friends with kids, plus our family was huge. Over the years, that has all decreased significantly. I just want Emerson to have those same experiences. We always had such a great time being around all of those kids for holidays. I want to bring that back. It’s fun for the adults too. We get a bit of a break and it’s nice to hang out with other adults sometimes. I have a lot of planning to do for Friendsgiving. I want to hand make décor to make it even better.  I’ll follow up on that in future posts though.

 

Alright, guys. That’s all I got. Happy Monday!