Lucky

I'm feeling lucky. Yesterday was my birthday (today is Lily's).
I didn't go on a romantic date with my husband, and there were no flower deliveries. Life isn't perfect. My house isn't clean and the laundry is once again piled high, but I'm feeling lucky nonetheless.

My family came on Saturday, all of them, except my baby brother, he's in Tulsa. The menfolk worked tirelessly in our basement installing baseboard and trim, only stopping for meals. We women cooked, played with the kiddies and kissed on the babies. It was a beautiful day and a birthday wish granted.
We work along little by little in our basement, but time and budget constraints hinder progress. Saturday was just the boost we needed to get the ball rolling again. We're so close to having it finished. Just a few more pieces of trim, the carpet roll is waiting in the garage and maybe, just maybe, we will have a bedroom for everyone....which hasn't happened in about 8 years. Truth be told though, even if we all have our own bedrooms, I have a sneaky suspicion we'll still have at least 2, if not 3, of the littlest littles still piling in our bed at night because that's just how we roll at this house.

I'd have to say the icing on my birthday cake would have to be my hubby taking on puke duties last night while I slept soundly. Owen started spewing about midnight, but Chris totally took over and held the bucket for him and rubbed his little back and snuggled him up tight. And all the while I slept soundly knowing that I didn't have to worry about my sick baby boy because he has a daddy who doesn't mind puke duty and clean-up and snuggling sick little bodies while breathing in their little germs and knowing full well that it's only a matter of time until you'll take your turn puking. Because there really is no way to keep a safe distance and still hold those babies tight enough that they know you love 'em when they're feeling under the weather.

And since every post needs pictures....
Here is another reason why I'm lucky....

Obligatory

Here is our obligatory Halloween post.
Our Halloween was kind of a bust this year.
I didn't even buy costumes.
We tried to celebrate, but between sickness and trips to Billings it proved to be a little tricky.

A recap of the craziness:
Friday, we hustled between the preschool and elementary school for parties and costume parades. After school, we trick-or-treated the downtown businesses and then Chris, Ava and I made a mad dash to Billings to check in with Carla. We met back at home Saturday, 15 minutes before trunk-or-treat was scheduled to start at the church. We threw costumes on the kids and hightailed it down to the church, I forgot the camera at home. Lily was sick with the pukey flu so she waited in the van, poor girl. After trunk-or-treat, we opted not to do anymore trick-or-treating since we had a puker, we just headed for home and ordered pizza. We carved pumpkins Sunday evening....Grace noted that Halloween was already over by then since the mayor of our little town declared Halloween be celebrated on Saturday. We live outside the city limits so in my book, it was still Halloween, barely.

Update on Carla:
Chris went to Billings Monday when she had trach surgery, all went well. I went to Billings Wednesday and visited with her in ICU shortly before they placed a feeding tube into her stomach. We both went up Friday and visited her at the hospital. We stayed at Traci's and visited with her again on Saturday. She was moved to an Advanced Care hospital Saturday. Because of the trach, she could not speak, so communication was a little tricky. It would have been helpful if we were better lip-readers, but we found the easiest way was for her to mouth letters and spell what she wanted to say to us. On Monday, the stitches around her trach were removed and her trach was switched to a different style that allows her to speak, very good news. When we were there over the weekend, we were happy to see that, all things considered, she was doing very well. She had some movement in her left hand and seemed to really enjoy our visit in spite of the communication
difficulties.

At the school...
Grace was raggedy-ann. She used a costume that used to be mine a million years ago. I think she was super cute.

 Lily was a snow princess. She was also super cute, to bad she is out of focus. ugh!

 Everyone (minus Ava) piled on the couch after trunk-or-treating.

Ava was a super cute ballerina the day we went to the schools, but I never slowed down long enough to take her picture, the night we went trunk-or-treating, she was piglet. She didn't really like that costume much, at least not the hood part.

 Here she is a little happier, but still trying to pull her hood off....and she had a cold so her eyes were watery and her nose was running, poor baby.

I have to say, I usually dread the whole pumpkin carving project, it's messy and a whole lot of work and in years past, Chris and I have carved everyone's pumpkins while the kids ran crazy, but this year was great. Emma and Grace carved their pumpkins by themselves and then Grace carved Owen's. My contribution was taking pictures and clean-up.

Jack-o-lanterns...in order from top to bottom, Emma's, Owen's, Grace's and Lily's.