Halloween, I am over you

"You're over me?  When were you under me?"

Moving on. . . .

A picture from last year at the Patch.  Sad that this one hasn't seen the light of day until now. 

I like Halloween.  I really love it on October 1st.  I start to think about costumes for Olivia (and Axel this year) and I want to decorate all the things. 

But by oh. . . Oct 25th or so, I guess I'm kind of over it all.  I don't really like scary things, my imagination is way too active and I'm more surprised when clowns with bloody knives don't jump out of my laundry room at 6am.  I know not all of Halloween is scary, I'm not one of those people who thinks Halloween is celebrating the devil or whatever.  But even the non-scary stuff is still cute monsters and happy jack-o-lanterns with jagged smiles.  It wears on me I guess.

By October 25 (or so) I'm ready to move on to the heart warming gratitude of Thanksgiving and then the life affirming love of Christmas.

And for the love, stop giving me candy.  (Because I seriously cannot say no)

Fall 30x30

It's time for the Fall 30x30 challenge!  Warning: This post got really wordy.  Feel free to skim.

I decided to participate in another 30x30 challenge.  I don't think I explained it very well last time, but basically you pick 30 items of clothing and you mix and match those to create 30 different outfits.  It ended up being more challenging than I thought back in May, but I loved packing for my trip using only those items.  We're moving this month so it will be nice to know what items I need to leave out of the boxes.  All the rest can go!  Except one pair of boots I packed up already I want to use this month so they'll probably show up towards the end of the month.

So look, I'm not a big fan of having a ton of pictures of myself on my blog.  But that's the best way to show you what I'm wearing so. . . there you have it.  I know I'm not a fashionista (despite having it embroidered on the back of my Student Gov't sweater when I was a teacher.  Let's just say I was a much better dresser in those days, plus I taught fashion so it made sense) so no worries if you don't want to look at my "fashion" posts.  You can skip them, I wont be hurt.  :)

Unlike most of the girls doing this challenge, I don't really think about the items I pick, I just pick 30 things I love to wear, try to balance out the tops and the bottoms and hope I can make it to the end!  That's the fun of it for me.

Sweaters: This is the main reason I agreed to do this again, I have so many sweaters!  That didn't stop me from buying two new ones on sale on H&M's website.   So I don't even know if they'll look good on me!  Risky.

1. Forever21, 2. Aeropostal, 3. Ruby Moon, 4. H&M, 5. H&M

Tops: A lot of these are layering tops.  I actually plan to use my white layering tops too, but I didn't include them because they're BORING plus I don't know how much action they will really get (hey it's not cheating, Aubrey doesn't even include shoes!)

1. Forever 21, 2. Shade, 3. Bella Bird, 4. WalMart, 5. Old Navy, 6. ModBod

Cardigans:

1. Nikibiki, 2. Target, 3.Target, 4. Target

Skirts: I thought about choosing more skirts, but since I pretty much only wear them to church on Sundays (I change diapers on the floor and skirts make that difficult!) I just stuck with two.

 1. Made by me, 2. Bella Bird from WalMart

Dresses: Now short dresses with leggings, those I can wear any day because the leggings give me a little more modesty and the dresses are loose and give me more range of motion.

1. Target, 2. Calvin Klein via TJ Maxx

Pants: I'm including a pair of leggings in this category because they're thick and can be worn as pants (yes, yes, only with LONG shirts, I know) but I'll probably use other leggings this month too, just more like tights. (if any of that makes sense. . . )

 1. Forever 21, 2. I don't remember!, 3. Thrifted, 4. Thrifted (because if you are hoping to lose weight there is no sense in buying new jeans) 

Shoes: Not everyone includes shoes, but I think it's part of the fun.  I pretty much live in my boots in November, but I included my Toms and some heels in case I wanted to change things up.

1. Gift (maybe JC Penny?), 2. Toms, 3. Gift (I have no idea where)

I have a few items missing.  I haven't had time to do all of my fall shopping so I haven't been able to pick my last few items, plus a pair of shoes that I packed in boxes before deciding to do this challenge.

Here are the other ladies participating this month!

Halloween playlist

Last Halloween Olivia was a lady bug, but for the cousin party on Sunday night I put in something a little cooler (that lady bug costume is GREAT for keeping babies warm!) and she wore my little German dress.

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, but it's up there.  And I think it's no secret that (musically anyway) I belong in the 60s, 70s and 80s.  I've always wanted to put together a play list of my favorite Halloween-ish songs from my oldies collection.  So I finally did and I thought it would be fun to share, especially with Halloween TOMORROW!!

Superstition--Stevie Wonder
Black Magic Woman--Santana
Werewolves in London--Warren Zevon
Thriller--Michael Jackson
People are Strange--The Doors
Hotel California--Eagles
Paint it Black--Rolling Stones
Somebody's Watching Me--Rockwell
Don't Fear the Reaper--Blue Oyster Cult
Highway to Hell--AC/DC

What's your favorite Halloween song? 

PS.  For costumes this year Axel is going as a monkey, Olivia a banana, me zookeeper Barbie and I think Adam's going to be the Man in the Yellow Hat.  So, consider my October 2013 goal completed!!  What are you guys dressing up as?
PPS. If you need a great pre-Trick-or-Treating dinner, check out my Rainbow Chili I made last year.  Seriously some of the best chili I've ever made!

Ch ch ch changes

The leaves aren't the only things changin' around here.

Change.

Do you think of awkward preteen middle schoolers when you hear that word?  I do.  Probably because of that one episode of Brady Bunch where Peter's voice starts to change and they sing a song about "time to change".  Ew.

It's fall now, and we're about to move so I feel like there is a lot of change going on. And I often start hyperventilating when we have big changes like that and repeat to Adam over and over "I don't like change!"

I know.  I know.  I hate this apartment.  I should be glad to leave it.  And I aaaam, but. . . I know what to expect here. I know where to grocery shop, I know a few people at church, I know our upstairs neighbors have kids that scream at 2am almost every night.  Stuff like that I can count on.

Then I realized, the flip side scares me too.  I'm a little scared that we're going to be in our house for probably five years.  What if I don't like it and I can't just change it?  What if our neighbor is weird or I don't make any friends?  In college I moved almost every year, since I've been married we've moved four times.  When I don't like my calling in our ward (an assignment LDS members are asked to fulfill for anywhere from 1-5 years) I don't stress because I know soon enough we'll just move. 

So I guess I do like change.  And I don't like it.  I JUST WANT MY WAY ALL THE TIME.

Just keeping it real here on the bliggity blog.

Food Friday: The Best Oatmeal

I have a confession.  I don't really like oatmeal.  I eat it, almost every day, and eh, it's just not my favorite.  My favorite is Lucky Charms, but I'm not 6 so I try to eat healthier than that.  Mostly.  And oatmeal is healthy, fast, inexpensive and my kids love it so it's oatmeal all around. 

My life was changed two years ago when my friend Mary posted about her breakfast.  I was totally inspired and this is the only oatmeal I actually enjoy eating!  (The funny thing is I posted about a banana peanut butter smoothie I made that night and Mary was inspired by me!)

1/2 c quick oats (I just like how they're creamier than old fashioned but you can use that too)
1 c water
honey
1 banana
2-3 T chopped walnuts or almonds

Cook the oats, add the other stuff.  :)

I'm not wild about those ingredients on their own, but together they are synergistic and mmmmm.  The walnuts are my favorite because they add just the right crunch, but almonds are also yummy (I think Mary used almonds in the one she posted about).

Okay the only oatmeal that I enjoy eating more than this is peanut butter chocolate chip oatmeal, but that's more of a dessert. 

How do you make oatmeal?  I would like to have more than one oatmeal recipe that I enjoy :)

It's beginning to look a lot like October!

So we closed on our house Monday!  We wont get to move in until Nov 2nd, and maybe not even then since I want to paint the downstairs first.  So, now we know we'll be here until Halloween.  Which means we could finally go buy pumpkins.  Adam is obsessed with pumpkins.  Last year there were THREE people in our family and I think we ended up with no fewer than 10 pumpkins.  That's three per person with one to spare. 

This is our pumpkin we got for free at Cornbelly's Corn Maze, we carved it a week ago.  Olivia LOVES it.  

And then today we visited our traditional pumpkin patch, the patch were Adam went as a kid.  It's a family owned patch, so local that it's just their backyard!  I love supporting small business. 

I want to be in the picture!  But I don't want to actually smile for you mom.

We'll take these two pumpkins!!!  

Olivia pulling her own pumpkin to the car.  At this point, she still thought she got to keep the wagon too!!

We got four big pumpkins, one medium and four little (like the kind you can fit in your hand)  A little bit more than we planned, but that's what happens when you get Adam in a pumpkin patch. 

If a blogger goes out to look at fall leaves and doesn't post about it, did it actually happen?

As I write this, it's Saturday morning.  Adam has taken the three oldest kids to my nephew's soccer game and both babies decided to take naps.  This is the first time I've heard quiet in over a week I think.  At least it feels that way.  My SIL will be home in five or six hours and this week will be over!  It honestly hasn't been bad, just exhausting.  To feed five children three times a day, dress them, do hair for two little girls, change diapers for two babies (and sometimes Olivia!) and keep the dishes in the sink under control. . .  well it's a lot to do.  I still want five kids, I just want them to come one at a time.  Somewhere a mom of twins is laughing at me.  :)  Anyway, here is a fun story of our weekend last week. 

For the past few weeks in Salt Lake the leaves have started turning beautiful colors.  We've wanted to go on a drive up the canyon and on Friday the 11th we finally got around to it.

The leaves were quite beautiful on the drive up.  But the farther up we drove, the faster time seemed to go, so that when we reached our destination it was actually winter.  There was more snow than colored leaves.

This little guy so warm and cozy, I thought for sure he would be grumpy pants in the cold.

All the way up here, these were the only "fall leaves" left!

We bundled the kids and walked a little bit around Silver Lake.  Axel loved it, Olivia less so.  Axel's little nose was so red, but he was laughing the whole time (except in the picture, naturally)

Olivia cheered up a little when she saw a duck.

So maybe it wasn't the fall leaf outing I was hoping for, but it was still great.  We met a cute couple taking pictures on their iPhones (Axel was flirting with the girl), a crusty fisherman who turned into the cutest clown when trying to get Axel to smile for the camera and exchanged one liners with two guys taking pictures for their online dating profiles (at least that is what we were joking about. I can't imagine what they were actually doing. . .)

The fisherman who took our picture.

Usually I'm a little bit of a homebody.  (Have I mentioned that I hate that word?  It reminds me of homely.  I like to hang out at home, but I do get dressed and look presentable)  Being a SAHM has made me more excited to get out of the house for outings, the kind of thing Adam lives for.  Maybe I only thought I was a homebody because I was so worn out from working that I just wanted to hang at home. 

In any case, I love people and it was just so fun to make little connections.  Like the guy at dinner that night who commented that Adam and I were wearing rival college gear.

Go Cougars!

(Like how I ended this post?  Bet you didn't see that coming.  Neither did I.)