We had a nice, albeit very full, pre-Halloween weekend! On Friday night, Phil had a guys night so I was on my own with the boys. I was glad that he had a guys night for a change. I tend to have more social plans in the evenings than he does since I'm a planner and my friends are planners! But it sounds like they are going to establish a recurring guys night. You all know my struggles with wanting things to be "equal/even" - which I know isn't possible - but I am happy to hear he'll hopefully have a recurrent guys night to look forward to. The boys and I had a quiet night at home.
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| Paul showing Will how to draw a cat! |
Saturday was our usual combo of getting to the library when it opened and then going to gymnastics. The library had 10 pictures of animals skeletons to find in the children's area of the library so Paul had a blast doing that!
After quiet time on Saturday, we went over to a friend's house for a pumpkin carving party. There were a bunch of families from daycare there. I brought
this sweet and smoky chili and the host made vegetarian chili. I handled the pumpkin carving while Phil corralled Will. Phil usually carves our pumpkins and he does a much better job than I did!
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| Ours is the cat on the far left. The cat is kind of plump, just like our Oscar! |
Our friends have 2 cats that are indoor/outdoor cats. Will was obsessed with them and really tried to coax this cat out from under the deck, to no avail!
On Sunday morning I ran 4 miles with my neighbor and then the boys and I went to the Farmer's Market while Phil golfed 9 holes with some friends. It was an unseasonably warm weekend so he wanted to take advantage of the nice weather!
The boys tried on their costumes after lunch in preparation for the Halloween party we had that afternoon and it turned out Will had outgrown the puppy costume I thought he was going to wear. It fit when he tried it on in August but now he's too tall for it! I guess he went through a growth spurt! Luckily he can fit into the dino costume that Paul wore the last 2 years!
When Phil got home from golfing, Paul and I went over to the party around 1 and Phil stayed back w/ napping Will. I brought a
Greek-layered dip which did not go over very well for some reason! I guess I know what I'll be having with lunch today! My neighbor had some fun crafts set up for the kids and a Halloween egg hunt.
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| Decorating a Rice Krispy treat |
When we got home, Phil raked and the boys played in the leaves while I made a turkey breast in the instant pot plus mashed potatoes and gravy. So kind of Thanksgiving in October, I guess! We mostly made this turkey breast to have leftover turkey to use in a
Wild Rice soup later this week (the recipe doesn't call for a protein but we always add chicken or turkey - but leave out the mushrooms since Phil doesn't like them!).
After dinner, the boys opened their Halloween gift from my parents (any holiday is a reason for sending something in the mail!). We kept Will up 10 minutes later than his usual bedtime, which we'll do each night this week in preparation for daylight savings time ending next weekend. Hopefully gradually pushing his bedtime out by an hour over the week means he will sleep a little later next Sunday and we'll avoid an extra hour of parenting? We'll see. This is the first time we've attempted to adjust bedtime in preparation for the time change. I will personally be VERY glad when DST comes to an end in 2023! It's fine as an adult but a total pain with young kids.
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| Playing with this Frozen-themed magic ink activity pad. |
Then Phil and I watched the final episode of The Patient. I'm sad that it's over but have mixed feelings about the ending. If you've watched it, email me to discuss!!
How was your weekend? Did you have any Halloween-themed activities to attend? Have you ever tried adjusting your kids' bedtimes in preparation for the time change? Tell me it works!!! Ha.
11 comments:
So fun! You are way ahead on the pumpkin-carving thing; ours are pretty basic this year and I had NO hand it at all except for buying the pumpkins. I was solo-parenting all week and was happy to outsource the carving responsibilities to my hubby and the kids.
I hate DST. I used to adjust their bedtimes by little increments when they were little but, honestly, I never found it helped much and eventually just stopped trying. It caused more work for me... But I still hate the change and last year it threw my sleep off for TWO MONTHS. I'm going to be proactive about taking some melatonin in the evenings to try to settle things out more quickly this year. It's odd, but I know multiple other people who had the same horrible time with sleep issues last year after DST where, like me, the issues lasted for weeks. A weird coincidence? Maybe it had something to do with DST + the cycle of the moon?
We had a great weekend. It was a bit strange because our daughter was at an overnight youth event - but she had a great time and it is such a different dynamic with only one child at home!
I love your pumpkins! So cute!
Sounds like a really nice weekend. Happy Halloween!
Oh god do not get me started on DST. I don't care if it's standard time or DST, just PICK A TIME AND STICK WITH IT. I especially hated it when my kids were small because hello, 5:00 wake ups. *screams into the void*
That sounds like a very lovely Halloweeny weekend! The kids are so cute in their costumes!
I love your Halloween-activity-heavy weekend. It must be so fun with small kids... and you did a great job on the pumpkin carving, if you ask me :)
My Halloween-activity was a Halloween-run through our neighborhood (where I just run/walk and take as many pictures of Halloween-decorations as I can). It's always fun and I look forward to it all year.
so cute of Will waiting for the cats. Cats are not the most human friendly animals, hope he gets to him them next time.
very fun activities, especially the carving party. i think it's always more fun to do it with more people and make it an event than just doing it at home.
we had Halloween party and treat and trick hunt organized by our building. the girls had fun and I had to do zero preparation. hahah.. :)
Super cute pumpkins! I love a quiet Friday night! I try not to over plan Friday nights. The boys look so adorable in their costumes!!!
This past weekend I went to the volunteer appreciation night at church. It was kind of a let down for me, they had good trucks and a bounce house for the kids and I think everyone else enjoyed it but I didn’t love the lack of structure that had been a part of years past. Lesson learned I won’t go again.
Saturday I got a run in since my vendor event wasn’t until later. Thankful my mom did that event with me! Next year if they say “trick or treating” I’m not signing up. You have to pay both your vendor fee and for candy and people don’t shop they come for the candy.
Sunday I got to go to church since I wasn’t serving and then we went to the MOW soup fundraiser lunch. It’s one of my favorites! All these restaurants participate and you vote on your favorite soup! They hadn’t done it in 2 years and I was so happy it was back!
Lori
Yay! Pumpkin carving is so much fun. I love to do it and we do it every year. This year, one of our pumpkins was rotted, so we only did one, which is a bit of a bummer, but it was great fun.
The boys looked so excited to be in their costumes! It's such a fun age when they're excited for all the bells and whistles of Halloween.
All sooooo cute!! The pumpkins look great. This was my first year not carving one myself in a while. I'm not that talented at it either, so I'm not sure this was a huge loss- but mine usually turn out "decent", with a pattern. lol.
You had so much fun social stuff!! You really are quite the social butterfly in many ways, to me, anyway! :)
Re: DST, are you sure that change passed? I thought it hadn't been fully approved yet. I'm not sure what I think about it. I guess I don't really care that much. I do think that it can be complicated to have it either too dark in the morning (meaning little kids are out waiting for the bus in the DARK!), but in the afternoon the early dark presents problems, too. In terms of the sleep issues, I have never found this to be a huge deal in our family. I mean, they would be a little off for a day or two, but I never did anything special to prep for it and I always felt like it worked itself out sooner than later. Right now my boys will be happy when DST ends because it's like pitch black outside when they get up for school, and they don't like that. My husband however can't stand driving home from work in the dark. I think here where we live we are just lucky that we don't have MORE extreme dark/light issues- like my sister in Ireland has some times in the year where it's dark suuuuper long, or else stays light until almost midnight, etc. I know it's the same in Alaska and other places too. I personally kind of enjoy the dark evenings in winter. We turn the fire on, light candles and I like the cozy feel to it. I think the bill was to remain on Standard Time (eliminating DST)- which I think then means in the summer it would get dark a bit earlier than it does now (often still light until almost 9 pm!). But I might be ok with that, because I always found it hard in the summer to get the boys to bed on time when it was light out SO late. Standard time would mean a slightly darker evening at least in the summer time.
Stupid time change. Dumb. I'd rather deal with more dark in the morning and be able to do SOMETHING at night.
It sounds like a great weekend and the kids look so cute in their costumes. (KevMo have got a lot of use out of Buzz Lightyear, passing it down!). I HATE falling back. Hate dark coming early and I hope that changes forever next year. It has to be hard with kids! Poor Lizzie -- she's going to start begging for dinner even earlier. I'm trying to feed her a little later but who knows. She tells time by her stomach.
Okay wait - did the DST legislation finally pass?! I hadn't heard anything about it! I am very excited if so. I really hate the time change and I don't even have kids to worry about.
So many fun Halloween activities for you this weekend - love it!
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