Happy Halloween!

James

The best picture ever - look at Brenna's face! She had had enough Halloween by then. :-)

Fluffy Brenna Dog

Save it for Therapy

Tonight I made a last minute schlep to Target after we decided that, yes, the kids will be dressing up for Halloween even though it is less than 12 hours away and we have no costumes. Apparently we aren't the only procastinators in Elkhart county because the costume aisle was packed and a huge mess. After settling on a puppy dog costume for Brenna, (it was either that or a sock puppet costume that was a little freaky looking...) I had almost resigned to dressing Riley up as a pony - how lame! Then it happened. While digging through a pile of sexy vampire dresses trying to figure out which one would be cubicle appropriate, the heavens opened up and the angels smiled upon me and I spotted James.

Not his favorite engine, but I do believe I am a hero in my 2 1/2 year old's eyes right now. In fact, Riley insisted on wearing the costume to bed. Of course there will be pictures posted tomorrow.

After my awesome find, I was feeling pretty good and strolled to the baby section to get some pull-ups. On the end cap, they had boxes of 68 pull-ups for $11.88! And I had a $2 coupon! Normally they are at least $19.99! So I'm thinking, "Could Target be any more perfect??" But then it hit me...all of the boxes were pink. There were no "boy" pull-ups on clearance. Only pretty pink "girl" pull-ups that literally had princesses on them. Dilemma. Do I save $10 and go with the pink? Or do I secure my son's masculinity and pay out the nose for the blue ones? I decided to go with the pink.

Others in my household (**cough, cough**...JEFF) feel I just don't get it and that I can't put princess pants on the boy. I say that their main purpose is to catch his poop and it doesn't matter what color they are. And if it DOES matter, I've just given him another topic to bring up during one of his therapy sessions later in life. After all, don't they always blame it on the mom? :-)

Oh, you were curious about what I'm dressing up as for Halloween??

A vampire of course.

How YOU doing?

It seems that I tend to blog about things and then just abruptly stop...(sorry mom!) so here is an update on the Rudd's thus far...

Riley is sleeping in his own bed! It was much easier than I thought it would be. I guess it was just time. He still puts up a little protest, but is content when you agree to read three books and watch some episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine. (Yes, my 2 1/2 yr old son has a tv in his room. I swore my kids would NOT have tv's in their room, especially so young! But it keeps him in his bed and allows us to watch something OTHER than Thomas and Friends.) He's such a good kid - says "please" and "thank you" and helps out with his sister. Little boys don't come any sweeter than this.

Brenna is a hibernating bear right now. She's moved up to eating 6 oz at a time and is CONSTANTLY SLEEPING! Last night, she slept from about 5 pm to 4:30 the next morning! She's growing like a weed and is so so sweet for the few hours she is awake. :-) She may look like her daddy, but she's as photogenic as her mom. Which is not at all. She's so precious when she smiles so I tried to catch a picture of her this afternoon and this is what I got...

Terrified Brenna

Brenna giving me the ol' stink eye.

And doing her best dead possum impression.

I did get ONE semi-blurry, but super sweet one. It showcases her pretty red hair.

Jeff is doing really well. Working hard among all the layoffs his company is doing. The RV industry is really awful in Elkhart County right now - the NY Times even did a story on how Elkhart is the "white hot center of the meltdown in the American economy". (Click here to read the story) Jeff works in IT (a.k.a. the computer guy) and not in the actual factories, so he does have some job security. I'm grateful to have a computer nerd for a husband! He's a good man and an awesome father.

Me - well, I'm good. I some how thought it would be a good idea to sign up for the craft fair at work, because I don't have enough on my plate with two kids, a house and a full time job. So I've been making cards like a mad woman. It's next week, so we'll see how I do! I've had some requests for my stuff already! I just hope I don't disappoint! I'll try and post some pictures of my creations before they are sold.

The whole "weight loss Wednesday" has been put on the back burner. I could come up with a thousand excuses why, but honestly my inner brat has won out recently and I just don't want to eat well and exercise. As much as I know I should and as good as I felt when I was going strong! I do really really really want to do the 5k that Mandy Hall is holding in March in honor of her son Connor. I am going to do it. I just need to get my brat in line. Like the Japanese proverb, Fall down seven times - stand up eight!

So what's up with you?

(p.s. how do you like the look of the Mighty B's blog?? I did the header myself! It only took me about four hours and a million google searches for tutorials on how to use Photoshop! HA! But now that I have it figured out, (sort of) I can't wait to make more! Start a blog! I'll design your header for you!! Only $29.95!)

Let it Snow!

Here's the local forcast for this week.

See those pretty little white things on Monday and Tuesday???

It's SNOW! I LOVE IT!

Mighty B Edit: The wonderful snow was actually just incredibly cold, big, wet, awful, semi-frozen raindrops. Blech. Bring on the real snow!

Cool Scrapbooking Class

I found info on this class at Cathy Zielske's website. I've never taken one of Jessica Sprague's classes, but she always has some really neat stuff. I'm very interested in learning more about digital scrapbooking (I'm not sure how much of that will be in this class...) and especially learning new ways of looking at scrapbooking. It looks pretty cool - and it's FREE! - so I signed up. Anyone else interested in taking it with me??

Go HERE for more info!

Night #2

This is my second night on bedtime patrol and so far so good. We read three books, (Sleepyhead, The Monster at the End of This Book, and Go Train Go). And now he is in bed with B-Bear - who wasn't thrown at me tonight - and D-Dog. Every now and then he'll yell, "Mommy wake up!" which to Riley means, "Mommy I don't want to go to sleep". But it's relatively quiet. May even get to bed before midnight tonight!

So Hard

We have gotten in the bad habit of letting Riley sleep in our bed. Since he's nearly 3, we decided it's more than time to get him to sleep in his own bed. Since I have tomorrow and Friday off, I'm the bedtime police for now (Jeff will be on duty Friday and Saturday night). Right now, Riley is sitting on his bed with D-Dog (he threw B-Bear at me when he realized what was going on.) and he is screaming. Sobbing. Wailing. He's only tried to come out of his room once, and went back to bed pretty well (screaming the whole way, but didn't resist like I thought he would). Every now and then he'll get quiet and I'll think, "Yes!" - then it starts again, "Mommy! NOOOOOOOO!"

Ugh. I know this is the right thing to do. But MAN! It's so hard! I want to run in there and hold him and say, "It's okay! Mommy's sorry! You can sleep our bed! I'll squish into your toddler bed!" But then I remind myself - I am the parent. He is the child. I want him to grow up to be a responsible little man, not a spoiled brat. He is not hurt. He will live through this. And so will I.

So now I sit and wait and listen to the crying. Clutching my Supernanny book and praying, "Please Lord let me make it through this..."