Hello November. Nice to see you again!

I am excited that it's November. Completely taken aback that it's actually November, because seriously, where did this year go?, but I am really looking forward to the holidays that are right around the corner. I was flipping through my planner last night and landed on my list of projects to accomplish and thought to myself that the majority of them will have to continue to wait until we get through the upcoming busy season. And then I realized that the list of my projects to accomplish is actually my list of new year's resolutions and that putting them off a couple more months means a big fat fail for keeping (or starting) my 2011 resolutions. Oops. I guess I'll just have to roll them over to next year...

I also noticed how quickly my planner is filling up. The busy festiveness is part of the reason I love the next two months because if I'm idle for too long I start to go nuts. (hmmm, I think I may know a toddler who is like that, too!) I am excited about all of the events coming up but I'm definitely starting to feel the pressure. Add all my crafty Pinterest holiday projects and an overambitiously planned birthday party to an already hectic season and I'm pretty sure I'm setting myself up for some late nights in the near future! It's alright though -- sleep is overrated, right? (hmmm, I think I may know a baby who would agree with that statement!) :)

So far November has been pretty uneventful. In fact, I haven't even set foot outside today. Harper woke up with a fever again so we missed BSF for the second week in a row and we're just hanging around the house today. She got a great report at her follow-up visit with her pediatrician on Monday. Her breathing was much better and her fever was gone, so I'm a little surprised to see it back again today. She's so hoarse and is coughing a lot and I hate seeing her feeling so yucky.

waiting for the doc

Both kids are taking naps right now (well, Harrison is jumping around in his crib but that counts for me) so I'm about to conquer this monumental pile of fun:

And these are just the kids' clothes, sheesh! In my defense, a good chunk of this pile are clothes that we just borrowed from Grayson that were in their attic so I am washing them all before I hang them up in Harrison's closet. But with a messy toddler and a pukey baby it really does seem like the laundry is never ending. I wash at least a load every single day...but I guess I should just be thankful that we have enough clothes to wash a load every single day.

I got an email informing me that Harrison is 100 weeks old today. I had to laugh because who seriously counts their child's age in weeks past the 12 mark? But then I got sad because in exactly one month I won't even be counting his age in months anymore. He is growing up so fast. I love that every day he is learning new words. He learned "nerds" last night...and I learned he would definitely have a nasty, unhealthy addiction to them if I would stop being so mean and just let him.

Another word he learned this week is "happy day." He couldn't quite master "happy birthday," but I thought he did pretty good! We practiced in the car on the way to see birthday girl herself, or "Aunt Kay-Kay" as he calls her. We had a fun time at the "mall" (another word he learned that day) and Katie was so sweet to stay with Harrison while I took Harper to her dr. appointment. And then it was about time for some candy huntin'!

{Side note - I just realized how long this is already and I haven't even gotten to my main reason for this post. I guess before I got ahead of myself with all this talk about November I should have shared the Halloween pictures first!}

Jeff, Katie, & Hollyn and Tobias, Rachel & Zion came over and we all went trick-or-treating together. It was a lot of fun! (minus the mosquitoes....grrrr)

Here are the girls:

And here are the boys:

Yeeeah, they weren't too interested in posing. They were having too much fun playing cowboy and cow.

Group shot:

Annnnnd, they're off!

Good thing we did a trick-or-treat trial run with our neighbors, because Harrison didn't quite get the concept at first. I was worried he was going to be nervous or afraid when people opened their doors...but at Paige and Tyson's it was the complete opposite. He ran past them, through the door and across their house, picked up a power drill that they had sitting out, and tried to put it in his candy bucket. Ha! Not exactly how it works, Son, but nice try!

And of course we had to pay Allen & Lindsay a visit.

I thought this was a classic shot.  Raiding the candy without a candy-eating child in sight...hmmm. We totally caught them in the action!

Then the boys finally caught up. Rick and Jeff must have been onto something because this bucket had all kinds of goodies in it. Harrison snagged a green truck and loved it more than any of his candy. (This happened to be the house of friends of ours. So Stephanie, if you happen to read this, a) I'm sorry my husband stole some of your candy, and b) great idea with the toys! Your house was very popular!)

They couldn't wait until we got home to dig in.

Harrison showing his sister his new got-ga (truck). She looks like she's still wondering why she is dressed in that ridiculous get up...kind of reminds me a little of Ralphie's little brother Randy on A Christmas Story. Ha!

Happy November! :)