Good Costume, Bad Costume

Dressing up is my favourite part of Halloween. The past couple years I have issued a challenge to myself to furnish my own costume with ingenuity and a maximum budget of $30.

The catch about dressing up though is that unless my costume lives up to my imagination I would rather forego the whole dressing up entirely. Because as awesome as it feels to have a great costume, it feels awful to be stuck in a lacklustre one for a hours.

The Harker and Sommerfeldt clans have planned an "Alice in Wonderland" costume theme this year and I was supposed to be Alice (three guesses who Rhett and Harland are being). I've been Alice before. My dress was a high quality Disney affair (Nana must have bought it) complete with a beautifully stitched white rabbit holding a pocket-watch and exclaiming "I'm late". My hair was dyed white blonde. Everything was done very proper. 

Well I couldn't find "the dress" within in my budget and my hair is short and if I couldn't be Alice properly than I wasn't going to be Alice at all.

So I switched to the flower garden. And it was so fun to pick out flowers and glue them onto my skirt and shoe-clips (I still need to fill in the sparse areas with a few more blooms). And the effect was just what I imagined.

Well my other costume collaboration is not a success. 

Matt and I and our best friends the Hunspergers are conspiring to be team "Hunkers" for a 5K. We're going in basketball gear and we'll bring a basketball and run and walk and do basketball group stunts and drills and it is going to be a blast because hanging out with the Hunspergers always is.

But I'm less excited about my shoddy basketball jersey (if you see it up closer there are blurry lines, smudges, and I've already spent as much time on it as my skirt).

Favorite Moments

My favorite moments from this week:

• I left Jonas on the potty to make a clean underwear replenishing trip downstairs when I heard some loud shrieks upstairs. I go into the baby room to find Jonas buck-naked lying in the crib next to Rhett, who is absolutely delighted to have been woken up, and they are both smiling and squealing at the top of their lungs. Rhett has a special adoring look especially for Jonas. It seems to say "you are the bestest older brother a guy could have" and "I want to be you when I grow up" simultaneously. They have this chummy relationship that is so sweet to watch (Harland is getting there but he is a very observant little baby and I think he's observed a little too much reckless behaviour to have full trust one-on-one with Jonas yet).

• Matt and I were sitting next to each other with Matt holding Harland when I look over and see Harland looking at me with the widest grin on his face. He then proceeded to hide in face in Matt's chest and then quickly whip back towards me and to do another huge grin, delighted I am still there. He repeated that twenty times. He was playing hide-and-go-seek which I have only tried playing with him a couple times and not recently. It was melt your heart adorable.

• Jonas precariously standing on the arm of the couch with his back facing towards the couch shouted "Wook Mommy!" And fearlessly launched his body backwards so that he fell back on the couch completely straight. 

• Today I pushed the babies in a stroller on the way to play group at the church while Jonas trotted at my side. It was a ways to walk and I was walking fast so Jonas was getting tired by the time we reached the church which was when he suggested a hug. So I gave him a little squeeze to my side. Then he asked for a "big hug" and I started to catch on that if I knelt down to give him a big hug he was going to get an iron grip on my neck until he was carried to the play group. Silly rabbit!

• Reading books with Jonas for over an hour and he still didn't want to stop!

Milestone

I've been able to hustle this crew out of the house every weekday, except the day it rained, the past two weeks for an hour or so excursion by myself.

This is a milestone. And a much needed miracle.

We are mobile.

And it is doing wonders for all of us to get out at 10:30 a.m. or 3:30 p.m. everyday.

(Their faces look a lot happier once the walk begins).

Sweaters

Words cannot tell how much I love putting my boys in Grandma Harker's hand-knitted creations.

I can't wait to have family photos of the boys in their sweaters next weekend!

Right Here Right Now

Potty training is now in session.

Harland was biting his

fingers in anxious anticipation of fasting for his surgery

but the ear tubes are in place and all is well.

Matt and I thought

this Waterpark poster provided a pretty accurate glimpse into Rhett and Harland's future.

I seriously picture the boys looking like this seven years in the future and that is such a Rhett face!

It gave us a good laugh.