Nostalgia

It's foggy outside. If I squint just right at the streetlamp's cone of light, and don't look too closely at the ground, and imagine a quiet stillness, it almost feels like it's snowing. I stood for a long time in the dark tonight, squinting out my window at the fog, letting the Christmas tree lights dance in my peripheral vision, arms folded and toes curled up into my slippers for a little extra protection from the dropped temperatures. And, after a little while of quiet contemplation, unexpected tears started to fall from my squinted eyes. I guess I kind of wished I wasn't standing alone in my living room, pretending to see snow. I opened my eyes and backed up into the couch to cry for a while, and look at my little Christmas tree. We put it up last night, and I was kind of excited that I would be able to spend the whole Christmas season in my own house, looking at my own tree, and focusing on my own little family.

I guess I feel differently tonight.

Tonight, I miss my families...the one I grew up in, the one I married into and, of course, my overworked, exhausted husband...and I'm having trouble swallowing the fact that I won't see them this holiday season (or, at least not much of them, in the case of my husband). I'm sure I'll create more memories of this '1st Christmas at home' but , is it wrong to cry a little for what won't be?

Ah, here I am, miss gloomy-doomy - and after such a long time of silence in my posting! Sorry. I guess I'm just 'ebbing' a little again. I haven't really done that for a while, so I suppose it's about time. Well, I'm sure the tide is on it's way in - and, this time, I think I'll take President Uchdorf's advice and try to lift up someone else, as opposed to sitting around and waiting for the tide to come in itself. I have a feeling that he may know a little secret on how to help me bring in the tide myself. :)

Anyone Wanna Help Me Rake?

Yes...my whole front yard and driveway look about like this - give or take a few spots.

We have been LOVING this fall season with all of our trees! How fun to live in a place where the annual 'leaf-fall' is much greater than the annual 'snow-fall'! I have to smile to myself when it snows here...the whole city shuts down (for valid reasons), yet individual blades of grass still rise above the skiff. Not so with the leaves! Almost every blade of grass is concealed underneath the vibrant layers of tree-debris. It's been so fun for me to stare out my big front window, mouth open in disbelief, and watch the leaves fall so steadily from our trees. As steady as a light snowfall, yet so much more colorful! So far this season we have logged hours of raking, and disposed of numerous piles of leaves...and yet - less than a week after the latest raking session - this is what (only about 1/8th of) my yard looks like:
Perhaps more disheartening than all the leaves on the ground, is all the leaves still left on the trees! I look up, and can barely tell that they've started to shed:

And so, I've thrown my arms up in the air and decided to let them all fall before I rake again. It's just not worth spending 5 hours outside to only enjoy a few hours of 'cleanliness'. So, if you come by, don't be scared off by the concealed driveway, or the seemingly non-existent path up to my front door...just enjoy the fall season as much as I do as I drive on the crunchy leaves, and kick them back up into the air on my way inside the house. Fall only lasts for so long. :)

10 pictures and a few (more) words

So, I've been trying to think of a creative way to share our October month without boring you with another 'Halloween post' to read. But, I seem to have no creativity streak at the moment - so I cut, slimmed, trimmed, and filtered all of my pictures and experiences into just 7 pictures and a few words. (You should all be impressed!)


PUMPKIN CARVING

Love it, love it, love it! We got away with only severing one or two layers of human skin, which happened to be on McKenzie's hand. It totally could have been worse, like, with blood and everything...where was her mother?

WARD TRUNK-OR-TREAT
McKenzie, the Ballerina

Carson, the Spider


Brian and Lindsay, the pair of eyes. Kind of funny story actually: I'd had this unfinished idea in my head for about a month before Halloween, thinking Brian might actually enjoy staying true to his ophthalmologic profession, but as I finished making the 'eyelashes' Brian said, "Uh, Linds, doesn't this kind of look like a girl's eyelash? I don't think I want to be a girl's eye." So, you'll note that while my eyelashes are nice and curled, Brian's eyelashes are more unkempt and ... uh ... manly, I guess. :)


Brian was a good sport about getting some pictures in the privacy of our own home...but the eyelashes didn't stay on his head too long after we'd made it to the church *sigh*. So, I was kind of the 'lone eye'.


HALLOWEEN DAY
Breakfast: Witches brew...aka, cereal with green food coloring...


Lunch: Grilled Cheese Spiders - I was actually quite surprised with the way these turned out - cute! Since my kids don't like the crusts of their bread, we cut them all off, buttered them, sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on them, broiled them for a few minutes, and they magically turned into tasty spider legs! And, since we LOVE pomegranates in our house, we had plenty of seeds to make the eyes (of which, McKenzie taught me last week, spiders have eight! As if they weren't gross enough already!).


Dinner: Fruity pancakes - okay, nothing specially 'halloween-ish' here - but they were good. :)


And, I just had to throw this 'after' picture in the mix. Notice her totally raggety hair, the holes in her tights, and the mascara smeared under her eyes. This was not due, as one might suspect, to the fact that she had an immesurable amout of fun skipping and running from house to house in the neighborhood (which she did). No...she actually started trick-or-treating looking much the same way. Why? Well...

At around 5:30pm, we had actually decided not to go Trick-or-Treating that night (much to both my and McKenzie's disappointment). Brian was working at the hospital all night, and Carson was so sick he was having a hard time breathing, speaking, walking, crying, etc. I just thought it would be a bad idea to take him out into the cold air and to stay up way past his bedtime. So, it was decided that we would put Carson to bed early, and have a McKenzie-Mommy-Movie-Munchies party instead. She was actually pretty excited about our transformed night. We finished dinner, got into our pajamas, and I sat down to give Carson a nebulizer treatment to help his little lungs. McKenzie was put on 'candy-duty' and answered the door each time trick-or-treaters came by...and little by little, each time she dropped candy into another little kid's bag and shut the door behind them, I watched the excitement for our McKenzie-Mommy-Movie-Munchies night turn into longing for the Trick-or-Treating night we would not have. She tried so hard to laugh when she closed the door behind the 2nd group of trick-or-treaters...but it was quite forced, and when she turned around, her smile was half gone already.
"McKenzie? Do you really want to go trick-or-treating tonight?" I asked
"Yeah," she responded sadly. Then she gave me a little half-smile that said, "But I understand, Mommy."
I barely choked back the tears at her sweet show of sacrifice for her little brother, and I said, "Go get your costume on. We'll go right after I'm done with the nebulizer."
OH THE EXCITEMENT! She got herself dressed all by herself (choosing the holey tights), and her hair and makeup had been done 11 hours earlier for her preschool parade (explaining the rest of the look). And as we walked out the door, I took a glance at the clock on the wall. 7:00. 'Funny...' I thought to myself, 'I wanted to get my kids in bed by now.'

But, we went.

And, I'm so, so, so, so, so glad we did! Because now, that day has turned into yesterday...and I have some great memories of my 4 year old, skipping, dancing, running, jumping, and squealing with delight as a little ballerina in search for some candy on Halloween night!