Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!! I’m starting to get excited about handing out candy tonight to our hopefully hundreds of trick-or-treaters!  Not really, but a girl can dream, right?! We’ll see if we get any.  Our house is sort of at the end of the road, so I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t get many.  But I’m ready for them if they come!

Friday, we spent the afternoon carving pumpkins.  We got one for me, one for Doug, and one for Drew.  It was an absolutely gorgeous afternoon, so we were lucky enough to do our carving on the back deck.  Our pumpkins turned out pretty darn good if you ask me.  It probably won’t be hard to tell which pumpkin is Doug’s and which are mine and Drew’s.  What can we say, Drew and I are a touch more traditional than Doug!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had so much fun carving pumpkins and they really look great! If you remember, last year my pumpkin was named Hal (short for Halloween), and this year, I named my pumpkin Frank (short for Frankenstein).  I think the names really go together, and I’m pretty proud of all of our pumpkins this year!

I thought I’d also share a picture of Drew in his Halloween costume.  I know, I know.  It’s not much.  What can I say, I’m not that crafty when it comes to costumes.  And Halloween kind of snuck up on me this year.  All of the sudden, it was time to have a costume ready.  I figured since we were just staying home and handing out candy, Drew didn’t need anything too extravagant.  Maybe next year we’ll step it up a bit!

I guess when your head is in the 97th percentile, a normal 6 month old hat doesn't fit your big noggin'.  Sorry buddy!

Doug and I are not dressing up this year as we are just planning on handing out candy.  But here’s a picture of us a few years ago dressed as 80’s Bozeman Hawk basketball players.  I think that was four years ago, and that’s the last time I dressed up for Halloween!

Hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween!!

 

Wednesday Wisdom

Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is going to get a little deep.  It may seem like a pretty simple quote, and it is, but it has a new, more profound meaning for me these days.

Having Drew was the best thing that I have ever done in my life.  And staying home with him has been the right decision for me.  I feel lucky that I am in a position to be able to be a stay at home mom, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.  There are so many reasons why I think that both Drew and I will benefit from that decision, and I certainly don’t regret it for an instant.

That being said, it’s definitely been hard to leave the workforce.  As someone who has always been very success driven and motivated by achievement, becoming someone who doesn’t have a “job” in society’s eyes has been a definite change for me.  I’ve always been an over-achiever and have always worked extremely hard in any job that I’ve had so that I could be the best at whatever it was that I was doing.  That was always my goal, to always be the best I could be. 

I think leaving the workforce behind has caused me a little bit of an identity crises because I can no longer identify myself as a CPA, or a manager, or someone working to become the CFO of a company.  So what exactly am I now?  I spent many years in college, getting a master’s degree, passing the CPA exam, and working towards a successful business career, and I am no longer those things, and that’s been hard on me.  Was all of that work and effort I put in to become a successful business woman a waste?

I know that what I’m doing now is so much more important than becoming the CFO of a company, but it definitely comes with its challenges of not being considered a “real job” in many people’s eyes.  Being a stay at home mom is truthfully harder than any “job” that I’ve had, and sometimes I think it would just be easier to go back into the workforce.  It was easy for me to excel at accounting, because truthfully, it came pretty naturally to me.  I didn't have to work half as hard at being a good accountant as I have had to work at being a good mom.  The job of mom has no hours, no pay, and no room for advancement or promotion, which makes it at times a thankless job.  One that often gets overlooked as not being a job at all.  There is most certainly a stigma attached to “just” being a stay at home mom.

But I know that my son will benefit from me being an integral part of his life, and that’s exactly how I want it.   I need to remember to put those feelings aside that my new job doesn’t matter as much as a more traditional job, and be more focused on being the best darn mom, wife, and homemaker I can be.  Being a mom is every bit as important as being a CPA.  Whatever you are, be a good one.  I plan on doing just that in my new job as a stay at home mom!

 

Ick!

We finally decided to give Drew some rice cereal this weekend.  The doctor told us at his four month appointment that we could start introducing new foods if we wanted to, but after doing some research, and because Drew has been so easy so far, we decided to wait.  Drew had a few restless nights (he was still sleeping pretty good, but I don’t think he was sleeping as soundly as normal), so we decided that we should maybe introduce some new food.  The doctor recommended starting with rice cereal, so Saturday night, we picked some up at Target.

Sunday morning, at the time of his second bottle, we decided to give it a go.  I had no idea what rice cereal was, but as far as I could tell, it’s really just slightly thicker milk.  We mixed some up and put Drew in the Bumbo to give it a go.  And………………….........................................

 

He HATED it!  I’m sure it was just because it’s new and he wasn’t used to it, but I could tell he didn’t love it.

We gave him a second helping later in the day, and it didn’t go much better. His faces kill me!  They are so cute.  I can just see him thinking, what in the world are you doing to me mom.  This stuff is gross! 

 

We’re hoping that he continues to try it and maybe even start to like it in the coming days and weeks.  We have his six month appointment today, so we will get some more information from the doctor and figure out how we are supposed to go about this whole “new foods” thing.  We definitely feel like rookies, but I guess that’s how all new parents feel, right?! 

 

 

Utah Fun



I thought I'd share some pictures from our trip to Utah last weekend.  We didn't do that great at taking pictures, but we got a few.  It was a really fun weekend, and we really packed in the activities in the four days we were gone.  We spent some time in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Park City.  All three were great.  Here's a quick look at what we did:

 

This is my signature shot of Doug.  Every time we go somewhere I get a shot of him driving us there. This was on the way to Salt Lake Friday morning.

 

Here's a picture of the Tetons.  We drove by them on our way down to SLC Friday morning.  It was so clear that we could see them really well and for miles and miles.  It was pretty awesome because I love the Tetons.  They are a really unique, beautiful mountain range.

Here's Doug messing around in a sporting goods store in SLC.  He looks like a Heisman winner to me!

This is the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake where the Jazz play.  They had the most beautiful trees surrounding the stadium.  It was gorgeous!

This is a picture of Doug and Ainsley at the Bobcat game on Saturday.  She's the daughter of some friends of ours.  She's 14 months old, and I think Drew might weigh more than her.  She was adorable and helped us get our fix of "baby time" when we were really missing Drew!

 One of the Olympic statues at the University of Utah stadium.  They had some Olympic history there as well because it was where the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics were held.

 

University of Utah football stadium. 

Cauldron Park was what the Olympic part of the University of Utah stadium was called.  They had some neat sculptures that were used in the opening ceremonies as well as the Olympic torch.

 

 Another shot of the stadium.

 

 Doug with the Olympic torch from the 2002 games.

An Olympic skier statue on the University of Utah campus. 

Salt Lake City's capital building.  It was massive, and really beautiful! 

 A shot of downtown SLC.

 

 Here I am at the town lift in Park City.  This lift gets you from downtown Park City to the Park City ski resort.  It's pretty neat!

 

 This was at the Park City Olympic park.  They have ski jumping and bobsledding at this facility.  We were lucky enough to catch the aerialists practicing while we were there. It was awesome.  They are insanely good and it's just pure fun to watch them jump into a pool!

 

 This is a shot of the big ski jump.

 

 Here's Doug practicing to be an Olympic ski jumper.

 

 I think he has potential!

 

Behind Doug is the bobsled course.  It's not ice, but they practice on it with roller bobsleds. In fact, if you pay enough, you can ride down the course and see what it feels like to be an Olympic bobsledder!

 Doug is an Olympic bobsledder!

 

 But I'm an Olympic skier, which is much cooler!

 This is where the aerialists practice. They go down the jumps and fly into the pool!

 

 Another shot.

 

 These pictures won't do it justice, but you can get a feel for what it was like to watch these athletes sail through the air and land in the pool.  Pretty awesome!

 

 Upside down!

 

 He looks like he's skiing moguls in the air!

 

 Doug with the Utah Olympic Park sign.  You'll notice the beautiful trees in the background.  October really is a beautiful month.  Park City had so many trees with changing leaves.  It was really beautiful.

 

 Here is another shot of the big ski jumps.  If you look closely, you can see Doug in the bottom right corner at the base of the jump.  That just shows you how massive this thing was.  I can't imagine hurling yourself off that jump.  Crazy!

 



 Here's the Deer Valley ski resort.  It had some really magnificent condos at the base.  I'm sure it would be a really nice place to ski.  We'll have to go back in the winter!

 

 Here's Doug at the base of Deer Valley.  He's pointing to the run where the Olympic moguls course was held in 2002.

 

 We visited a whiskey distillery called High West (they also had vodka).  It was the coolest whiskey distillery that I've ever been to (never mind it's the only one I've been to!), and they had AMAZING drinks.  I had the pink one on the right.  It was essentially a vodka lemonade with a pomegranate float, but boy was it the best vodka lemonade I've ever had!

 

 I was dying to get a caramel apple, so Sunday afternoon, my wish came true.  We enjoyed it with our little bear friend.  Yumm!

 

Finally, here is a picture of Doug at the Park City ski resort base.  They had all sorts of activities, like a mountain coaster and an alpine slide.  It was pretty neat.  And we just happened to catch the very last day they were open for the season!

 

Overall, we had a really great trip.  It was fun to get to spend some time alone with Doug, but we sure missed our little Drew.  Coming home after vacation wasn't as tough because we knew we had him to come home to.  We can't wait for the next big vacation, Hawaii with all of us in about a month!!