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hallowe'en and the e'ens before

'how much noise can i make with this here bell?'
'i may look cute and innocent. but you'll
pry my pumpkin from my cold dead hands.'
my heart in two bodies.
i'm taking advantage of a double nap here - two boys snoozing in an otherwise quiet house equals some unfamiliar quiet time for this mommy. i probably ought to nap myself, right? but these pics ... these pics inspire me and i just had to write.

(and a quick credit to our neighbor and friend - who i will only identify as m.l. because she hasn't agreed to let me write about her or her beautiful daughter b. - for taking these beautiful pics of my boys!)

we had a great trick-or-treat night last night with m.l.'s family. b., who was dressed as cinderella, is only about six months older than john, so they enjoy playing together and had fun getting candy last night. we stopped by the firestation to visit our favorite firemen uncles and got some awesome pics of my little fireman with cinderella on the engine.

once the kids had more candy than they will ever need, we went back to m.l.'s house and had dinner while we handed out more candy to the older trick or treaters still out in the neighborhood. it was a really nice evening that felt remarkably normal considering how much transition has been going on for our family in the past six months or so.

i couldn't help thinking back to last halloween, when we had a similar sort of night with our dear friends the russells in a neighborhood in baton rouge. how different our lives were back then! john, a year younger, didn't really understand the nuances of trick-or-treating, though he certainly didn't object to getting candy. i'd just had a miscarriage earlier that month. i still worked at the mall. 

a short list of the things that have happened in our lives since then ...
  • pregnant again! yay!
  • blood type conflicts. not so much yay.
  • i got laid off from my job. not yay at all.
  • baby is an ok blood type - yay!
  • found a new job - yay!
  • john turned three!
  • my husband found a new job in dallas. yay? yay! scared. but yay.
  • my husband moved to dallas.
  • i packed up the house while 6-7 months pregnant. (with lots of help. YAY!)
  • i unpacked the house while 8 months pregnant.
  • we started finding new friends and connecting with old friends here in the dfw area
  • i delivered a baby in an ambulance - family of four. yay!
  • baby might be sick.
  • baby is not sick!
  • big brother, little brother, mommy, daddy, and doggy keep on keeping on
that's a lot for a year. and it has been a wild ride, and sometimes very difficult. but sitting here in my temporarily quiet house, looking at one beautiful sleeping boy and thinking of the other sleeping in his room, starting to look for a job for myself, having just sold our house in phoenix (YAY!), waiting for my husband to come home so we can spend a nice weekend together as a family ... i gotta just say, damn am i blessed.



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