What does Spidey do while we watch football?

In case you needed to smile today...my son is adorably weird. :)

Beautiful Heartbreak

I had an amazing weekend with my sisters and mom.

(The closest photo I was willing to take with Brad Wilcox(He's in the blue shirt, yellow tie). I felt bad bugging him just for a picture and when my mom took this picture, I was laughing too hard.)

But the week before was really hard. Most nights, I felt depressed and alone...besides my wonderful husband, that is. I can feel myself growing further apart from close friends and working full time is not helping that. I would come home to a dirty house, exhausted husband, and kids that still needed my love and attention. Of course, I was also exhausted, having just worked for 8 hours. I am not sure why this experience is so much harder than my experience of coming back to work in July. Everything just seems harder.

I really feel like I've been trying. I want to be positive and happy but I can't seem to find either of those feelings for very long each day. I want to blog and tell you about how I've been working hard to become a nurturer (since I still haven't posted an update about my 'Mothers Who Know Are Nuturers' post) but really, I think I've been getting worse than my normal, homemaking self. At least before, I cooked a couple times a week and kept the house clean almost every day.


I know they need me. And what I learned this weekend was that family matters most. My children matter most. To dwell on the best friends that come and go or the things we cannot purchase all becomes unimportant when thinking about eternity. I realized this weekend that my husband is my best friend. I may not have a girl best friend but he tries harder tI o love and care for me than anybody else in the world. Why do I not give him enough credit? Why am I constantly feeling like I need more from him when, after taking a step back, I realize he is doing everything that he can?
I am so loved.

If you have some time, please watch thise video from Hilary Weeks. She showed us the music video this weekend during Time Out for Women and I cried through the whole thing.

I may have heartbreak but I can already see the effects of it changing my life and I am grateful for it's beauty. I pray for others going through fertility, not just myself. I often hope that my friends dealing with infertility can get pregnant, and I often hope that it's before I do. As weird as this sounds, I am grateful that my journey so far is teaching me to love others and to think about them, before thinking of myself. I am already grateful for my PCOS...I just wish that since I've learned from it, Heavenly Father would take it back away from me. :) But you know, that isn't how it works and I know He will always be there to lift me up when I am weak.

And that's how Suze sees it.

Our Many Halloween Parties

Our first Halloween party was my parents trunk or treat last Wednesday night. It was a lot of fun and I love going every year.
Spidey found a cute dog and he wished we could take him home. :)

Petey wanted to show me her face painting that she got with Aunt Jamie.

Our next party was a small, last minute friends party at the park. As you can see, Petey went as Tinkerbell to this party. I thought it'd be an easier outfit for her to play at the park with.

The kids got to decorate cute sugar cookies. My kids loved it.

So did David and Sam.

Spidey was SO sweet with Baby E. He kept rocking her carseat and singing, "Rockabye, beebee!"

Isn't she a doll?!

The next party we had was last Saturday. Our ward had a Fall Festival, which we weren't supposed to dress up for.

But of course, we still dressed the kids up in Halloween colored gear. :) Don't they look adorable? I loved the beanie on Spidey but it ended up being too warm outside.

The fall festival had bounce houses, tons of games, and more face painting! Petey is showing off her pink butterfly.

Spidey got a big black spider. He loved looking on it in the mirror.

And that brings me to Halloween day. I am filling in at my dad's pediatric office for the next 3 weeks and Monday was my first day. So I got to dress up for Halloween.

I just wore black and orange and then got a sash from my mom that says "Your Worst Nightmare". I thought it was pretty funny. :)

I took the kids around our neighborhood and they had such a great night. As you can see, Petey had a different costume on again. She chose Belle for Halloween night. :) We ended the night at my parents' house to hit up a couple more houses before calling it a night.

Pumpkin Carvers

We love pumpkin carving day at this house. We usually carve our pumpkins the day of Halloween or the day before.
This year, we have had a crazy schedule the last couple of weeks so we chose Sunday afternoon to carve pumpkins with the kids.
Petey wasn't so sure about the slimey seeds at first...

...but that quickly turned into a smile and she cleaned the gunk out of most of her pumpkin!

Spidey was also iffy re garding the goo on his fingers (yes, my boy that LOVES squishing his food and making messes with it)...

...and he ended up just pushing the pumpkin away. :)

As usual, the master pumpkin carver carves all 3 of the pumpkins (I don't usually do one). He lets the kids pick out what they want and he cuts it out for them.

Here are all 3 beautiful pumpkins. Petey's is on the left, then Boss', then Spidey's. Boss just started carving with no picture to go off of and it started to look like a minion from Despicable Me so he kept going with the idea and tried to make it cartoonish. I think he did a great job, especially since it is all his original work!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween. We sure had a fun time but I am glad to get on with the rest of this holiday season. November and December are two of my favorite months.

And that's how Suze sees it.

Mothers Who Know About Halloween

I have totally and completely NOT finished last week's Mother Who Knows challenge. And until I do, I am not going to blog about the end results. But in the meantime, my sil, Juli, blogged about it and since putting the link up isn't working correctly, here is the link to her blog. www.juliandnick.blogspot.com I hope you will go and check out what she wrote about becoming a Nurturer and a Homemaker.
Also in the meantime, I'd like to get a little less backed up on some cute Halloween photos I've been wanting to share with you. :)
My kids looked absolutely adorable for our ward Fall Festival on Saturday. I loved the beanie on Spidey but it ended up being too hot. Maybe next month.

After carving pumpkins yesterday (that will be it's own post), my kids snuggled on the couch to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. They are getting along pretty well these days and it makes my heart happy.

Since I was supposed to dress up for work today (yes, I'm working...just filling in for 3 weeks), I decided to wear Halloween colors and wear my Mom's favorite Halloween sash that says "Your Worst Nightmare." So I was something different to everybody that saw me. Well...I thought it was pretty funny.

I took the kids trick or treating tonight (for ten minutes) and Petey insisted on being Belle. Why did I make that Queen of Hearts costume?!! :) She is so silly, that girl.

And after many fights tonight, since Spidey learned how to climb out of his crib today, the kids fell asleep sharing a bed. So sweet!
We have had a great week. Hope you have too.

And that's how Suze sees it.

Things About Me

Well, since I have gotten a lot of new readers in the past couple of months, I thought I would tell you some facts about myself, mostly about my growing up years (Actually, mostly just about high school...not sure how much "growing up" I did in those 4 years).
This is me at the age of 3 or 4 (around Petey's age right now). Notice the super awesome golden brown curly hair and those big, chubby cheeks? Yes, I lost my baby fat...I think it happened around the time that I turned 16. :) (But now I seem to have found it all again.)

This is my absolute favorite picture of my high school years. Sometimes I look at this picture and think, "Is that really ME?" I know, I know, I'm being kind of vain. But I hope everyone has a favorite picture of themselves. It's good to like our beauty without sounding vain.

In high school, I had nearly perfect hair. I could curl it, straighten it, dye it, bleach it, etc and it would do exactly what I wanted. I guess eight years later, the bad way I've treated my hair has finally caught up with me.

In high school, I went to ANASAZI (see www.ANASAZI.org) and became a more outdoorsy kind of person. Whil visiting my favorite friend (Yes, you're my favorite, Sam) up in Utah, we hiked the Y and I nearly died. I couldn't believe how wimpy I was! I did make it to the top but only after multiple complaints and breaks. :) (Sorry, Sam and Emmy.)

I was involed in a lot of activities as a teenager. Dance, choir, marching band (color guard), etc. This picture is of my senior dance recital. I am all the way on the left. Did you find me? Yup, right there. I still love to dance but unfortunatly, I am overweight, out of shape, and completely out of practice. But in the privacy of my own home, the kids and I do A LOT of dancing. :)

This one time, at band...all the color guard members took a picture. Can you find me? Look harder. Look for the girl in the red shirt. You've found me! I love and sincerely miss color gaurd. I have so many fond memories of dancing, throwing rifles/flags/sabres into the air and perfecting the art of catching them. Seriously, Boss' cousins are in marching band (one did color guard last year) and I WISHED I could be her coach.

Another color guard picture. There's only 5 people so by process of elimination, you've probably already found me. :) And if you havent, just point your eyes at the girl posing like a weirdo. You've found me!

Another thing that I love is to sing. If you've ever riden in a car with me, this is not news to you. :) My sisters and I love to sing together and do it as often as possible. I think I was 13 in the picture above, singing karaoke with my older sis, Andrea. (I'm in blue...not red.)

I really, really, really, really, REALLY love having all of my sisters. It's honestly one of the reasons I want to have another daughter so badly. We have so much fun together. And me being the youngest (Ok, second to youngest but sweet little Candace can't talk and doesn't like to go on trips, act crazy, etc with us.), I like feeling like I am hip and cool (Ok, now I'm just laughing at the things that are being typed...but they are pretty honest so you can laugh all you want).

My sisters took all of the height from me. I got none of it. They are all 5'6-5'8 and I'm 5'2.

Included in this awesome family of mine is also my youngest sibling, my only brother. He is more special than words can describe. All in all, my entire family is just special!

I live a pretty fun life.

Lived. Live. Will live.

And that's how Suze sees it.

The Beginning of our Halloween Festivities

On Monday night, we had our first of 4 Halloween parties. My parents' friends invited us over for a big Halloween bash and it was incredibly fun!
Here's my boy in most of his Nacho Libre costume.

Both kids dressed up. Petey is the Queen of Hearts and Spidey is Nachoooo! :)

Pretty girly. She LOVES this costume so much. I'm glad I let her pick out what she wanted to be before making it.

Besties/Cousins.

Excuse the weird face Boss decided to make. This moment was so sweet. He asked my friend if he could hold her 4 week old baby. He NEVER does that but lately, he's been stealing everybody's babies out of their arms. :) It's a sweet thing for me to watch.

They had pony rides and I had no doubt Spidey would LOVE it...and he did!

Petey, on the other hand, kept saying she wanted to ride but I would've bet money that she would back out at the last second...

...but she didnt! She got right up on that pony and smiled for a picture. This girl hates the smallest of puppies so this was a weird thing. I honesty think having that bunny for a few months made a big difference in her attitude toward animals.

The smile quickly faded when the pony started walking but she stayed on it and didn't complain at all. I was so proud of her.

My little brother, Spidey, and Boss. :)

The kids loved watching Bro. Allen do magic tricks. He is SO good at it and the kids were baffled and had no idea how he was doing any of it. :)

And then right before we left, I put Spidey on the cake walk and let him go around 1 time...and he won on his first try! There were angry kids because they hadn't gotten a cupcake yet and they'd been playing for a while. Lucky boy. :)

It was such a fun night and I'm glad we were invited to go. Hopefully, the rest of our Halloween festivities are just as fun!

And that's how Suze sees it.