Hiatus OVER

"To everything (turn, turn, turn), there is a season (turn, turn, turn)" ...and now that is going to be stuck in all our heads for the rest of the day. You're welcome.

It appears that this is the season to wait, at least for our family. Waiting to sell the house. Waiting to have a baby. Waiting to hear where our new home will be. Surprisingly, and very uncharacteristically, I'm not bothered by any of this. I'm sure that will change as time goes on, but for now I'm all Zen and Buddha-like, and not just because I'm rotund. I'm just not wasting a lot of mental or emotional energy on what is totally out of my control.

So I totally yanked these off the MLS site for our house, thinking there was no way the house will look as good again. This is our dear sweet house for about four months a year.

Of course this is what it actually looks like right now and for the other eight months of the year. Tim is going to quibble about this but so far I have experienced heavy snow in every single month except for June through September. I'm sticking to my numbers. 

More propaganda.

More reality

Let's just be real here for a minute. Putting a house on the market is really hard work. I feel like I've already given birth, in fact, to one ginormous and somewhat awkwardly shaped infant. Same elation, same exhaustion, same sense of "Well, now what does our normal life look like?" Less stitching involved though, glory hallelujah.

We started this process immediately after Christmas and yet somehow, we were still running around at 2 AM the night before the photographer and the realtor showed up to formally list the house, doing things like frantically scrubbing baseboards and shoving last piles of papers under the bed (which reminds me, I should get those out) and arranging flowers in vases because you know, of course we live with fresh flowers in bud vases atop the toilet all year round and so will you, should you buy this perfect and spotless home.

Our room

Miss Adelaide's room. Is she really this old?

The G Man's room

We also had many man and woman hours of labor dedicated by my in-laws, without whom we would never have gotten this done. Thank God for family, and for the END of endless "To Do" lists. Or at least a break from them.

The end result has been great and I love our newer, simplified version of life. How did we accumulate so much stuff anyway?

Living Room

The kitchen/living room. Just in case you were confused.

The sunroom. Snowroom. Whatever.

 Oh, and we sold our house since I started writing this post. That was fast, right? We had four showings in 24 hours and those showings yielded two offers. We accepted the "best" one naturally, and are very pleased with our end of the deal. Now we just cross our fingers for the inspection. If all goes well, we should close June 26th, which means no dreaded "double move" for us. 

As you can see from the pictures, winter continues to be an evil terrorist of a season here. Lately we've had a few warm days in the 40s, but I'm not buying it yet. Spring is approximately three days long in MN, and I just can't believe we're there. We were walking into the grocery store during our recent thaw, and we were actually, you know, walking...not scurrying with our shoulders hunched up around our ears in a desperate search for shelter...and Addie said "Oh Mom, thank goodness summer is finally here!" It was 36 degrees outside. I fear our children are permanently warped and will never be able to believe in Santa Claus, religion, or the existence of seasons ever again.

Tim out snow blowing after a winter storm. I see your "Winter Weather" NC, and raise you three feet.

A typical February snowfall.

Now that our house is actually sold, I find myself taking stock of our life here and our home itself and wondering what I'll miss. It's hard to know for sure because we have no idea where we're going. I'm not going to spend a lot of time mourning the sight of hoarfrost on the trees if we're moving to Alaska, if you know what I mean.

Speaking of where we're moving, no, we really still have no clue and we may not find out until as late as mid May, according to the latest rumors. When we do know we will shout it from the rooftops and there is no way you will  miss the information. Especially if you are an immediate family member. I can't tell you how many times people like our MOTHERS have asked us if we've heard and it's like "Oh yeah, Mom, I just totally forgot to tell you where we're moving, sorry, my bad". We sort of laugh and rip out our hair simultaneously because of course we will announce the news about 30 seconds after we have it.It's natural and I know we'll do the same thing to our children some day in the time honored tradition of parents driving their children nuts with their loving concern. Not that we're short tempered about it or anything.

Speaking of short tempered, holy smokes, E3 is amazing and wonderfully beautiful according to the ultrasound we saw today, and oh my heavens, I want to meet this baby. Said baby is also tormenting the fool out of me with painful (false) back labor that upsets my tummy and keeps me awake and causes me untold amounts of "Could this be it"?!!? exactly like his/her brother did. And we all know how pleasant I was at the end of my pregnancy with Graydon. :-) I actually went in to be checked today because I was contracting every five minutes with back pain, was unable to keep down food, and was spotting. Obviously I was NOT in active labor..given that I am blogging instead of eating a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit whilst marveling at our newest creation... but I am 3 cm dilated. So, yes, let's do this, E3. Any time you like, I'm ready.

So that's what has happened during the hiatus. A house was sold, our next destination remains mysterious, and our third baby is eminently imminent. And lest I sound cranky, we are actually really blissfully happy right now. I will expound more on that later. For now, I need some chocolate and a bath in no particular order.

Hiatus

While I would love to finish my retroblog, I thought I would take a few minutes to update the blog on what is happening now, and to announce a hiatus.

What's happening now is that it's winter and the weather sucks. It's cold enough to freeze the booty off a baboon. Cold enough that the highs are routinely in the single digits and that Ads has gone to school about four times this month at her twice-a-week preschool. The crazy part is that it is also snowing a ton, and they don't cancel school for snow around here, only for intense, Yukon-territory- like cold. Look, people might as well homeschool if they called off school for snow around here. HOWEVER...this means that the days that Addie does have school feature me driving my minivan in an impromptu filming of Ice Road Truckers and watching as cars skid helplessly into the median or friendly roadside ditches. While on the days that school is canceled, the roads and skies are crystal clear and it's perfectly safe to drive around...because everyone knows that snow and cloud cover actually make it warmer. It's completely bizarre and the only sensible option is to leave, which is why the elderly and/or affluent do so on a regular basis.

Winter also brings with it winter ailments, and yes, we are experiencing all that joy and wonder as well. Just this week Graydon had an ear infection, strep throat, and the beginnings of pneumonia. At the same time. He's fine now, thank the good Lord, but I am hoping and praying for a warm placement in the Air Force so that his scarred lungs can continue to heal. A warmer winter would do wonders for him and for my nerves. I watch him like a hawk every time he has the sniffles because I know how quickly it can turn into a big problem. Breathing is one of those things you don't like to trifle with, you know?

Apart from that, we are getting the house ready to show and hopefully sell. So all the time that I would normally spend cleaning, cooking, reading, blogging, and generally enjoying is now spent trying to decide which pieces of obnoxious plastic should continue to live with our family and which should be inflicted upon the poor via Goodwill. Or sorting through four years of back issues of orthopedic journals, presentations, research, and the protocols for every surgical procedure known to ortho, which is an occupational hazard of Tim's. Or packing yet another box of books, which is an occupational hazard of mine. It's always how the process goes, and I don't actually mind it. It's cleansing, both literally and mentally, to de-clutter life and I don't have high levels of stress about the house selling...yet. Though I'm sure it will come.

But it means that I am not going to blog until the house hits the market on February 24th...not because I don't want to, but I just know it isn't realistic. So this is a little heads up to my friends and family. We are still here, we are still living, and we are still mostly happy with life, although I am slightly depressed that I talk to the guys at UHaul more than my best friends these days. But this, too, shall pass and we shall resume our regularly scheduled lives in a few weeks. And then we'll have a baby! And then we'll move! And both of those processes are sure to leave me with ample free time to ponder life, take pictures, and blog. Right? :-)

And So It Continued (Christmas Season Retroblog Part 2)

I left off my last blog with the cliffhanger of two birthday parties looming approaching and that was a small lie fib stretching of the truth, for reasons I will get into momentarily.

But first, I actually forgot that before we had the birthday parties, we had our last Ortho Holiday Party, which is always a great time. Even though I have been pregnant for three of them. I think that speaks to the "fun" aspect of it, because I cheerfully endure the indignity of maternity pantyhose and swollen feet/face/well-everything-really and waddle out to celebrate the holidays with our family-away-from-family.

Me, Tim, and E3 at the pre-party

The 5th Year Women, missing only Ashley and Laura.

The whole year, minus the Swanns and Walkers. In our year we are responsible for 26 children...and counting...so it's always an event when we can all meet up. 

Now back to the birthday "parties" and my confession about the small truth-stretching. For those who don't know, Addie's birthday is December 16th and Graydon's is December 30th. I actually gave Addie and Gray a combination birthday party. I figured I have maybe one more year where I can get away with this, so I made the most of it.

Incidentally, when separate parties are demanded, I foresee years of Addie having decent-ish parties and Graydon having pizza and leftover cupcakes because Christmas is over and New Year's Eve is tomorrow, and listen kid, we're glad you were born but WE ARE ONLY HUMAN and anyway it's your fault, you shouldn't have been SO LATE and impossible to birth, and yes, poor, poor G Man. It's not his fault. Except that it is, Mr. I-Decided-To-Be-Born-The-Night-Before-My-Induction. We wanted a better birthday for him, but I think that horse has already left the barn. In a very leisurely "in my own good time" fashion, which is very Graydon.

Carrying on.

Once I decided to combine the celebrations, the issue then became choosing common ground between my two children. Addie likes princesses, art, and dolls. Graydon likes fighting, wrestling, and rough-housing, in no particular order of preference. After contemplating such possibilities as "Kung Fu Princess" and "Hulk Monet", I finally decided that they both liked balloons, so voila, "Addie and Graydon are Growing UP!" and balloons galore. Sixty, to be exact. You have no idea how many balloons are in a 60 balloon bundle until you're putting them in your minivan.

Sadly, I never got a picture of all the balloons together for two reasons.

1) Because my children kept seizing handfuls of ribbons and dragging them off into their rooms while screaming gleefully.

2) Because my ceiling is an old fashioned "popcorn" ceiling which does not play nicely with balloons. All the aforementioned screaming and dragging pretty quickly decimated the numbers.

We lost about half the balloons that night, but the survivors were surprisingly tough. I recently committed a lot of heli-cide with a pair of scissors on the remaining stubborn stragglers because I was so tired of seeing balloons, but this was about a month after the initial purchase.

It was a good and normal party, and I think the kids were happy, which is all that mattered to me. We had wild rice soup, challah rolls, chips and a delicious variation on seven layer dip, a fruit plate, a cheese plate, and a veggie plate, with cupcakes for dessert. My only disappointment is that I didn't take many pictures because I was too busy running around, but I did get a few with the singing and cake.

Just slightly thrilled with the attention!

Should I succumb to madness/poor memory and do a party again, I am determined to take more pictures. Even if the guests are standing around starving and parched with thirst, roaring for drinks and food. I will just take pictures of that too and it will really give us a feel for the event.

Clapping for himself and/or the amazing singing

The joint party was on the 15th and Tim and Addie's actual birthday is the 16th. We saw Randy and Terri the day before their birthdays, because they were kind enough to keep the kiddos for the entire weekend to give us time to get ready for our various festivities that weekend.

Trains and cars! Jackpot!

It's too bad this is so out of focus, but the expression on his face makes me laugh so hard. "It's like, so totally, ermahgawd, this is to.die.for!' 

The Brogans met us for breakfast. Addie kind of likes Calum, if you can't tell.

On the morning of Addie's birthday, we went out to breakfast at Daube's, our favorite local bakery. Their doughnuts are amazing. Let the record reflect that I will absolutely miss Daube's when we leave. As will my children. All three of them, because E3 insists that we eat there at least once a week. Little tyrant.

Graydon kinda likes doughnuts.

We went out to dinner that night with Mary and Steve and the kiddos at Chester's, a local favorite. I didn't get any pictures because Chester's is always super dark and moody and "We might be in Rochester but we will make it loud and dark and trendy so you can pretend you're elsewhere", which I appreciate, along with the excellent food.

And that was basically it for the birthday celebrations...except for one last thing I want to remember. If you are related to me or Tim, or in any way offended by frank sexual speak, stop reading here.

All the twisted folks are still reading. Don't worry, I totally would too.

Tim and I put the kiddos in bed that night and collapsed beside each other in small heaps, pretty much exhausted after three straight days of celebration and two children cracked out on sugar and lack of sleep. I said "Do you remember when birthdays used to guarantee a new piece of lingerie and really creative and athletic sex?" And I am sure I was not mistaking the look of alarm on his face when he warily said "Yes". I'm not sure if it was the thought of "athletic" with a woman the size of a small whale or just the thought of any effort at all, but he was clearly frightened. I started laughing and said "Yeah, me too. Right now, sleep sounds better than sex. Sleep is my new sex, in fact. My favorite sexual position is officially 'comatose'". And then I knew I was right about the fear on his face, because for the first time, I heard my agnostic husband say "Amen". And that's really the best way to sum up three birthdays and the holidays with three children, all of whom are four and under: "Sleep is the best gift one can give or receive."  

And So It Began (A Christmas Season Retroblog)

Ah, December. My old nemesis, we meet again.

So pretty. So innocent. So calm and bright. SO DECEPTIVE.

Once again, I have been thoroughly defeated by the sheer unrelenting grind of birthday/birthday/holiday/birthday/holiday. Fortunately, it's a battle I don't mind losing because instead of nasty things like wounds and gangrene and post traumatic stress, we get lots of pictures and memories and family time. Oh, and presents. Those are nice too. The end result is much the same though, as January usually finds me locked into a quiet room, hunkered down with chocolates and a fat book, pretending that I do not own a phone or a computer, waving a white flag.

The biggest irony of blogging is that the busier you are, the more you want to record what is happening, and yet the less you have the capacity to do so. I'm quickly coming into acceptance of a new tradition: the January retroblog. We took a few weeks to recover, and here I am, attempting to retroblog no less than 570 pictures and about 571 memories. Don't worry, I won't share all of them. Just, you know, half of them. That seems reasonable.

In all seriousness, I thought I would just cut them up into smaller chunks and dole them out over the next few weeks. No one...by which I mean "me"...has the patience to page through tons of pictures saying things like "Opening Presents" for half an hour.

Without further ado, your first chunk. Sounds appealing, doesn't it? And yes, I did consider becoming a poet, but ultimately decided it would bring me too much fame and notoriety. I didn't want to sell out to the man.

So, it all began with tree decorating. Tim and I wanted to make it an event this year. We didn't do a tree last year, since we were headed to NC and then to Florida for three months. This year, we had hot cider and chocolate, Christmas carols, and a lovely fresh tree. Which I killed pretty quickly by forgetting to water it. But that was later.

Addie really got into everything. She wanted pictures with all her ornaments.

A good example of the "Mom, take a picture of me with THIS ornament" genre

She then proceeded to place all of her ornaments in basically the exact same place on the tree. Right at her eye level on one side. Any tactful suggestion to spread them out was immediately shot down. Every night Tim and I would redistribute only to have her move them back the next day. Sister knows what she likes.

Please notice the short sleeved shirt. I usually lay out a short sleeved shirt to (theoretically) go under a long shirt for layering purposes. The difficulty here is that Addie usually prefers her t shirts to her sweaters, so we end up with a lot of seasonally inappropriate clothing. Nothing says "Christmas" like cherries, I guess.  We've finally wised up and started buying only plain grey, white, and black shirts for layering.

Clustering, for the win!

 Graydon could have cared less about the whole process. He found one glittery train ornament and played with it all night. He did a surprisingly good job not breaking anything, and when I say "surprising", I actually mean downright shocking, because he usually wreaks havoc like a Texas twister.

In this picture, the train has found a sled ornament, which is now his "track". Pretty creative, I thought.

It's unfortunate that he's so shy.

I attempted to take a sibling picture of them in their jammies after it was all done, but yeah, it didn't work out. "Look at me, ok, smile!!! Or, yeah, you could just wrestle, that's fine."

Best shot of the series. All the others are just a blur of flailing limbs.

The very next day Ads had her preschool Christmas program. She'd been diligently practicing her "songs" for several weeks, mainly consisting of bursting into loud "HAAAAA LAY LOOO YAH!"s randomly and with great feeling, since they were singing the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah in part of the program. When I was in preschool I think we might have sung "Jingle Bells", but today's children are just way cooler than we were.

So, apparently, this is a big dress up occasion. I did not get this memo.

Here is my child, front and center. In her jeans.

I did think about it, and in fact, texted my friend Jen before the program to ask her if they were supposed to wear a certain color. I thought it was a little weird that they hadn't asked us to dress them all in red or green or whatever the hot color scheme of the moment might be. She said "I'm just dressing Calum in a reddish plaid shirt and his cords" so I thought "OK, yeah, I'll do a red shirt". I guess this is like one of those things that is so obvious they don't explain it, kind of like "Don't wear jeans to your wedding" or suchlike moments. 

To make matters worse, not only was my sweet girl totally underdressed, but I was late. Tim left for a conference in Colorado that day and I just couldn't get out the door in time by myself. So I had to literally RUN Addie into the school, catch the line before they filed in, and shove her into it. While carrying Graydon. And being pregnant. And swaddled in outdoor clothes because it was a balmy 10 out, which meant I then started streaming sweat from the combined effects of the subtropical heat of the school and stress. So I was super relaxed and ready to enjoy the evening ...or not...which wouldn't have mattered except poor Addie was terrified and didn't really understand what we were doing.

This is her filing into the auditorium, biting her nails, because she is nervous and has no idea what is going on.

 This wasn't my absolute nadir as a parent, sadly, but it didn't feel great. I felt like I set Addie up for a bad situation, because I know she needs time to relax and adjust and I didn't give her that. And I felt like an idiot for having the only girl child in jeans in the place. And because we were late, she was last in line, which meant she was front and center. She spent the entire time nervously twisting around to observe other kids. Except for the times she was picking her nose. It was about a 50/50 split, I'd say. I was so proud.

So much more interested in the other kids than in performing. Don't worry, I won't post pictures of her other activity.

Reliving this still makes me cringe, but I thought I would share because this was a milestone of sorts, and also because FYI PARENTS Christmas pageants are dress up occasions. I tried to give myself a pep talk like "Hey, ok, she's underdressed, no big deal! It's not her prom, right? And who are you trying to impress anyway? No one cares! All kids pick their noses sometimes. It will add a note of authenticity to the videos!" Then I just gave up on self pep talk and wished fervently for some red wine ...this was a theme throughout December, by the way.

With her friends and classmates, Calum, Briella, and Halle. I'm pretty sure Addie was upset at me too ;-)

Instead of drinking wine, I went home and made about 6 dozen cookies for the annual "Bone Wives n Hominy" Christmas cookie exchange the next day. Because 1) I'm pregnant and 2) I procrastinate. After a stressful and embarrassing evening, it is always therapeutic to bake enormous amounts of cookies to be given to other people, incidentally all extremely skilled chefs,  whilst simultaneously attempting to put two wild and overstimulated children to bed by yourself. I highly recommend this for your next frazzled state.

A small sample of the deliciousness

The good news is that sugar makes an excellent substitute for alcohol, and I had lots of yummy treats to eat after that gathering. I drowned my embarrassment in cookies and milk, and it was good that we had lots, because I wasn't quite done striking out yet with Addie and school. 

Lots of her friends go to the same preschool. Addie goes to the afternoon session on Tuesday and Thursday and some of her friends came to the cookie exchange in their pajamas because it was "Pajama Day" at preschool. I had NO idea this was happening, but knowing me, that's not really shocking. I mentally shrugged and sent Addie off to school in a pair of zip up footie pajamas with snowflakes and ice skaters on them. Only to see all the other kids in her class in regular clothes and her teacher looking slightly confused upon seeing Addie. I tried explaining "Oh, some of her friends at a playdate said it was Pajama Day..." and trailed off in feeble silence while Mrs. Batterson laughed in sympathy and explained that was only for the 5 year old class. Oh. OK. Well, that's cool. Not only did I send Addie to her pageant in jeans, I also sent her to school the next day in pajamas. At 12:30 in the afternoon. Like I just couldn't quite summon the energy to dress my child that day.

Thank heavens I can laugh about it now, because of course December got so much easier after that. I only had to plan two birthday parties, start finish Christmas preparations, do the holidays with Tim's family, and then host my family's visit. Easy peasy for an organized and efficient person. Like me. I would say those are the top two words that people use to describe me.*

Yeah. I ate a lot of cookies that month. 

*If you don't know me, this is not true at all. Once I was bemoaning my chronic lack of organization and my friend Jen very sweetly and tactfully said "Well, Tara, I would say you're of a more artistic mindset". And there you have it.

Hibernation

For those that cannot tell from my bronzed skin and raven locks and soundless tread in the wilderness, I am about 1/100,000 Cherokee. I know, stating the obvious, but never take anything for granted over the Internet.

In all seriousness, most of the real Cherokee these days, or Tsalagi, to give them their proper name, don't really look anything like the stereotypical Indian, and my father actually DOES look strikingly like his great grandmothers on both sides.  Anyway, I'm not very much Native American, though I do take great pleasure in calling Tim a "white usurper" due to his lily white Scandinavian ancestry. However, I digress, and I have barely begun.

The reason I mention my fraction of Native blood is because I recently re-read Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons which is a novel about a young man coming of age in North Carolina's mountains, where he proceeds to acquire land and legal protection for the Cherokee Indians residing there, protecting some of them from the Trail of Tears and removal to Oklahoma. Phew. Thank God I typed that sentence instead of trying to say it, and I'm STILL out of breath. It's a great novel for many reasons, and you should read it. If you've never read Charles Frazier, you have still heard of him, even if indirectly, because he wrote Cold Mountain also.

Part of the story...and this is really completely inconsequential to the plot...is that Bear, his adoptive Native father, says that in "old days" his ancestors entered into their lodges for the winter and could enter a state of sleep that lasted for most of the winter. They dreamed fantastic dreams and did not feel the cold. Bear and his young protege pretty much do the same thing, if you substitute "drunken story telling" for "dreaming".

I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. The little speck of Cherokee that I have within me must be strong because that sounds amazing. Not so much telling the drunken part, oh heck, who am I kidding, I would love some red wine.

Drunkenness and/or hibernation strikes me as an eminently sensible solution to HIGHS that are in the negative temperatures. Let us not speak of the lows. It felt like -60 with the wind chill on Monday. Frostbite could set in within five minutes if you were so mad as to be out of doors. It was actually, literally, truly too cold for life.

So yes, the cold, coupled with the post holidays and birthdays exhaustion, to say nothing of advancing pregnancy, makes hibernation look like a marvelous idea right about now. Someone has forgotten to give my children this memo...all three of them...because they continue to go to bed late (Addie, the night owl, still going strong at 10 PM) and wake up early (Graydon, my morning glory, likes to get moving at 6 AM) and breakdance on my innards (Pending Ewald, during any moment which I sit down). Or else the White Usurper's (Tim's) genes have overwhelmed mine in a classic re-enactment of European meets and promptly destroys Aborigine.

Either way, I'm all like "Let's sit down and watch movies and sleep all day" and my kids are all like "let's destroy this place because we are going insane from no exercise". We left the house today, finally, after two days of being coldbound and they tore through Trader Joe's and Hobby Lobby like we were at the Magic Kingdom. Addie actually remarked at one point "Mom, look at all the people!"  in Trader Joe's. I felt horribly guilty, as if I somehow turned her into "Nell" (remember that Jodie Forster movie?) and kept her isolated during her formative years until she could barely speak English and was afraid of other humans.

Fortunately, the polar vortex is leaving us and life can resume again. In the meantime, I'm retroblogging all of December's festivities and making grandiose plans for our remaining time in Rochester, at least half of which will never materialize. But it's fun! And I have a greater appreciation for the virtual heat wave of temps in the 20s, since hibernation is no longer an option for those of us in touch with the rhythms of the land.

The Lists

Well, it's been awhile, per the usual around here. I have a mental queue of blog posts about 15 posts long, but I'm (slowly) figuring out that I should stop aiming for the moon and instead settle for getting over the backyard fence. Which may or may not be reachable for the unmowed grass and litter of abandoned summer toys.

Anyway, since there is nothing more entertaining than a blogger explaining why she isn't blogging (sarcasm!), I think I will just encapsulate the whole thing by explaining that our life has become absolutely dominated by To Do Lists, hereafter referred to as TDLs for the sake of brevity and annoyance. I have a daily TDL, Tim and I have a joint weekly TDL, and we also have a Master TDL that encompasses the next few months. Why, you ask? Because in typical Ewald fashion, we have bitten off more than we can chew and are now gagging on the excess. That sounds sort of graphic and disturbing, doesn't it? Sorry, I'm leaving it because IT'S SO TRUE.

So, it turns out that putting your house on the market and moving away to parts as-yet-unknown is kind of a long and arduous process. Adding a child further complicates things, and oh, just for fun, why not throw in a houseful of visiting relatives and a few birthdays and a few major holidays and also a few highly contagious viruses for variety.

These are all good things (except for the viruses) and taken as single events have kept us busy but really happy. However, it is undeniably a little overwhelming in the cumulative, and so "Just do the next thing" has become my daily mantra. As in, just do the next thing on whatever TDL is dominating my life at the moment, and try to enjoy it if at all possible.

In the midst of our various work projects around the house, we also lost the hybrid and gained a minivan. The Lament for Phil Ford (our Escape) is too long and convoluted to interest anyone, but it was about six weeks of attempting to cram two to three children in an Audi sedan without losing my sanity or getting stuck on my growing belly. And then the Audi pretty much stopped working too, just to make things really interesting. God is smart, if you had any doubts, because normally I would have been pretty sad about entering the ranks of van owners, but now I am truly only delighted to have a minivan. It feels like a luxury to have room and wheels that work, and I have only broken one sideview mirror backing out of the garage so far, so I think our vehicular luck is changing!

And in other catching up news, we did submit our rank list to the Air Force. They gave us 24 options to choose from, and most of the locations were appealing. For those of you that have submitted rank lists before, for residency or fellowship, this is a little bit different than that process. We were told to rank 20 and that if we left any spaces blank, it was assumed that we were happy to "serve the needs of the Air Force". In essence, we were truly eliminating four places and then the rest of 1 through 20 were put in our order of preference. That said, the Air Force doesn't necessarily rank Tim as a candidate and place him according to that. It's more like they try to make all of their incoming surgeons as happy as possible, so it's as likely that we'll be in place #10 as place #1...if they need someone in place #10 and we were the "happiest" to go there. I realize that's a little confusing, and frankly, I'm not sure I understand how they do it once you start throwing in things like rank and seniority. Probably they just draw names out of a hat.

To the best of my recollection, our list went something like this:

1) Landstuhl, Germany
2) Destin, Florida
3) Colorado Springs, Colorado
4) Northern California
5) Washington DC
6) Langley, Virginia
7) Gulf Coast Mississippi
8) Tucson, Arizona
9) Phoenix, Arizona
10)  Anchorage, Alaska
11) San Antonio, Texas
12, Lakenheath, England

And after that, I don't really remember. It was funny, because we went into the process thinking we'd rank a lot of foreign postings very highly. Then as Tim found out more about each place, it became pretty clear that he did not want to work in some places right out of residency. For instance, there were three postings in Japan and Italy. Normally we would be all for that, but he would be the only surgeon. That means he's always on call and that anything he doesn't recall how to do, he's looking up in a textbook instead of working with a colleague. Not ideal for anyone.

We should hear something sometime in February, and it sort of simultaneously thrills and horrifies me, because y'all...if we get posted to Alaska I'm going to need some prayer. And some wine. Maybe some strong drugs. I'm sure it's beautiful, but I wouldn't mind thawing out for a few years. Each posting is typically three years, so it's highly likely that we'll live in two places before our time with the Air Force is done.

Last but certainly not least, all three of our children are doing well. And I promise my next post will include pictures of them and their various numerous escapades.

Halloween!

Starting the morning off with an eyeball cake pop. Breakfast of champions.

Halloween is easily Addie's favorite holiday, closely followed by Easter. Gee, I wonder what those two things have in common?

She loves dressing up, she loves candy, and she loves any deviation from the routine. Taking a walk at night, in a costume, for the sole purpose of collecting candy... yes, this fits the bill. 

Graydon really had no idea what all the fuss was about, but he was pretty into the whole scene when he realized it was basically an all you can eat buffet of candy. Here you see my main issue which is that he kept trying to eat the candy without taking the wrapper off. I had a lot of unwrapped but totally mushed up chocolate to dispose of last night.

Every time he slipped away, I knew where to find him.

With her bag of goodie bags for her preschool class

We spent much of the day moving the candy from bowl to trick or treat buckets. And then reversing the process. Over and over.

For some reason, every time G says "Cheese!" he squashes his nose.

Still stacking candy.

She's been asking "Is it time for trick or treat yet?" for about a month. Thank heavens we could finally say "YES!"

 It's a little hard to see, but Addie went as Cinderella and Graydon was a little monster. Ads also had her face painted at preschool and did not want her face paint taken off. And she also refused to take off her jack o lantern shirt. And she wanted to add a tiara and magic want to her ensemble. Her inner diva was in full force last night.

"Mom, take a picture of my curtsy"

 One of the things you have to plan for when considering a Minnesota Halloween is that it is likely to be really frickin' cold during prime trick or treating hours. Hence why Ads got a cheapo Costco Cinderella deal and Graydon is basically wearing a sweatsuit with a face on it. Most of their "costume" is going to consist of outerwear, when all is said and done. Otherwise, it's just too miserable for them to be outside for any length of time.

Sometimes the misery starts early.

Fortunately a good tickle usually restores happiness

We usually just walk around our street, going up one side and back down the other. We get in visits to somewhere around a dozen houses and that's usually plenty of candy and exercise for the little ones. Addie enjoyed it as much as she ever does, always shouting "OK, time for the next one!" the instant candy hit her bucket.

Graydon was really the one who cracked us up last night. He is in a phase where he narrates his entire stream of consciousness, which is really entertaining. Last night it sounded like this:

"Walking! Walking outside! Dark! Dark outside walking!"

"Bucket! Mama, I carry bucket! I carry pumpkin!"

And when he fell down (roughly half a dozen times):

"Falling! Daddy, falling! I'm ok! My candy! Candy falling! Get it!"

When Tim dared to take his bucket and try to carry it for him, G had a full on meltdown, lying down on the grass and howling:

"My pumpkin! Daddy take! Daddy take my pumpkin candy! Daddy, LET GO! Mama, Daddy take it!"

For only the millionth time, I wished fervently for a smart phone to record this monologue. Soon, self...soon.

Off they go, buckets in hand!

At the end of the night, I decided we should probably take a picture of  E3 on Halloween....starting to pop out!