1st ultrasound

There's one sack and one baby! I was a teensy bit worried there might be two since I had 2 mature follies and my betas were so much higher this time than with Baby Boy. I think I am also a teensy bit disappointed that there is only one since MR. W says this will be ourt last pregnancy. It just seems so final.
I'm 6w4d and we got to see and hear the heart beat. Such a relief! My RE said my chance of m/c is now down to 8%. I have a follow up u/s at 9 wks and he said if all looks good then my m/c chance goes down to 2%. Then I get released to my OB.
So for today, hooray for 92% chance of a baby! :)

Martinmas Lantern Walk

I had bought sausages to make a Martinmas dinner, but Mr. W didn't realize that and had made ingredients for a bean soup wanting to make something nice and healthy for his pregnant wife. How sweet! So I saved the sausages for Monday night's dinner. The soup was very tasty, but I'm not one to turn down beans, or soup.
 

 It was pretty rainy tonight, so we layered the boys up in rain coats and galoshes and gave them each a flashlight, and headed out for our walk. I had considered walking to visit my friend who was our Realtor and is a neighbor, but Mr. W felt it was too rainy to walk that far so we contented ourselves with a 4 block round trip walk to the elementary school and back. 
 
 

St. Theodore of Amasea Day

Celebrating St. Theodore's Day is a bit of a challenge. There are a couple different days attributed to him, so I never remember to pick one. Also, there just isn't much information about him. He is woefully underrepresented in books on saints which is somewhat of an issue for My Little Helper. I have been able to learn a few things for example his attribute is the crocodile, similar to St. George, the crocodile represents the devil. There is a statue atop a column in San Marco Piazza in Venezia depicting St. Theodore and the crocodile.
My Little Helper has been asking to have a dragon tea party for some friends, and since I haven't gotten around to putting that together, I thought a nice compromise might be a St. Theodore tea party. Simple after school snacks and some crocodile cookies should work.
I called a half a dozen bakeries, but none of them made crocodile shaped cookies, so I went to my old standby, The Decorette Shop, and picked up a crocodile cookie cutter.  I had green sanding sugar and added some green food coloring to the cookie dough. They turned out pretty cute, although this stupid old stove burns everything. (Can't wait to get that replaced with in the month!)



We set up the tea table in the play room. The boys were allowed to have a candle for decoration.
 
They had string cheese and ham roll ups (with fancy toothpicks) apple slices with peanut butter, ritz crackers, and carrots with ranch dip. It was way too much food; the boys devoured the entire plate of cookies and were too excited to eat much else. They had the option of hot chocolate or hot apple cider.

Boys love tea parties!

All Saints and All Souls Days

Our Little Helper went to his first school Mass on All Saint's Day. It sounds like the PreKers did really well, they got to sit with their Buddies, students from and upper grade, and the 3rd graders get to dress as their favorite saint as part of the Mass.  I wish I had been able to attend this year, nap times make so many things a challenge!
After school we headed straight to Ms. Mc's Hallowe'en tea party. But before bed we read about some of our favorite saints from Catholic Book of Saints as well as Room on The Broom as he's still in the spirit of Hallowe'en.
 After school on All Soul's Day we made our pilgrimage to the cemeteries to remember our faithful departed. This year there was no tipping of head stones and both boys were very helpful.

Baby Boy was much more interested in playing with the hose bib

At the second cemetery he was more interested in helping his big brother fill the container with water and flowers.

 Look at how sweet they are posing for me! I rarely get a good shot of both looking at me AND smiling.

Right after this I said a prayer for my grandmother and started crying, which took me by surprise. It has been eleven years, and I still miss her so much. Fortunately the boys had already begun to wander off to stomp in mud pits so MLH wasn't worried about why I was sad.
 Once we returned home I made the pumpkin soup that I wanted to make on Hallowe'en. This recipe is so good! We also had some smoke gouda and bread. Mr. W had wine.

 Enjoying his bread and soup.

 This one isn't interested in soup yet.

Hallowe'en Tea Party

My friend Ms Mc's favorite holiday is Hallowe'en and she often has a party. This year's version was a tea party theme. She planned to have it Tuesday, but was sick and postponed to Thursday. It was worth the wait; I think she did such a terrific job. Look at how pretty she set her table!

 
Her mother was in town for the holiday to celebrate as well. They made these cute cupcakes inspired by a magazine.

 She bought several new teapots on ebay for the occasion.  The little black creamer she bought on our shopping expedition to Camas is on the far left. It has an iridescent orange interior. I think this teapot she found is just perfect. It isn't the same manufacturer or pattern, but look at how perfectly the handles match and they both have an iridescent finish. She bought the set of six canival glass tea cups and saucers on the same trip.

 Peanut butter and jam sandwiches cut out like pumpkins and bats.

 I thought this was so clever, ham and cheese sandwiches cut out like skulls with sliced olives for eyes.

 Her mom couldn't resist buying these orange and brown store bought cookies. They were very tasty.

 MLH and N eager to start the tea party. My boys were dressed as knights since their other costumes were wet and dirty from the night before. The B Boys were lil' vampires.

 N loved the candies.

Another cute tea pot. Baby Boy really loved those dried mixed fruits.
 
Our tea party boys.

 Baby Boy enjoying a cup of water, all the other boys had hot apple cider with cinnamon sticks.

Tricks and treats

 Our Little Helper's school does a Hallowe'en  parade, which is a big deal I hear. Each class marches around to show off their costumes.  This year it was in the school cafeteria, with all the parents who are able to attend sitting in the bleachers. Afterward the students head back to their classrooms for a party of games and healthy snacks.  All the children looked so cute int heir costumes.
I had planned to make pumpkin soup for dinner, but we had a bnap snafu so I ended up ordering a pizza and then ended up having to go drive to pick it up after Mr. W came home. And then it was finally time to go trick or treating. Baby Boy is wearing the cow costume and OLH was a dragon (no surprise there.)
 
 Baby Boy got into his brother's candy early, he's too darn resourceful.  So sticky!

 We thought we'd have a chance to get out and do a little early trick or treating as a family before we started to receive our own ToTers. Baby Boy quickly caught on to the concept of knocking on doors to get stuff. OLH was hesitant to say "trick or treat" or "thank you" very loudly.

 But he was all about ringing bells and knocking on doors. He was also very polite about only taking as much candy as was offered to him and helping his brother get his pieces.  (I love that they each have a Longaberger basket as does the front door.)

 I went along to a few houses and then went home to hand out candy. We surprisingly only had 6 groups of ToTers all night. Apparently the big draw is a couple blocks away. Then Mr. W brought Baby Boy home for bedtime and I went back out with OLH. He certainly enjoyed the evening. I just love talking to him, he brings me so much joy.
As he and I headed back to our house for bedtime, I could hear a group of ToTers behind us going on and on about how pretty our house was. They weren't far behind us when we went inside. I could hear the little girl asking Mr. W how many children we had. He was oblivious to her question and gave her an answer about how she could take two pieces of candy. I began to feel guilty, like maybe she thinks this house is so big that surely we should have more than just the one son she saw our ToTing. I wanted to say, "No we have 3 children!" to assuage my guilt for having such a formidable looking house.
So after we put OLH to bed I asked Mr. W what he thought about me testing that night rather than waiting until the morning. With the children in bed, technically Hallowe'en was over so if I had a negative, I would spoil the day. If I tested at night instead of waiting til the morning I would probably guarantee myself a better night's sleep, rather than waking up prematurely multiple times through out the night. Mr. W was agreeable since he had to get up early the next day for an early meeting.
Back upstairs I went to POAS. Before I had time to finish washing my hands and walk back down stairs to see the results with him, up popped "Pregnant" on the test. Happy surprise! I rushed down the stairs to shove the pee stick in Mr. W's face. His reaction of "What?!" was a little underwhelming. Especially when he repeated, "What?!" But I think we are both thrilled, but shocked.  This is such a relief! We both decided we needed a few pictures to memorialize this moment, our final pregnancy.

 Did I mention I was still dressed in costume? This word is thrilling. I kept looking at the stick for the rest of the night.

So I guess this means we won't be making it to the wedding in Spain next summer as we'll be due in July. I'm disappointed to miss it, but the rewards are far greater.