spook-tober...heh heh

october seems like it flew by! i got a really early start on her halloween costumes (yeah, i couldn't decide), yet still found myself finishing them up the night before she was supposed to wear one or the other. 

 here i am at thirty weeks!!

 we were taking a picture to send to my sister and i literally could not find an angle were i didn't look 56. so yeah, i think i'm getting there.

 as the weather cooled down, we started having tons of bonfires in the backyard. we did quite a few in the mornings, it was so much fun!

 texas has a program where babies get a free eye exam, so we made sure to do that. poor baby got her eyes dilated and they looked at them with flashlights, covered one up then the other, made her go crossed eyed, etc. turns out she is far sighted! more so than other babies usually are. they typically have you return at age three, but since she's far sighted we had to schedule an appointment for when she is 2 years old. hopefully she'll have grown out of it by then!

 she did so good at the doctor.

 another morning fire.

 guess what, we still have a cat! isn't he cute?....

 my in laws hit up carlsbad and the grand canyon and got me a puzzle from both! they were so hard and a welcome challenge although i did feel bad for my child for the few days i was working on it. i didn't ignore her, but i was pretttty happy when she'd fall asleep for her naps. 

31 weeks and getting some exciting new stretch marks on my sides. with prim i got stretch marks all around my belly button and no where else. i was hoping that since they got so bad, i wouldn't get more when i had another one in there but i was wrong!

jon saw an ad for the parade of homes! we were so excited because we've been wanting to go here (and in california) for five years, since we moved away from utah! it is very different here than it is there, but still cool. there were 7 houses all in the same neighborhood so we walked the whole thing. also it was military appreciation day so it was free! the houses were beautiful.

my favorite picture in the world. this little thing was being so cuddly and huggy on jon all day. we were on the way to our car from the parade of homes and she sat like this with him almost the whole bus ride.

we met with the patient coordinator at the hospital to register and get insurance and everything figured out for teeny's arrival! it happened to be on prim's 11 month, so we took a photo of her outside the hospital where she was born. we are getting so excited for teeny's arrival and hope that all goes better than last time so we don't have to be away from prim for long.

this picture breaks my heart into a million pieces when i look at it. jon says it's because she looks so innocent. the face of an actual angel.

little halloween cards for our family. she cried when i did the first few footprints and so i asked jon for help on the rest. when he helped me she didn't make a peep...psh.

we went camping!!! i would like a lot of credit for going camping with our 11 month old while 33 weeks pregnant. like maybe a high five or round of applause. 

the first night was pretty warm. we put her to bed in the pack n play outside of the tent so that she could get the breeze. when we moved her into the tent when we went to bed she woke up because it was beyond hot. it was supposed to downpour so we had the rain cover on the tent (as seen in the picture) but after she was awake for over an hour, jon finally took the cover off and we had a nice breeze through the tent. we all fell asleep pretty quickly after that. 

sleeping while off-roading. that's why its so blurry. 

we camped near big bend national park. the park itself was so beautiful! it was large too, i'm sure there were a lot of people in the park but we hardly saw anyone. it was as if we had the whole thing to ourselves. 

the second night was a bit rough. it took forever to get prim to go to bed, but once she was asleep she slept through the night good. we never sleep with her anymore, so it was fun having her in bed with us for a couple nights! overall it was a great trip, it's always nice to get away with one another and our little one(s).

when we got back from camping, kathy helped me finish her costumes. here she is as a black cat at the church trunk or treat. she loves her pumpkin and reaches for it and says "puh! puh!"

really getting into the role

little dolly at the park

on thursday we went trick or treating on base with john and kathy. she always has fun with them and likes having them around. they couldn't stay the whole time, so jon and i took her around for awhile. she tried saying trick or treat and please and was so nice to the people handing out candy. they'd put something in her pumpkin and she would pick something out of her pumpkin to put back in their basket. it was nice, a few houses gave out pretzels and fishy crackers which we appreciated (since she doesn't eat candy). she had her 'treats' and we had some of her candy, so it was like we were all enjoying it together.

somewhere along the way she lost one of her little wrist cuffs. sad!

so we bought these packs for camping. we knew there was sugar in it but also knew there was milk (and protein) so we bought them anyway. big mistake. whenever we gave them to her, she turned into satan and wouldn't let you touch the pack to help her with it. she'd drink them so fast. unfortunately she lost her privileges to them-haha. we started to give her fruit at 11 months and it has been pretty fun.

we made root beer with dry ice for halloweenie!! 

we signed up about a month ago for a halloween morning 5k! jon was kind enough to walk it with me and pushed primmy the whole way. it was actually hard for me, which is sad-haha. it was a lot of fun and we had perfect weather. it was at the local marriott by our house.

this is what she wore on real halloween.

our little cowwie! she was in a good mood almost all day. we trick-or-treated in a neighborhood in our ward and she loved seeing all of the other little kids!! the older kids would point to her and say "mom, look how cute!!" it was so sweet. she wore her costume to the grocery store earlier that day and a few different youngish guys came up to tell us how cute her little outfit was. i'm guessing they were around 30. i love when guys say she is cute without being prompted by a woman.
overall october, and halloween was a success. we had a fun vacation and enjoyed our little one who is getting bigger everyday.

this is our life right now.

we are such a mess! whoever thought it'd be a good idea to have jon and a.j. pack up their house by themselves was mistaken. 

i am a daring chick posting these photos. see what we are living with? it is the worst! nothing has a place. 

we cleared out the linen closet (everything but our D.I. pile) and bandit immediately jumped up there to lounge. 

my FIL gets here on wednesday to help us pack up the U-Haul and we head to texas on saturday. so sad to leave our house!

i think now you can see why we've been stress eating: 

amidst the chaos, we've recently taken a liking to screaming "HUMAN SCWEW!" and using our pointer finger to painfully "screw" into the other persons ribs. part of the fun is seeing who can scream human screw loudest and most like a child. do you think my in-laws will like living with people who scream for entertainment?

 on friday we finally got to go on a trail ride together! jon hasn't ridden any of the horses since i've been riding, so i was really excited to have him up there with me. he rode a 5 year old mare named Magic. she was so sweet. i rode old reliable, gerry, who only spooked once when he heard a sprinkler nearby. he is such a calm chap, i love riding him. 

i'm so obsessed with this series of photos:

saturday was a rough day. it was my gran's birthday, her first since she's been gone. all day i was wishing i could call her and hear her silly little laugh and hear her ask "how you doin, dear?"

my dad called me in the early afternoon to tell me that my kitty back home died. i knew as soon as i picked up and heard him say "hi..." that it was about the cat. it was an unfortunate mishap involving a garage door. i think it sounds as bad as it was. it broke my heart.

(this was the first time my granny and chrissy had seen each other after a few months. they were both so happy!)

saturday afternoon we took bandit up to our old roommate, hanke's, house to stay until we officially leave for texas in may. i kept telling him that he was going to live with hanke and he obviously acted like he didn't understand, but i swear on friday and saturday morning-he knew! he was being soo cuddly and sweet all morning, it was not usual. it was really sad dropping him off and was just a reminder of what this move really means-lots of big and scary changes.

 look at those eyes. terrified.
it's not that alarming though, he's had a shocked look on his face since we got him:

after dropping bandit off, we went to the mall for some retail therapy. when we left the mall, jon handed me the bag and said "happy birthday." my birthday is next month, so i thought this was his easy way of getting me a gift. when i said "that's mean." he replied, "remember, your gran would get you gifts on other peoples birthday's so you wouldn't feel left out? i got you a gift on her birthday."

 we got balloons in my grandma's favorite colors and sent a card up up up into the sky. it was surprisingly relieving to watch them go and disappear into the heavens.

determined to have a better day sunday, we woke up at 5am (normal for jon, horrible for me!!) to head downtown for the hot chocolate 5k! 

we ran it with sara, it was really fun! the course was actually very challenging with tons of huge hills and quite a bit of downhills as well (my thighs are so sore from the downhills). my 5k personal record is 29:39 and i was really hoping to beat that, but i didn't. the hills were what were so hard and my nike+ sensor died so i didn't have it make sure i stayed on track to beat my time. however, if i hadn't been trying to keep up with jon the whole time, i wouldn't have finished as fast as i did! 

(jon is beautiful isn't he? he's also really sweet and put chocolate on my mouth right before the photo...)

they gave us a mug with hot chocolate and fondue with all these things to dip in it like a banana, pretzels and marshmallows. in theory, getting rewarded after a race with chocolate is an awesome idea. in reality, it was quite unpleasant. it didn't feel like we had ran a race at all, the chocolate totally cancelled out the good post-race feeling you usually have! but would i do it again? definitely.