Look what I made the in-laws do

I have to throw parties in order to make friends.  So Halloween was my excuse.  We invited people from church and Evan's co-workers.  We had a pretty good crowd.  I didn't want to make a bunch or time consuming treats like my last party so I made this one a dinner, and then still ended up making three deserts.  We had chicken soup, potato chowder, rolls, fruit/veggies, and salad.  We tried to play a game but it didn't last long.  I hope people had fun-that is one of the most nerve raking things about throwing a party. 

 I was so pleased that practically everyone dressed up.  I told my in-laws that they HAD to come to my party and they HAD to dress up-that is what you get for living near your daughter-in-law.  I told everyone else that dressing up optional, but I told the in-laws they MUST.  They were good sports about it and I think they had the best costumes too. 

 Make your guess, before I spoil it....

 Chicken-cord-on blue

 Carl Sagan

 Ceiling "Fan"

 And last but not least...US, I was going to take Autumn to the state museum to "trick or treat", but of course it took me too long to get ready and we didn't have enough time before our party.  It was a good thing we all got dressed up though since Evan has to work on Halloween night.  We need a group shot of our "family" costumes.  I'm super pleased with the way our costumes turned out.  And super pleased that my mom did most of it!  Great job mom.

My favorite is Evan's teapot magic lamp.  Also the fact that I got my necklace and earrings for a total of $2.38 thanks to the Target mobile App, "Cartwheel".  I love a good deal!  Also despite Autumn's timid face, she loved her costume.  She didn't want to take it off when it was time for bed.

Corn Maze

Evan (finally) had a day off of work so we went to a pumpkin patch.  Those last few days before he had his days off were killing me (he works twelve 12 hour shifts in a row then 2 days off).  I hate that he works so much, at least he loves his job right?  Also this month he gets Saturdays and Sundays off opposed to Sundays and Mondays.  For some reason mentally it is more relaxing to have a Saturday off than a Monday.  ANY HOW the pumpkin patch was not really a patch rather a group of already picked pumpkins, but there was also a bounce house, playground, petting "zoo" aka a couple animals trying to hid from all the people, "corn chucker" aka sling shot you put corn in and try to hit a target, and best of all a corn maze.  Evan's younger brother, Cameron, went ahead without us and finished the corn maze 30 minutes before the rest of us found the emergency exit!  We went back in and found the real exit, right were I said I think that is a dead end!  Haha my bad.  Cameron did the maze 4 or 5 times, just to see how fast he could do it! 

One of my favorite parts of the day was watching someone propose.  I couldn't hear them, but I saw a guy get down on one knee, and I said to Evan I think that guy is proposing.  Evan said, "no he isn't" and then I say her staring at her left hand.  Yup he proposed.

The weather was much warmer in Fort Collins, which I wasn't expecting.  As you can see Evan ended up taking his sweater off and I finally made it back to the car to take off my fleeced lined leggings and wool socks.  After the corn maze fun, since we were in the "big city" we went out to eat.  When we go out I usually complain about the food.  Either I'm really lame at ordering food or I've become a food snob since most of our dates consist of me not cooking (aka going out to eat).  It was fun to go to dinner with Evan's family because apparently they are good at ordering and really enjoyed their food and Cameron thought the restaurant was real fancy (We all had a laugh at that.  Granted he is in high school and he has grown up in Cheyenne, so we'll cut him some slake-but it wasn't even Cheese Cake Factory "fancy").

Now Evan is working nights (6pm to 6am)  so I get the car during the day.  So far we went to the mall and played in the play area, went to Kohls and Target and bought Evan new gloves (since I lost his), and went to Barnes and Noble and read LOTS of books.  Then when Autumn wakes up from her nap, so does dad and we play for a couple hours before Evan heads back to work.

Oh, Autumn!

Some Autumn-ishm:  

One of her favorite things to do right now is help me put my belt on.  She also likes to belt the jean bag my mom made.  She also started saying "No" this week.  Not really in a defient way, for example when she is stuck somewhere she says, "no, no, no".  It is actually pretty cute.  She like to sit on her car while I read her nap time/bed time stories.  Her favorite right now is, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".  She is getting pretty good at dressing herself and lets me help her match her outfits.  She still loves cereal, but lately has been requesting buttered toast for breakfast as well.  Still loves the park, and hates having her diaper changed.  She gets super hyper when Evan comes home from work, which makes it difficult to put her to bed 15 minutes later!

Helping my decorate for Halloween.

In other big news Autumn is in a toddler bed.  So long crib!  When we got back from Washington we were still staying in the hotel and Autumn became a horrendous sleeper.  She just wouldn't go to bed.  She usually is a perfect sleeper.  I sing her a song, put her in her crib, say good night and walk out of the room-end of story.  For a about a week though I couldn't get her to sleep.  I thought once we got back home she would be fine, but I was wrong.  At the hotel I had been putting her in bed with us to try and help her sleep, but I wasn't going to start that once we got home.  So one night when I was super frustrated I just said fine you can sleep on the floor.  I pulled her crib mattress out on the floor and let her sleep on it...and she did.  Her perfect sleeping was restored.  (Except for one day during nap I heard her playing in there, which I didn't mind until I heard her opening the bedroom door.  When I went in there she had gotten a pair of my high heels and was standing in them trying to reach the door nob, smart thinking Autumn.  So a couple of days after floor sleeping I turned her crib into a toddler bed.

Her first act of business with her new bed...Sit on it with her car.  Then she started moving the car.  I'm not sure if she was trying to just jump on the bed or drive the car off, because I stopped her before I found out.

One of the major downsides of moving so much is you risk getting "the weather isn't usually like this"  syndrome.  I mean last fall we experienced an unusually cold fall in Michigan and an unusually long winter....lasting until we moved in June.  Now it is still in the 80s in Michigan a gift for the awful winter, but since we moved we are now experiencing an unusually early snow fall in Wyoming.  Autumn was not pleased.  I told her to smile, but after we went inside and I saw this picture I about died.  I think it is so funny, mostly because this is the exact face I made when I looked out the window.  I filled a water bottle with water and food coloring to "spray paint" the snow.  Autumn was too impressed at first, but the next day she asked to get the water bottle out again. (so chalk that up to 1 for Pinterest)

Thank goodness for Grandmas (and Grandpas)

Living in a hotel was not awesome.  Thankfully we were able to fly to Seattle and visit my parents for 10 days.  When we got there my mom was still in North Carolina visiting my sister, so we hung out with Grandpa.  But when Grandma got back, I put her to work.  I brought a few things that needed mending and a few other projects, not to mention our Halloween costumes (which turned out awesome. stay tuned)

We went with Grandpa to Target and played in the car seats, and found this fun hat.

Grandpa bought Autumn this pretty bow.

We experienced some "visitor weather".  (It is only ever nice out when people come to visit, so they won't understand how miserable gray it always is).

Autumn kept saying "BUH Bye BUh Bye" as she climbed up the play structure by herself.

We found my little sister's old doll stroller.  Autumn enjoyed pushing her blankets around.  We also found another one and Autumn insisted on eating breakfast while sitting in the stroller.

Autumn got to meet her future college roommate Carly.  Her Dad and Evan were roommates in college and are 6 weeks apart just like Carly and Autumn (I am also 6 weeks older than Carly's mom, weird right?)

We had lunch at this AWESOME burger shack, but apparently people don't eat lunch at 10:30 so we had to wait around a bit before we could order.

My dad took Autumn out on a walk one day and couldn't find Autumn's socks, so he put my "little" sister's socks on her.  She was in love with them and asked to wear them more than one day.

Autumn playing Mr. Potato Head with Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma did a fun science experiment with Autumn...Food coloring vinegar and baking soda.

It got a little messy.

And going to the parents' always means a trip down memory lane (That means you can stop reading now!)  This time I went through my trophies and got rid of them.  So sad, I'm sure someone at Goodwill will appreciate them and Pintrest them up.  The thing is, I earned these trophies.  I played competitive soccer for for 6 years and we played in a tournament about once a month...so there were many opportunities to come home with a legit trophy.  I have many good memories of playing soccer for the Tracy Twisters.  The team stayed about the same every year so you could imagine we got pretty close and worked together pretty well- and if you didn't mesh with us, you probably didn't last long... sorry "Kate the Great".

Ok I said "earned" one of these is a undefeated season trophy and the other one is a participation trophy...

Not soccer...Citywide Student of the Year

This medal was a for a tournament we got 4th place in, but I don't remember the tournament.  I got a concussion and lost my short-term memory.  I have very little recollection from that weekend.

This tournament was before I played competitive soccer.  It was an indoor winter league at the Boys and Girls Club.  We won first place, but what makes this trophy so special is I score my first goal EVER in this tournament.

In 5th grade I won an essay contest as part of the D.A.R.E program.

The other half of the trophies/medals 

Looking at that "98" makes me feel old.  I feel like it wasn't that long ago, but apparently it was more like 15 years ago!

So these trophies may not (definitely not) be worth much money, but they sure are worth a lot in memories.

Hotel Living

Since Cheyenne is a small community Evan has to do a few rotations in Denver over the next two years, this month being one of them.  The program puts Evan up in hotel (The Drury Inn-what a name).  There is a door on the bedroom so I don't have to be super quiet while Autumn naps which is a plus along with a full breakfast and dinner every day.  Down side is there are only 3 dinner menus that they rotate through (but 3 free cocktails per night :)  The worst thing about this month wasn't necessarily the hotel living as it was Evan's schedule.  He worked noon to midnight.  He usually works 12 hours a day so that's no big deal, but since he gets home so late, he needs to sleep in and it is tough keeping Autumn quiet (especially because she decided for a couple weeks that she should wake up at times that started with fives and sixes.  Not ok)  Also I am still car-less.  The first half of our stay was really nice weather so we walked the 1.6 miles one way to Target a couple times and the 1.4 miles to Ikea a couple times too.  Then I discovered that the mall is only about that same distance too so we went there once.  On one of the first days off Evan had we took Autumn to the park.  I thought it was a pretty cool park.  Autumn loved the HUGE slide that was there.

Autumn is very adventurous and loves to be independent (as long as you're watching her.  Its like "Mom mom come here.  NO I can do it by myself!" )

Evan also liked the long slide.

Autumn's favorite thing to play with as of late is Duplos that she won in a bingo game at our family reunion.  Evan always builds these cool thingys and Autumn always tries to knock them down.  Pretty funny watching Evan try to get them away from here. (other favorite thing...not wearing clothes)

Some other activities we did in the hotel included playing "ghost" and building forts.

Autumn's second favorite thing to play with is Play-doh (also a Bingo prize).  It always amazing me how she doesn't mix the colors.  I don't think I told her not to do that.  She likes me to roll the Play-Doh into balls, and says "ball" to let me know what to do.

Then we went to Seattle to visit my parents (post on that next).  I think Evan was bored with us gone, so when we returned he suggested we visit the zoo.  Earlier in the month he didn't want to go because it was "too far".  I think he just likes to lounge and relax on his days off, can't really blame him.  It is quickly becoming fall here as evidence of the extreme flooding in the Denver area (we went home on a couple of Evan's days off and what should have taken us 90 minutes to get to Denver took us 8 hours because of road closures.  Minor inconvenience in comparison to those that lost their homes.)

Anyway the zoo was fun.  It was perfect zoo weather, chili in the shade, but nice and sunny otherwise.

I thought Autumn would like the giraffes and lions, because she likes them in her pictures books, but she could care less about them.  She however LOVED the elephants.  We spent a solid 30-40 minutes looking at the elephants and making elephant noises.

At one point one of the elephants pooped.  Autumn thought that was great.  She kept pointed to her bum and making noises as if to say, "Hey she just pooped, just like me from her bum!"  It was definitely exciting!

Autumn banging her chest like a gorilla.  Her favorite book is still "Goodnight Gorilla".  Although she did fall in love with "Are you my mother" while we were visiting my parents.  She made my dad read it every night.

More hotel fun.  I thought it would be cool to have puff ball races being blown by the blow dryer.  Not that much fun, too hard to control the puff balls plus the cord didn't really reach.  It was worth a shot.

Autumn loves her princess shoes.  She often wears them to breakfast.  All the patrons and staff love her.  One night while we were eating dinner Autumn was sitting on the back of the high chair.  I was chewing my food and trying to say, "Autumn sit down you're going to fall" as she lost balance and started to fall backwards.  I jumped out of my seat and caught her by the arm.  Scared both of us.  Now Jared, one of the staff members, calls me Ninja mom!