Halloween and a Half: Our Week in a Not Very Small Nutshell

It's been a week of ups and downs.  Can't decide what to leave out so it's all in. Good luck!
 

Monday afternoon: we come home from vacation to a messy apartment (just how we'd left it!). 

But the mess is overshadowed by a bright bouquet of flowers, a bag of beautiful fall apples, and a plate of yummy cupcakes that have magically accumulated on our doorstep in our absence.  We smile with gratitude for thoughtful friends, push the mess aside (literally), and make pumpkin shaped peanut butter sandwiches for dinner.  Cheers!

The bishop stops by later that evening and his visit seems to confirm that Heavenly Father is aware of the anxiety I've been trying to bury for the past week.  I go to bed feeling grateful.

We spend Tuesday afternoon at doctor appointments discussing the results of several recent scans (four long days worth of scans).  The scans indicate progressing cancer. We talk about options (limited).  I cry a bit. 

But the tears aren't prolonged.  There are options.  (Accutane?  Are you serious?)  And we get to see Josh and Kristen (friends shouldering a cancer diagnosis similar to our own) and we go home with a bag of freshly baked goodness (thank you, Lisa!). 

Wednesday morning we wake up to snow.  The kids are so exuberant that I have to remind myself: I hate snow before December. 

      

We drop Lucy off at school and Spencer off at Grandma's and head out for five hours of construction (after a last minute rush to get my October receipts in on time.  Typical end of the month!).  At lunch time we're eager for a snack of apples and cheese and crackers. Cheese (purchased earlier that same morning) is completely moldy. We eat apples and crackers and head back to work.  I hurt my back trying to help Wes lift a 25 foot piece of rim board.

But the work is satisfying.  I say to Wes a hundred times, "We're building a house!" And at the end of the day, Grandma feeds us delicious (delicious, delicious) soup.  And Advil (me).  And we carve pumpkins! 

     

          

        

     

That night, as I float toward bed around 11pm, Spencer cries out miserably and I discover him sick (sick) in his bed. Scrubbing, soaping, sheet-changing, snuggling, etc, ensue until around 3am.

But love increases alongside the exhaustion.    

(L O V E!)

Thursday morning Spencer seems better.  We drop him off at Grandma's, drop Lucy off at school and head back to the site for more construction. We make fifty bazillion trips to the trailer because every staple gun we try is jammed.  I walk like I'm pregnant (back pain).  We hurry home with just twenty minutes to spare before my meetings.  I drop Wes off at Grandma's house and speed home only to realize that I don't have a house key.  I drive back to Grandma's for the key, drive home again to shower off the morning's accumulation of sweat and sawdust and I finally make it to Meeting Number One 15 minutes late.  With wet hair.  Two hours later, Meeting Number Two involves a conversation with an RA who was wondering why the pizza didn't show up for her program the previous evening.

Because I forgot to order it.  Sigh.

That evening, I rush the kids through dinner in order to fulfil a last minute RA request and get back for the usual meetings. 

Thursday night we go to bed with the smell of Spencer's unwashed laundry still lingering in the air.

Friday morning Wes heads out to work on the houses with his brother Mark (who came to town for that exclusive purpose).  I help Lucy into her Halloween costume and drop her off before parking and finding a seat in the gym for the much anticipated Halloween Parade.  I spot Lu briefly as she comes in the gym...

...then wait anxiously for her to loop around the room so Spencer and I can get a better glimpse.  She finally makes it. 

The tears have something to do with her not immediately seeing me among the throng of unfamiliar adults (while songs like Monster Mash surge from the loud speakers).  I grab Spencer and join Lucy as the parade marches back to the Kindergarten classroom.

But overall, the Kindergarten party is delightful!  I help tell stories and serve snacks and wonder why in the world I didn't major in early childhood education. 

   

Then, five minutes before the party ends, I realize I don't have my car keys.  When school is out, I drag Lucy and Spencer and Avery all over the school searching.  Finally: success.  I'm so relieved.  We play and play in the dry leaves and warm autumn sunshine...

 

(a dandelion. they wish to fly. and then they do.  fast =)

     

 

 ...and saunter back to the car just in time to find a parking citation stuck to the windshield.  Sweet.

An hour later I head to our annual emergency simulation training, where, as the most senior Hall Advisor present, I attempt to organize an emergency response effort to rescue all the (effectively costumed and make-up-ed) disaster victims.  I feel grateful for a group of HAs who are so well trained that there is no need for effective leadership (effective is not my middle name lately. Remember the pizza?).  All goes smoothly, but the stress of the scenario beats through my veins and I walk home with the usual prayer that there please please please not be an earthquake.  

At home, Grandma is masterfully entertaining my children and is polite enough not to hold her nose at the smell of Spencer's still unwashed laundry.  Steph stops by and my children talk her ear off.  When Wes returns from work on the houses, we go to Grandma's for a quick meal (during which an uncharacteristically obnoxious Lucy has to be reminded of manners a million times and eats ZERO bites of food.  Zero.), we throw one batch of laundry into Grandma's machine (finally!), and then set out for a Halloween Party, only to sit in an hour and a half of s l o w traffic.

But Lucy and Spencer don't make a peep the entire trip.  They just relax, listening to Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and I wonder if an hour and a half of slow, peaceful traffic is really a tender mercy.

We have a great time at Heather and Royce's party.

     

     

I swoon repeatedly over Papa Bear in his bow tie and whiskers.

H&R are, of, course, prepared with all kids of fun! 

     

"I can't see!!!" Spencer immediately protests when Heather blindfolds him.

Out back, he (and others) enjoy a legalized opportunity to hit and smack with a stick (at last!). 

A great time is had by one and all!

    

     

We go home tired but happy (carefully clutching our pumpkin bubbles =).

        

And that brings us to  Saturday. Ah, Saturday.  The day Wes goes house-building with four of his good friends and I spend all morning and all afternoon alone with my children (has it been years since that happened?  Is that why it felt like like manna in the wilderness??).  Lucy and Spencer and I clean and grocery shop and make newspaper ghosts and open Rebecca's Halloween card (!)

and when Wes comes home we prepare our four small pumpkins (finally did it, Vicky!),

          

...enjoy our soup  (I'm not above chili from a can when you eat it in a pumpkin!) and delicious dessert of banana bread (thank you, Lacey!), don costumes...drum roll....

 

*Fairy*

*Bat*

 

   

  

...and knock on three or four doors before the down pour begins.  We're talking serious rain. 

The kids and I take cover in Bro. and Sis. Burton's stairwell while Dad runs for our umbrellas (Dads are good people).

    

    

We spend the next hour warming up in Grandma and Grandpa's living room.

(You have to watch out for bats.  Bats are sneaky.)

    

After good times at Grandma's we go home to check on our jack-o-lanterns,

 

and to play with our glow sticks,

 and to have a grand ending to a good (busy, crazy, tough) week!
The end. 

Except that then Travis came over to watch Casper with L &S while Kim and I worked the Wyview Halloween party.

And I forgot to write about the snuggle Lucy and I shared after I presented her with a little pouch of "fairy dust" (glitter) before trick-or-treating.  There was too much rain to even use it...but it was worth the prolonged hug and the very serious, very fervent, "Happy Halloween, Mom" it earned me.  Sure love you, little Lucy fairy!