Halloween Reinvented?

Holiday traditions change. Maybe infrequently, but they do change.

Growing up kids could run through sub-divisions and neighborhoods with a good 90% of houses passing out candy and following the "porch light" code of Halloween conduct. Now a days it's a week long cram session in Googling what churches, malls, or even schools are holding Trunk or Treating events or parties, and MANY times those events aren't even on Halloween itself.

If you are lucky, you may live in a southern enough state where weather is rarely a factor in Trick or Treating. If you are unlucky then you live in a state where the chances are that Halloween is seemingly and forever cursed with temps 45º or less, coupled with either rain, drizzle, high winds, or even the dreaded SNOW!

We happen to be one of those unlucky families that live in the very state that kind of predicts cold weather with it's infamous shape of a mitten!

While I grew up in this lovely state, my memories of Halloween include snowsuits, snow boots, scarves, and either hidden costumes under all of it or, costumes barely fitting over said winter gear. My husband on the other hand grew up in New York in an Apartment complex high rise of sorts, so there was again no need for winter gear, just running from door to door and floor to floor.

I was lucky for a bit and lived in Arizona for a while which is really an awesome state for Trick or Treating in October and even swimming in December! But having since moved back to Michigan 12 years ago, I can only recall 1 GLORIOUS Halloween night where it was 68º out and the kids and us didn't need coats or winter gear of ANY kind!

Since then, however, it's been nothing but coldness. And in the last 3 years, with added rain and or snow.

It was on Halloween three years ago, as Joe slowly drove the van behind the kids, through a rolling hilled sub-division with very few lights on (and plenty of Romney yard signs), my pregnant belly protruding from my winter coat, with soaking wet, cold feet, breathlessly waddling after the then 2yo desperately trying to keep up with the MUCH older siblings and the annoyingly COLD drizzle that pelted us.

Joe offered to let me drive while he walked with the toddler, but I wanted some exercise. At one point We walked past a couple houses where they set up lawn chairs at the end of their driveways, one handing out beers to the adults who wanted one, and I desperately wishing I could have one to help dull the memories of this horrible Halloween.

Already, we had to wrangle kids into costumes before school started for their school parade in the morning. The ordeal seemingly took HOURS and the halls filled with parents (thank gawd they have a huge gym now with bleachers!) annoyed at every other parent trying to do the exact same thing they were trying to do. See their "precious" monster walk the parade while they try and get a pic that isn't blurry.

Then it's fighting traffic to get out of the parking lot back to home to get even the younger and older kids ready for the day, start dinner, find all the bags, coats, and winter gear. After school it was picking kids up from school, bring them home, switch from car to van to head BACK to school for the school sponsored Trick or Treating, then drive to the freezing cold park for the city sponsored Trick or Treating event - wet and miserable already with over crowding of cars and people. Then the driving to a neighborhood that passes candy out where you don't feel like you'll be robbed.

By this time it's like 6:30 in the evening. You keep reminding the kids to stay close but they are so far ahead they don't hear you and you aren't about to run after them, so you tell them to just stay with a partner PLEASE!

Every step your feet get colder and wetter. Glasses are in need of wipers, hair is thoroughly ruined, costumes hidden by winter gear, I find mittens and scarves we own left by kids as I trail horribly behind them and pick them up and throw them into the van. There is NOT enough tissues to keep the runny noses dry.

Pretty soon the complaints of "I'm cold. I'm done. I want to warm up in the van. Can we go home?" start. But alas only half the kids want to go the other half want to stay, no matter how miserable they are . . . because FREE CANDY!!

I finally trade off with Joe, so I can drive and he can get cold and wet and just as miserable. And as I drove listening to some of the complainers in the back, and feeling exhausted, stressed, and drained it occurred to me that with the amount of gasoline we're wasting driving around slowly, freezing our asses off while getting SLOWLY drenched by rain - that it would be cheaper to just buy the kids candy and stay HOME!

Then it occurred to me! "This is just Easter in COSTUME!" and then my gears were grinding . . .

So I could stay home, stay dry, kids could still have candy, and no one would feel rushed, there'd be less yelling, fighting, arguing, and in the end I could save gas, time, money, and energy?!

Then . . . WHY AM I NOT DOING THAT?!

That's right my epiphany made me realize that traditions don't have to stay the same! Halloween is already changing, as fewer and fewer people pass out candy and families favor safer, sometimes warmer environments such as malls, schools, and churches for their Trick or Treating fare, then why can't I change OUR family traditions?!

Again, as I sat and thought about it, Halloween is really 'Easter in Disguise' . . . literally with the whole costume deal and all!

But filling my kid's candy bags/baskets I'd have more control! With all of the allergies kids have these days, why wouldn't a mother with an allergy stricken child want to stay home and build a Halloween Bag filled with everything their child can have, instead of dragging them around getting a bunch of stuff their kid might not be able to even keep!?

I can add school supplies, books, homemade goodies and get candy only they would like instead of having piles of stuff go to waste. I could add fruits, and even veggie packs (because my kids do like those things), and the toothbrush and paste, etc etc etc. The possibilities are endless and I would have CONTROL!

I would also NOT have to stress throughout the day with costumes, driving, weather and more! We can stay home and celebrate Halloween in our own way! Traditional Chili dinner, with new traditions of Halloween movies/specials.

The upside is that I am NOT banning Halloween nor Trick or Treating, either. If my kids are invited to Trick or Treat with friends they are more than welcomed to! If their friend's parents want to go out into the wild and gather candy, so be it! I'm not stopping them!

Costumes are still encouraged for my kids, because the school still allows for Halloween traditions and fun. There are still Halloween parties all month long for them to participate in, and so much more!

But from now on . . . we have quit Halloween's old tradition of Trick or Treating. With exception of the possibility of moving to a warmer state again, or on the absolutely RARE chance that another 68º Halloween day reappears before all the kids are grown and gone!

My kids still dump out their bags of candy, trade, barter, and fall into stickified candy comas. My living rooms . . . aw hell my whole house is covered in candy wrappers, and I'll be finding sucker sticks and Milky Way warppers until Thanksgiving still in places they never should be.

But damn it!! We will no longer have a long, cold, miserable night in achieving this kind of destruction!

Instead I will be inside, warm and cozy, with hot beverages, hot chili, and a bunch of sticky fingers!

Welcome Carter Michael

I see there was a slight influx of visitors around the last couple weeks, probably from people looking for updates on Carter!

Well Carter Michael was born January 10th, 2013. I was REALLY hoping for the 13th for him to arrive, as I thought a birthdate of 1.13.13 would be super easy to remember and kind of fun too, but little Monkey Boy here decided to throw a monkey wrench into my weekend plans! I was planning on doing some final grocery shopping on Friday the 11th, as well as Evelyn had a doctor's appointment I wanted to go to on Friday too! Thursday night we had family plans as the kids were FINALLY performing their holiday concert (which I still had to miss).

So I will copy and paste the simple birth story here for you . . .

Basically went to get kids from school and could barely move without pain. Got home and needed DH to wake up so he could help me back into the house.

Had some painful contractions here and there but not real labor, DH kept saying I was in labor but in denial about it. Perhaps, but not "real" labor. 

I was kind of annoyed at the WHOLE situation. Kid's concert in a couple hours, still hadn't grocery shopped and there was no way I could do it because of the painful walking & few contractions I was having, plus some appointments I had for the next day and coming up. 

So I stayed home from the concert, disappointed I couldn't hear my babies sing for the first time, but I rested and napped and pain went away and contractions stopped too.

Couple hours later, my water broke apx 9:15ish. I guess it really WAS time, and my plans were all thrown out the window! We ran around setting up the pool DH calling out of work, and then we waited, and waited and waited for contractions to come. 

Wasn't until about 10:30ish - 11ish that a few PAINFUL ctx started happening. We had been watching our DVR'd Big Bang Theory to pass the time as we waited. Had a couple ctx before the end of it, but pretty much once it was over things picked up.

I thought for sure with the time we wouldn't have a 1.10.13 baby. I thought for sure he'd be born around 1am-ish or something, LOL Surely after midnight.

My contractions were all in my lower back. The counter pressure from DH was awesome! I labored mostly on all fours while he applied counter pressure

Around 11:45 I asked what time it was and when DH said the time, I truly didn't think we'd have him before midnight. Although, when I said that DH said "Stranger things have happened." I just didn't believe him! Then things got intense, painful, and pretty much every contraction I had I felt like pushing and did.

Towards the end I turned around as it felt more comfortable to push that way. Those short 15 minutes felt like a couple hours to me. Once out we found his cord to be gently wrapped around his neck and shoulders, kind of like one of those "memory ribbons", but it was a short cord and he was covered in a think vernix which surprised us, so trying to pull the cord over his head proved to be slightly difficult, LOL but we got it unlooped and I took him, we threw a warm towel on him and ooh'd and ahh'd.

I soon asked for the time, which was 12:01a. Rachel had checked the time, and shockingly said "Oh my god! It JUST turned 12:01a!" as she shockingly laughed and held up the tablet. And since we took a little time once he was born to untangle, towel and gaze, we decided he was born around 11:59, maybe a little sooner, but we split the difference.

He was gurgly for a bit, but he was too calm to really "cry". After about 30 minutes we started to "wrap things up". We waited for the cord to stop pulsating, finally cut him free and handed him off to Rachel, so I could birth the placenta. During the "move" he finally cried heartily enough to clear out the gurgles. 

We finally got around to weighing him on my new digital scale and I was right when I guestimated him being between 8 to 9lbs. Although it was humorous that when I went to take him out of the scale sling I found him looking like he was sweating! That's when DH realized "No honey, he peed on himself!" LMAO!!

So we cleaned him up a tad, re-tied his cord with the cord tie Rachel made for him with her new knitting kit, diapered and clothed him, so daddy could wash his hair out. I love the vernix and all, but just not in the hair making it a sticky mess. 

I could add more details, but that's the gist of it all! 

So I personally missed the concert, but was able to get some sleep in before the BIG event. Joe took care of Evie's doctor's visit and we finally got the right Rx for her. I was even able to keep my chiropractor visit for Tuesday!

Carter is fitting in well. He's already been shopping with me a couple times when the temps have gone up above the 30's. On the 12th it reached 60º so we took advantage of THAT nice day, as it's been in the teens ever since it seems! Even had school cancelled once due to -20º weather!

Tandem nursing for the first time EVER and it's going well. I'm surprised by a lot of things but it's all working well. Sadly, Carter has caught a cough, despite all of the protections we tried to put into place, but the kids are still really good at using the industrial sized bottle of hand sanitizer before touching Carter, and most of them are good at remembering their germ mask before getting too close too. Them coughing in his face just really irks me!

Oh ooo - We're Halfway There . . .

That was for the older folks. For my oldest daughter, though, I'll use her favorite band Big Time Rush instead.

Time is flying by and it's only downhill from here.

Carter Michael is doing well, and still due in January 2013. He was very proud of his "goods", and made it perfectly clear he is definitely a BOY!

The Cliche "Cloud 9"

We are rolling out with the news that we are indeed expecting bundle of chaos #9, January 2013.

This will be the FIRST baby to share a birth month with a sibling! Mason's birthday is January 25th, baby's EDD is January 22nd, but we all know I have never made it past 39 weeks and that was my longest pregnancy with my first! After that I rarely made it past 38 weeks. So we're expecting the arrival to happen within the first couple of weeks in January.

Mason is actually thrilled to share his birth month, which we thought he might not like. So we're happy he's happy.

We are planning on finding out the gender next month around my birthday. We are doing a complete unassisted pregnancy and birth this time (unless issues arise) and I was grateful to have talked with a semi local MW friend of mine on options for getting an u/s done. Apparently, a new Baby Image store opened up in Grand Blanc which is very close to us. She practices down near Pontiac, but we were willing to travel if we needed to, to get the u/s done, so we are even MORE pleased it's closer than our favorite movie theater! LOL

So we'll be making and appointment with them in the next few weeks. However, as MUCH as we all want a boy I am fairly confident that we will be having another girl. I am all about names and from the beginning we've had names picked out. Peyton Avery is our girl name and while I am still holding out on that 1% chance of baby being a boy, I still have several boy names chosen, but not nailed down - which actually makes me believe it'll be a girl even more. The boy names are Giaxon Blu (aka Jackson), Carter Michael, and we've also kicked around Hudson Michael. The boy names will probably be reserved for baby #10, which I believe will end up being the boy we wanted. (yes I know I sound crazy)

We are currently 12 weeks, and we've found baby's heartbeat already a couple of times. I've had quite a bit of morning sickness, which seems to be letting up, thankfully. I'm still 12lbs down from pre-pregnancy which is fine by me since I needed to lose some weight that I inadvertently put on after the kids broke my scale and I couldn't monitor myself well. :( I'm just really hoping I don't regain a lot of it. I'll be happy if I don't gain over 12 pounds at the end here. I really will!

So, in about 6 weeks you can look for the official gender announcement and u/s pictures!

I STILL can not believe we are having #9!

Oh and we had fun posting this video on FB or part of our announcement.


Cloud 9 Announcement from Stephanie Morales on Vimeo.

Mormons Building Bridges

I just really have to share this story. It makes my heart happy! :)

http://seandahl.blogspot.com/2012/06/mormons-building-bridges-landmark.html

Sariah's ELD

So not liking the new "blog layout"; but alas the times are a changing and it seems every web-site from time to time changes as well . . . facebook seems to like to change the most and most often too, which is why it is probably losing the interest of the young and old alike. Most humans dislike a lot of change.

Any ways, I only hope this change improves some of bloggers faults, like the issues with loading pictures and ending up with huge gaps between images and wordings. UGH

As for changes around here . . . apparently the upstairs bathroom has been leaking from somewhere and now we have moldy plaster coming down from the ceiling in the kitchen. yay - not! So we have to get that fixed.

Rachel is severely grounded which means she can't go to the home schooling conference "ARGH" next month, but Sariah is going and we think this will be an excellent opportunity for her to hopefully spread her wings a bit without Rachel getting int he way and talking for her. Sariah's ELD (Expressive Language Disorder) really has been holding Sariah back from socializing; well that and the fact that Rachel tries to "help" by cutting Sariah off in conversations and talking for her. We're working on all of this now, which is why we are all looking forward to Sariah being on her own for a week with friends without social butterfly sister tagging along "taking" over and butting in for her.

Poor Sariah's ELD kind of reminds me of the character Stevie in the show 'Malcolm in the Middle'. Stevie basically was a super slow talker that had to breath deeply in between words. While Sariah doesn't breath in between words, she does still struggle trying to come up with words to use, and will usually get flustered in conversations and completely blank on what to say or even talk about. She's really smart and when it comes to eye hand coordination stuff, she's brilliant! She loves to skateboard and play video games, to which Joe dislikes because she is usually better at video games than him and will often beat him.

We were afraid this would happen as time passed and she grew up, and we've all noticed it a bit more as she's aged, that she really doesn't talk much and she gives one word answers, or won't really participate in a conversation. Some of you may notice this and wonder what is up, and really it is her ELD as well as her teenaged lack of confidence kicking in.

We're working with her now in making up conversation cards and practicing with her conversation techniques. We try to get her to think outside the box a bit to come up with possible questions to ask people as well.

Basically, if you ever get her on the phone, try and be patient with her. It's not that she isn't interested in you, because she could sit there and listen to you talk all day, it's just that she  really has NO CLUE what to say to you or ask you. Her mind literally goes blank or the words get so jumbled in her brain that she can't form sentences.

I know it's been about 3 years since we've probably talked about her disorder, and many probably believed she'd grow out of it as she got older, but it really is something she has to work HARD on. What comes easy to all of us takes her 50 times longer to do, and taking 50 times longer to come up with words and put them in the proper order to speak . .  . is beyond frustrating to a teenaged girl who only wants to have friends who will be patient and listen to her. Unfortunately, kids aren't too patient so she gets frustrated and she feels invisible as well as ignored.

I wish I could just reach into her brain and just FIX the problem, but even I know it's not a quick fix. We have to work on this daily.

Thankfully she does have some friends who love her and are patient with her. In fact she's at a friends house now at a sleepover, without Rachel.

I just feel like I need to reprise this conversation about Sariah and her ELD, as it is a 'special need' of hers. It does make her a "Special Needs" child. They often say it's the special needs that you can't visually see that most people pass off and ignore. If they see a perfectly healthy/fine individual, they don't even bother to THINK that the person might be blind, have autism, or like Sariah have ELD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressive_language_disorder
*I was shocked to learn that this Wiki link has a link to Sariah's ELD YouTube video! I never put it there because I have NO CLUE on how to edit those things, or add to them. In 3 years her video has gotten over 50,000 hits now!!

DIY - Credit Card Into Phone or Pod Stand

**I apologize for the pictures in advance for being too big. Just click on them to see them fully.**



So I don't do very many of these DIY posts, but I've been struggling with sore arms far too long to not pass this one along to you all too. It was my biggest pet peeve with watching media on the iPod and my husband's Thrive phone was having to always hold it. Try putting a movie on for the kids while you wait for . . . well . . .anything, especially when you have 8 kids. They all crowd and there are always complaints.

Well, I finally found this solution, and it WORKS! All you need it an old credit card, or gift card, or whatever card that you probably have sitting in your wallet doing absolutely nothing but taking up space. I don't know why, but we tend to get possessive of those stupid things that do absolutely NOTHING! Although, now I am glad I kept mine!

So here is a how-to in taking that card and turing it into a "mini-media stand".

Materials Needed:
- Any wallet sized card you aren't using anymore. Credit, gift, gas, membership, insurance, etc. I'm sur eyou have a few of them.
-Scissors
-Duct tape
*Dremel, sand paper, nail file, or a lit candle. Optional to use, but anything you have that might be used to help smooth out rough edges and or cuts.












You may have to, for thicker cards, do each side individually. Sanding, melting, or dremelling after your cut to smooth out and even out.



















So you say you have a Tablet or a Pad?! Try using a cereal box using the same method. You could even decorate the cereal box stand with wrapping paper or farbic for a much cooler look. No need to buy those expensive stands, if you're cheap like me!