If you’re new around these parts, this monthly series is an exercise in brevity as I try (sometimes not very hard) to summarize each day of our month in one sentence. (Also, I’ve been taking a picture of my daughter every day since she was born, and this is a GREAT place for me to share several of those!). Although I’ve almost always included the photo at the top of its corresponding day, the daily captions of what we did and the photos do not always match.
Thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Jo for the post idea!
Sunday 10/1 – Day two of General Conference! In the past, we’ve often gone to Bountiful to spend the weekend watching Conference with our folks, but this weekend, we opted to stay home, and though we missed seeing our families, the quiet, super relaxing weekend was welcome indeed! Raven even did pretty well during all of the sessions, considering that altogether we watched 8 hours.
Monday 10/2 – Went to storytime at the library as usual, and Raven volunteered for every activity up in the front (as usual). When she finally got called to come up and help, she eagerly took the finger puppet frog that was given her, danced around for the duration of the song, and then solidly refused to give her frog up at the end, when it was her frog’s turn to “jump into the pool.” (Luckily, the lady in charge was nice enough to just let her be, and Raven returned the frog on her own at the very end of storytime.) Later in the evening, we all took an impromptu drive up the canyon right behind our house to scope out the fall leaves, and we were not disappointed!
Tuesday 10/3 – Purchased The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit bundle and basically spent aaaaaall day looking through stuff and planning where I want the blog to go from here.
Wednesday 10/4 – Matt’s first big pack meeting as Scoutmaster was tonight, so I tried to keep Raven out from underfoot as he ran around getting last-minute details taken care of. Sounds like things went really well!
Thursday 10/5 – Raven’s started having accident after accident during naps and at nighttime, so we did what we swore we wouldn’t do and started using a pull-up over her undies because we just got so sick of running laundry a million times a day. I don’t know what the cause of this major regression is (since she was sleeping dry for weeks previous to this and now hasn’t slept dry in about a week), but I’m ready for it to be over. #idontlikepottytraining
Friday 10/6 – Took a drive up the canyon after dinner to scope out spots for my photo shoot in the morning, and we stopped at Cold Stone after to take advantage of the Buy One, Get One coupon I’d gotten for my birthday 🙂
Saturday 10/7 – Considering that we had no plans for this day at the beginning of the week, it ended up being jam-packed — shooting my brother and future sister-in-law’s engagement photos in the morning, cleaning the house and garage, and planting all the bulbs and plants for spring…whew!
Sunday 10/8 – Must have been more exhausted from yesterday than I thought because I completely ZONKED after church for about 3 hours. Glorious.
Monday 10/9 – Spent most of the day conversing with my friend Andrew online as he worked through getting my blog set up on a self-hosted site (woo hoo!). I chose to go through RamNode, which comes highly recommended by my tech-iest friend (aka, Andrew), and which is super reasonably priced (I paid less than $45 for the whole year!). My referral link to their site (if you want to check them out for yourself) is here.
Tuesday 10/10 – The day started at about 5:15 a.m., with Raven throwing up everywhere. Then throwing up everywhere again. Then throwing up everywhere again. Yeah, not a fan of cleaning up throw up…
Wednesday 10/11 – Raven was feeling better for the most part, so we chanced a quick trip to the library and the store. While I’ve always loathed shopping at Walmart (and avoided it at all costs), with our move to our new home, we are MUCH closer to a Walmart than we are to my other usual grocery stores (and their prices ARE pretty low!), so I’ve been doing more and more grocery shopping there as time has gone on. One of these days, I want to do a comparison of the 15 most-bought items from all three stores I shop at and do a price comparison, just for fun (because I’m a frugal nerd like that!).
Thursday 10/12 – I came down with the same 24-hour bug that Raven had (aka, THE PLAGUE) and felt like death warmed over all day long.
Friday 10/13 – Felt mostly better, and we traveled down south to see our folks and participate in the Writer’s Group we do with several members of Matt’s family, since several of us are writing books at the moment. Raven set a record for the latest we’ve ever let her stay up–10:30 or so–but she loved every minute of her evening spent eating Chinese food and playing with cousins while we all discussed character development and plot strategies.
Saturday 10/14 – Went to my nephew’s baptism in the morning, followed up by brunch with everyone at my sister’s and brother-in-law’s house.
Sunday 10/15 – Matt, alas, succumbed to the same 24-hour bug we’d had, and we all stayed home from church for fear we’d spread it to the whole neighborhood.
Monday 10/16 – Finally, another library storytime like the first, where I had a toddler who actually paid attention and participated happily in everything rather than trying to escape out the door or run up to the front where all the “fun stuff” was.
Tuesday 10/17 – Kind of took it easy because even though I wasn’t totally sick anymore, I still felt a little off. Basically, this meant I read a lot and actually cleaned up the kitchen, rather than working on photography or blogging responsibilities.
Wednesday 10/18 – A frustrating potty accident meant we had to cancel our plans to go to the park in the morning, and I’m starting to think potty training is seriously The Worst Thing Ever about parenting.
Thursday 10/19 – After working on my latest photography shoots, I decided to actually take a night off from work and just relax and watch t.v. with Matt. I think I need to do that more often!
Friday 10/20 – I drove out and met Matt at the end of his work shift so we could switch cars (and so he could take Raven) while I went to the temple.
Saturday 10/21 – A totally packed and totally fun day, starting with a photo shoot I did in the morning, a trip to the pumpkin patch as a family, and rounded off with a Harvest Dinner of all sorts of fall deliciousness with our closest friends up here.
Sunday 10/22 – We unexpectedly ended up having some of our same friends from the dinner last night come over to our house today after church for a little Lightroom tutorial (since they recently purchased a DSLR and wanted me to show them the ropes on how the Lightroom process works). Raven was in heaven since she got to play with their little boy two nights in a row!
Monday 10/23 – Family trip to the annual Pumpkin Walk that North Logan does every year!
Tuesday 10/24 – Raven handled her flu shot in the morning like a CHAMP (not a single tear!), so she and I treated ourselves to 7-11 hot chocolate (our favorite!) and a long walk along the tree-lined River Trail just west of downtown Logan. I only wish I would have had my camera on me!
Wednesday 10/25 – Despite needing to finish my book for book club that same night (I’m now 3 for 3 on finishing the book hours before we meet together), Raven and I still managed to squeeze in a quick trip to the park. I also felt super lucky that I even got to GO to book club since Matt’s new church calling means he’s pretty much at a meeting every Wednesday night. Luckily for me, his meeting didn’t start until 8, so I could at least make the first hour of the book club discussion!
Thursday 10/26 – I sat down Thursday night, intent on finally taking some to relax a bit at night since I’ve been using my evening hours to work like crazy, but I decided I’d better get going on catching up on some of the photo shoots I’ve been doing lately, so that’s what I ended up doing for a lot longer than planned. (It was all good though because I made this delicious pumpkin chocolate chip bread to keep me company while I worked!).
Friday 10/27 – Got an unexpected text from Matt telling me about an estate sale over in Logan, so I packed Raven up and zoomed over, eager to see if I could find a rake for super cheap (since we still don’t own one and have leaves EVERYWHERE). No luck on the rake, but I DID score some super awesome-sauce old wood pieces! Later that night, Matt and I went to the temple together while my mom watched Raven. Hooray for Raven’s grandparents always being so willing to watch her for us! Family is the best.
Saturday 10/28 – A photo shoot in the morning, my mom and stepdad’s annual Halloween party in the afternoon (complete with a good ol’ fashioned photo scavenger hunt and pumpkin decorating!), and a dinner out with my in-laws. What a great day!
Sunday 10/29 – After church and naps were over, we tackled the two pumpkins we planned to carve, and, let’s be honest–Matt did about 75% of the work. Maybe 80%. That man is gold.
Monday 10/30 – Wore Raven out in the morning with storytime at the library (Halloween edition!), a trip to the bank and grocery store, and a quick visit to daddy at his work, where she got to play with the chinchillas and guinea pigs they have there. She then promptly took a gloriously long 3+ hour nap. I should do that every morning, methinks.
Tuesday 10/31 – The long-awaited day of trick-or-treating! Since Raven finally is “getting” all the fun things about holidays now, trick-or-treating and Halloween decorations are all she’s been talking about lately. I warmed her up to the concept by taking her over to Main Street in Logan to go trick-or-treating at the businesses there in the morning, and Matt took her around about half our neighborhood that night. One of the best things about our new house? It’s in an AWESOME neighborhood that still does Halloween “old-school” style, complete with tons of trick-or-treaters (we’d run out of candy by 8, despite having bought nearly 150 fun-size candy bars!) and our neighbors providing home-cooked goods like scones and chili and hot dogs to anyone wanting to sit down and warm up with some hot food. This is a GOOD place to live, friends.
Hope your Halloween was a happy one!
