It was Spooktacular

I've been told that Chelsea & my Halloween Extravaganza was a success. I think it went rather well. Friday we had a Halloween party and it went a little something like this...

6:00 - 6:45 pm People arrived in costume, some bearing food and beverage.

6:45 - 8:00 pm Party goers were divided into teams and sent off on a video scavenger hunt. Here is a list of the suggested tasks:
1. Choose a "secret word" and whenever anyone says it, scream real loud! (Think Pee Wee's Playhouse)
2. Choreograph a short dance (bonus points for location, music and/or singing)
3. Act like zombies in a graveyard
4. Reenact a scene from a "scary" movie
5. Get as many strangers to "hi-5" you or "pound it" as possible
6. Find a statue and have your whole team imitate it
7. Find someone dressed (in costume) similarly to a person on your team- have them pose together or pretend they're long lost twins
8. Get someone not on your team to have some sort of race or contest with you (the more people in the race/contest, the better!)
9. Have someone eat something that looks gross
10. Call someone on your team's mom and sing Happy Halloween to the tune of Happy Birthday (use speakerphone)

8:00 - 8:15 pm Teams returned from the hunt, got some snacks and settled down to watch the videos from the hunt.

8:15 - 8:45 pm We watched the videos of the scavenger hunt. Here are some high points-
-A train was danced on
-A tomb stone was accidentally knocked over during the zombie act (and put back)
-Small children, an old lady in a wheel chair and some drunks gave out hi-5's
-A mime was dressed very similarly to a guy working at Footlocker
-Smokers outside the mall had a one-legged hopping contest
-There was a shopping cart race with an 80's prom queen in one cart and a shopper in the other
-A gross-looking burrito was eaten at Taco Bell
-Several moms got sang to

8:50 pm The winning team of the scavenger hunt was announced; the scores were close!

9:00 pm The costume contest votes were tabulated and winners were announced:
Scariest Costume- James Lord as Michael Meyers

(picture by John Corson)

Funniest/Most Creative Costume- Chase Abner as an Emo

(picture by John Corson)

Personal Favorite- Darin McCoy as Mega Man X (it was actually a tie between myself as a middle-aged teacher and Darin, but since it was 1/2 my party, I shouldn't get the prize.)

(Chase's picture, Mega Man X is in the middle)

Ashely Clark was awarded best Halloween-themed food for her "spiders" (peanut butter sandwiched between Ritz crackers with pretzel stick legs and raisin eyes)

And the rest of the time was spent hanging out!

Here are some other costume highlights:
a cute ladybug
a mime
Madeline
The Corpse Bride
a wandering samurai
a goth going on a job interview
Martin Luther
Chase's blog stalker


Chase had a great idea for next year: make it a zombie party! Everyone comes as something as a zombie. For example, instead of being a middle-aged teacher, I'd be a middle-aged teacher zombie! I like it!

(Chase has pictures and a link to more on his blog)

Beating Heart

If you'd like to hear our baby's heartbeat, go on over to Chase's blog and take a listen. It is "baby" not "babies" for all you who are wondering.

Baby Stuff

I know you've just been waiting at the edge of your seat hitting the refresh button on the computer to find out if my Belly Bands have come in yet. Well you can relax now, they're here and I'm wearing one today! I have to say that it's working pretty well; it's keeping my (unbuttoned) pants up and is pretty comfortable. They're not really worth what they're priced, but they are worth getting for free via Amazon rewards! Hooray for extending my wardrobe for a while longer! I think my belly grows on Sundays...

Typing of shopping and baby-related whatnots, if we have a son, he will need these jammies from Old Navy, or these.

Our next doc appointment is on Wednesday afternoon. We should be able to hear our baby's (or possibly babies'?) heartbeat for the first time then!

Battle

Today I did battle not with one printer, but two. Both my desk printer and the monster printer in the other room had it in for me. They ganged up on me. Just when they thought they'd gotten the best of me, I did a sneak attack and was victorious! Church bulletins are printing as I type. All will be well for the 10 people who actually read them.

Bonus: Jim Gaffigan is supposed to be on Law & Order: Criminal Intent tonight!

Belly

Usually by the end of the day my belly sticks out a lot more than it does at the beginning. I pretty much attribute that to the food I've eaten throughout the day and with my growing womb my insides are being mushed around. I'll go to bed and when I wake up my belly is back to regular size... except this morning. I now have an itty bitty bump. This has inspired me to make my first maternity purchase. (Actually, because of our Amazon.com rewards from our credit card, it cost me nothing!) I just ordered two of these:

They're belly bands! They'll allow me to keep wearing my regular pants and skirts unbuttoned and/or unzipped while hiding the unbuttoned/unzipped part. Also, they will allow me to wear maternity pants that will currently be too big. The bands are stretchy and will hold my pants up! Plus, I'll still be able to wear my regular shirts (which are looking shorter and shorter) and it'll just look like I have a t-shirt layered underneath. As Keli's grandma would say, whoever dreamed that up had a good dream, they did!

Now, don't get too excited about the itty bitty baby bump; if you didn't know it was there, you probably wouldn't notice it. But I guess now that I've put this on my blog, people will stop making eye contact with me and just check out the belly.

Pumpkin Guts

Saturday Chelsea & I went to get supplies for our Halloween Extravaganza in a couple weeks, and we got a costume for me (hooray for the Goodwill!) and some pumpkins to carve! Here are a couple pictures taken by Chase documenting our pumpkin carving:



And here's one I took of my pumpkin all lit up:


We were inspired by an email forward of carved pumpkins to use the stems as noses. I think it's pretty cool, but it did make it more awkward to get the guts and seeds out. Oh well, I'm pretty satisfied with the finished project.

Babies Everywhere!

Last weekend was pretty busy. We had lots and lots of family time. I got to meet Lily, my cousin Sara's daughter, for the first time. Check out this picture Chase took:


Lily's a pretty calm baby. On the other hand, Addy, my cousin Amy's daughter, can be quite dramatic. Here is Addy and her awesome ponytail:


That's me playing with her. Notice how I'm not showing yet. One of Chase's relatives claimed to see my pregnant round belly. I guess I should get used to people seeing what they want to see and telling me unsolicited pregnancy stories and "facts." Like this morning when asked if I've had any morning sickness I told someone that I haven't thrown up or anything and he said, "Oh, it'll come." So, he wants me to puke?

Trophies

Lucky you! You get two posts from me in one day!

You probably know that I work in a church office. I am officially the office manager, but 99% of the time I'm called the church secretary. Anyway, working in a church office, I see all kinds of junk mail marketing stuff to churches. We get mail wanting our people to attend expensive seminars to learn how to save money; requests from musicians wanting to do a concert at our church; brochures about things to entertain, er, "educate" our youth and/or children about the Bible; and catalogs from companies wanting us to buy any kind of junk with a cross on it.

Today we received a catalog with this on the back:

The best I can make of it is they're trophies for praying. I guess the top three pray-ers in the church get trophies or something.

If you're a really good pray-er and more of your prayers come true than anyone else's, you just might be deemed the prayer champ and get one of these:

What a beaut! But don't feel bad if none of your prayers come true, there are special trophies for prayer participation, see?

Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. Everybody knows that what the top pray-er should get is a crown and a sash with crosses all over them!

Oh, and Jim gets the prayer champ trophy for being the first to tell me I'm eating for two now.

Oooh! A Fetus, You Say?

Today, the child inside my womb has graduated from embryo to fetus! Congratulations, little guy (or girl)! I am now in my 9th week of pregnancy and my baby is now looking more like a baby! Just check out the floating baby ticker on the right side of the page!

This weekend, like the last two, will be filled with travel for the three of us. Chase's family is having a reunion on Saturday, so we're going to visit with my family, too, while we're in. Bonus: Friday morning we're meeting two of my cousins and their babies at my grandparents' house. Babies everywhere!

Robots & Baby

Normally, I'm a pretty big fan of robots. I mean, what's not to like about them? They're smart, look cool and are the future. But I'll tell you when I'm not a fan, when they're used for evil instead of good.

Good ways to use robots:
-as butlers
-to do your laundry
-to feed your dog
-to grab things out of your reach
-to check on the elderly
-to take pictures on Mars
-to play chess
-to mine for coal
-to guard your home
-to read to the blind
-as entertainment

Evil ways to use robots:
-to destroy the earth
-as assassins
-as telemarketers
-to steal old people's medicine

See, with so many good uses for robots, why do some people feel the need to use them maliciously? Most importantly, why must robot telemarketers interrupt my lunchtime nap?! Forming a baby in my womb is pretty tiring work, and getting up four times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom makes me feel less rested. Taking a lunchtime nap helps, but not so much when a robot telemarketer wakes me up!

Oh well, I guess we've got to take the bad with the good sometimes.

Speaking of forming a baby in my womb, I went to my first doctor's appointment on Thursday morning. Well, I didn't actually meet with the doctor but an OB nurse. We mostly went over family history, as in family history of diseases and such. Then they took my blood...

Now, most people don't like having blood drawn but can handle it okay, but not me. It's awful and terrifying and 99.9% of the time I pass out and/or throw up. It doesn't hurt that bad (uncomfortable more than anything), but the whole idea of it is just really really really disgusting. Thinking about it now gives me the heebie jeebies! But I just wanted to say that even though the nurse missed the first time, I did not throw up or pass out! That's pretty much due to Chase being there to distract me. I did feel icky afterwards though. If all goes well, they should only have to draw blood one more time and I've got about 20 weeks until that point.

Oh, and if you ask what we're going to name our baby, this is the response you will get: R2D2 Jesus. The first name is after a great robot used for good and the middle name is biblical. This name could be for a boy or girl!