Sunday, November 1, 2015

Khaleesi goes trick or treating


I'm so impressed with how well my little experiment of "pregnancy announcement at the end of the most boring post ever to see who actually reads" worked! (Side note, I never posted it on Facebook, so my Facebook friends may have missed that post). I didn't think anyone would actually comment so it was pretty exciting to get all sorts of congratulations! Thank you! Since it seems there is maybe some interest, I am working on a post with all the pregnancy details but I'll try not to make it boring.

Being with child explains the real reason why Dalton weaned (it did happen as I described, his choice, but I'm pretty sure that's why) and why I did a 5k instead of a half marathon. I'm due May 13, and we could not be happier to become a family of four!



I'm pretty sure I've been more excited about this year's Halloween than I have been for most Christmases, but before we jump into adorable baby costume pictures, let's talk about daylight savings time.

Can we just stop with all the parental martyr outrage on social media? Yes, we all get it, as parents, we don't get the extra hour of sleep. Hilarious, right? But guess what? We do all actually get the extra hour, whether or not you have spawned. Call me crazy, but I was pretty happy about an extra hour WITH my kid, since lord knows I don't have enough of those. I could see maybe being upset when we lose an hour in the spring, but not this year. We all get the gift of time - parents, children, nonparents, pets, etc! Even if you don't get an extra hour of sleep, you can still get the same amount. We all know it's coming. If your kid historically gets up at the crack of dawn after "fall back", just go to bed early. It happens on Saturday. You don't have to get ready for work in the morning. Hit the hay.

Ok, with that off my chest, Halloween was all I dreamed it would be and more. Many months ago, my friend mentioned she had a 12 month dragon costume that she didn't plan to use, and I jumped on it. And of course, when I think dragons, I think Mother of Dragons.



It's like we are twins.

Like many Game of Thrones fans, I'm sure, Eric loves how bad ass Khal Drogo is, so the family costume idea took place over the summer, and in typical Lindsey fashion, we didn't bother to do anything about it until the week before Halloween.

I probably would have just dropped the ball altogether and only dressed Dalton up, but last weekend my friend and I happened to be walking past a Goodwill on 50% off day, so we went in to pick up Halloween supplies. She's a master stylist, both costume and fashion, and helped me pick some random stuff out that we could turn into costumes. Combined with stuff we already had around the house, we got everything, wigs included, for a whopping $14.

We started thinking it would be cool to have a dragon egg to represent the new baby (although that is not true to GRRM, since all the dragons hatch at the same time). But since I didn't know where to buy a dragon egg, and don't do crafts, I dismissed that idea quickly.

However, with some encouragement from friends (most importantly, an art teacher), I decided I could paper mache a balloon and then paint it. Didn't sound like me, but I was determined to try. Now, the smart thing to do, with a project that required several steps and dry time in between each one, would be to start early in the week, to allow plenty of time before Saturday for the egg to be completed. I started Friday morning. Which is why I found myself blow drying a paper mache balloon Halloween morning.

I also had very little time for the painting, so I devised this handy device.



It allowed to me paint the entire balloon at once. Somehow, it all came together, and looked pretty shimmery and dragon egg like.


Probably how the Game of Thrones producers made their eggs too.

I really wanted to put Dalton in his dragon outfit the moment he woke up but Eric convinced me that was crazy. We waited until the last minute, after our costumes were on and Eric's eye makeup was done, since we didn't know how he would handle it. It turns out, he had no idea he wasn't wearing normal clothes. It was so cute it hurt my eyes, like looking at the sun.

 STOP.
 My little dragon immediately wanted to read "Where's Spot?". I'm sure Daenerys read that same book to her dragon children many a time.


Finally, we got him out the door and attempted a self timer family picture. It wasn't great.

Dothraki warriors do not smile for pictures.
Luckily, my friend Kristin came over and saved the day and took a picture for us. We used it as our social media pregnancy announcement. We set the bar high the first time with a Titanic announcement, and I think we lived up to it.

2014
2015
Dalton had a great time banging on doors, naturally he didn't have a clue what was going on but he loved walking all over the neighborhood and exploring (although we only went to 4-5 houses).


Turns out none of our neighbors watch Game of Thrones. Womp womp. On the bright side, we got fewer trick or treaters than expected, so we are currently being forced to binge eat the extra candy.

Just had to do one more.
Here we are, on another November 1st, and I haven't bought a single Christmas present. Still, I'm really excited for the holiday season. Last year Dalton was a newborn and pretty much slept through everything. It's so much fun to have him actually participate now that he's older! Plus, I think I can play the pregnancy card this year, and then next year, the "adjusting to life with two kids card"...so I don't REALLY need good gifts until 2017.

How many Christmas gifts have you bought? And if your answer is double digits, you are required to give me at least one good gift suggestion for someone in my family who can talk.

Trick or treaters - love them or hate them? It was only our first year handing out candy, so I'm not jaded yet, and I had fun seeing the cute kids costumes. 

11 comments:

  1. I haven't bought any christmas presents yet, because I've pretty much been banned from using the credit card after all of the baby purchases. Now I just need the baby. I have some ideas though, but have been sort of distracted. Also, what do you get a 6ish week baby for Christmas?

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  2. I love trick or treaters but we never get any because the people in our apartment building are mostly students and retirees. If we ever buy a house I will probably be one of those people who goes all out with the animatronic spiders and skeletons.

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  3. Your guys Halloween game is better than anything I've ever seen.

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  4. For someone who "doesn't do crafts", this is seriously impressive.

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  5. Love the costumes and pregnancy announcement, so creative! I'm actually finished with my Christmas shopping. I even have a few gifts wrapped already. I always shop clearance sales throughout the year and stash things away. I like trick-or-treaters. Although, we live in the country and only get the few neighborhoods kids that are around. I think this year we had 10 kids come by.

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  7. Heeey! I'm behind on my blog reading so I saw this post first and feedly spoiled the surprise for me. Congrats!! Two babies are the BEST. Total clusterfuck sometimes, but worth it. I can't wait to hear more.

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  8. I love trick o' treaters but I had this one set of idiots last night. We had a party with a separate entrance that came directly into our house, along with a sign outside pointing the trick 'o treaters to our front door instead. Around 9:30pm, I heard a noise in our sunroom so I went in there and a group of 16-17 year old "trick or treaters" had simply let themselves into our house via the party entrance! I was like, um, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN OUR HOUSE?!! And then he asked for the whole bowl of candy. And now a pumpkin is missing from out front and I know that punk took it! #EndRant

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  9. First - Congratulations! How are you going to deal with two adorable younglings at the same time? The cute factor will be on overload!
    Second - Thanks for the IG add. I've had a lot going on so I haven't been blogging, but IG is a shortcut way for me to keep up with people...plus...who doesn't love pictures?
    Third - THANK YOU for bringing up the daylight savings time thing! I saw your comment on a certain blogger's IG pic post about it. She's not even with her kid, so it kills me that she'd jump on that bandwagon. I can't say it surprises me, though.

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  10. Aww, cute family costume idea. Half the people at work didn't know what I was either, so I feel your pain. Nothing worse than having to explain to people how cool you look.

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Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.