Halloween BedPost

I love Halloween. Love, love, love Halloween. Mom always made October SUCH a fun holiday month and there was nobody better than Dad to liven up trick-or-treating. (Sing it with me now: "When you're all alone in the country, and the night is dark as pitch..." My Stacey siblings are finishing the song in their heads right now.)

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do as much this Halloween because of decreased energy and increased feeling gross. Mike went out and picked out our pumpkins and cleaned them both out...alone. He decorated the front of our house...alone. He's gotten everything ready for trick-or-treaters, which is no small task, since the number of children in DuPont is roughly equal to that of the rest of Washington state put together. And he did it all...alone. I feel bad watching him because I've been so boring lately.

One tradition that we started last year that I've been able to participate fully in is our "13 Nights of Halloween," where we watch a Halloween-ish themed movie every night for the 13 nights prior to and including Halloween. We have a whole list of movies and obviously we can't get to all of them every year, so we rotate. Some of the movies on our list are "Phantom of the Opera," "The Mummy," "Scared Shrekless," "Monsters, Inc.," "Rear Window," "Blackbeard's Ghost," "The Private Eyes," "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Scooby Doo," "Harry Potter," "Ghostbusters," and "Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." I love that there's at least ONE thing I can do to celebrate the holiday with him.

Another tradition is to make a fun meal on Halloween night. Last year we had a feast, but I didn't know if I'd be able to do something this year. I'm kind of a Halloween food snob when it comes to creativity. I DON'T find it creative to put "Spooky" or "Ghoulish" on the front of a normal recipe and call it Halloween food. I think that's a creative cop-out. And I don't want my food (no matter how good it tastes) to look like gross things such as vomit or cat food. So with those stipulations, I had to find something that both Mike and I like (difficult since there are about 10 foods right now that don't make me nauseated) AND is easy to make.

I think I found some fun things... Tune in to tomorrow's entry to see how our Halloween feast turns out.

BedPost #1

So, there's been a temporary change in the title of our blog. Here's why, along with the reason I've kind of been off the grid for the last few weeks with our share of ups and downs.

The day after Mike's birthday, we found out that we're pregnant again. Yay!

But then the week after that I started bleeding...like what happened in the last pregnancy. Boo.

I rested that weekend then went to the OB, who said everything looked OK. Yay!

But then one weekend later, I bled so much that I was certain I had miscarried again. Boo.

I had an emotionally rough weekend then went to be checked out by the OB so that I could confirm the loss...and the doctor picked up a tiny little heartbeat. I was so totally beyond shocked that I couldn't even say "yay." They also found a rather large blood clot right by the baby that bleeds off and on and puts me at a 33% chance of miscarriage. Uh, so that's a "boo."

They put me on progesterone and bed rest for a week. I'm now on semi bedrest with light duty and maximum 4 hours of work a day until I'm at least 18 weeks along. It's been tough. No lifting more than 5 pounds. Avoid stairs. Minimal exercise. And the progesterone makes me extremely nauseated and light-headed, so I spend most of my time sitting or lying down whether I'm at work or at home.

On the plus side, things are looking good. Baby's growing, progesterone levels are increasing. I get to spend a lot more time with Mike. I get to study scriptures and work on crafts and catch up on sleep. Not a bad pitcher of lemonade to make from all those lemons!