Halloween 2014: what worked

I'm not going to try and hide the fact that Halloween 2015 is brewing a bit in my mind. Right now the daydream space of my brain is primarily focused on the Disney trip, but thoughts of the display for this year are starting to creep in.

Halloween 2014 was a success overall. I mostly see things that need to be fixed when I look back at the pictures, but 2014 was a pretty significant improvement from 2013. What's important to me is to continue to improve from the year before (as long as my heart is still in it) and to learn new creative/technical skills along the way. 

Before jumping into the things that need improvement in a future post, I am going to review the things that went over really well:

The projector: The number 1 compliment from the trick or treaters. They LOVED the projected image of the ghost in the window. One kid mentioned how she made her parents stop every time they drove by the house to watch the ghost. Cooper also loved "goap" (ghost) and waved to her every night. It was impossible to photograph, but you can see a vague ghost-like shape in the window in this picture:

Mod-podged pumpkin stick dude: This was a very last-minute project. I saw a tutorial on Halloween Forums describing how to transform a regular foam pumpkin into a creepy one. I was so happy with the results that I ended up giving him a scarecrow like body. Or, as Greg put it, "turned him into a Blair-Witch looking motherf*cker." This dude had such a big visual impact that I plan on decapitating him, replacing the head with a larger foam pumpkin and making a few friends for him for 2015.

Spider egg sacs: These were fantastically easy and cheap to make. I made a dozen or so of them one night sitting on my couch with a hot glue gun while watching Netflix. I was worried they would blend in when they were hanging from the tree, but they were really noticeable and creepy.

Foam "boarded" windows: These were personally my favorite part of the display this year. They completely altered the look of the house in the daylight and looked pretty cool against the lights at night. Disclaimer: these were absolutely a pain in the ass to make. I am going to post a tutorial later (I took dozens of pictures of the process). I really do think they were worth the effort, but I am not a blogger who lies about things being "easy peasy."

Hiya, Pal! Now go to sleep.

Apparently I am insane and don't value sleep. This did make Greg do a huge "d'awwwww" so it's worth it.

One thing to check off of the giant Disney-crafting list.

We are printing this off and tucking it into a roadtrip bag with a few toys we have picked up on clearance over the last few months, a few portable art supplies, and snacks. Hopefully it will keep him entertained for a bit and will be a fun memory to look back on.

The flip side

I was leaving the Dollar Tree today when a "NO KROG!!" battle-cry sounded from the carseat in the back.

"Sorry, buddy-we need to go to Kroger to get groceries for dinner. Da is at work. We don't have a choice."

"NO...KROG! Go HOME!"

My gut sinks. I know this is going to be bad. I check my face for scratch marks. Who the hell knew that a bribe balloon could be used as a weapon? I fielded several stares in the store as I frantically picked up the items we needed while my 2 year old beat the shit out of my face with a balloon.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" proclaims the Mickey Mylar. Cooper's birthday was in June.

I thought I would be clever in Kroger and use a threatening tactic once reasoning, ignoring the bad behaviors, and praising the good behaviors didn't work.

"Hey Coop?" I asked as I got him out of the car. "You have to behave in Kroger, or else Mickey balloon will fly away."

Of course the threat didn't work. He made it well known that he was not happy to be grocery shopping. We walked out of Kroger. Cooper clutched a vial of sprinkles (which I didn't plan on buying) victoriously in his little fist, and grabbed his Mickey balloon (which didn't fly away after all) as soon as we got in the car.

As I was climbing into the car I saw a frazzled looking mom of a kid roughly the same age as Cooper trying to reason with her daughter who clearly held the same feelings on Kroger. At least I wasn't alone.

Greg got home from work, looked at the balloon and asked "Happy Birthday?" I nodded solemnly and said "yes, please wish our son's tantrum a very happy birthday."

There are days when I lose several of the toddler battle-of-wills. This was one of them. I think what's ultimately important is still finding the humor in it. Plus, these sprinkles are damn delicious.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Greg's new schedule started today! There are not enough exclamation points for this. In terms of schedules, his old one could have been worse but it was not a good fit for our family.

He used to work Mon, Tue, Friday, and Saturday from 9AM-8PM. His commute takes between 30-40 minutes, so without stopping for anything he typically got home a little shy of 9PM.  Cooper's bedtime is around 7:30 so this meant that 4 days a week he barely spent time with Cooper.

This also equated to me spending 4 nights a week making 2 dinners and cramming in all of the kid-care by myself in a very hectic post-work small time block. By the time Greg and I sat down for dinner it was already 9:30.

Weekends have also been pretty uneventful for the duration of his last schedule. He was only able to go on a full weekend camping trip once last year. The rest of the trips I took with my parents. We only went to the drive-in once or twice. I stopped going to the farmer's market because Cooper was so active that it was  impossible to juggle him while trying to shop. Those places aren't always the stroller-friendliest. It also made me realize how many family events take place on Saturdays instead of Sundays.

His new schedule is much better. Sun-Thur from 9:30AM-6:30PM. He will be home every night for dinner! We can try the whole "eating at the dinner table" thing. We can have nightly story times again. I already set up a category in our budget for camping because we are planning on doing much more camping this year. I will greatly miss our lazy Sundays together, but the extra family time is going to be great.

Cooper and I had a conversation with short phrases (most of which are lost in translation but enough leftovers to pick up on) during the drive home from work. It's our routine now. We use the 30 minute drive to bargain, edit, and finalize our plans for when we get home.

Popcorn was the snack we settled on, "Baby Genius" the show he would be allowed to watch while I cooked his dinner, and "play with coins" (his faux cash register) the toy he wanted to play with.

After arriving home I got him out of the car and accidentally bumped his head. He rubbed his head and said "Ma drive da's car...Coop bump head!" He walked alongside me up the stairs, counting each one out loud as I held his hand. It was pitch black outside with the exception of his light-up shoes casting strobe lights up the stairs.

During dinner, he fed himself mac and cheese (the height of toddlerhood culinary endeavors) with a fork. I almost burst into tears. It was an imperfect, yet very determined bite.

Parenthood feels so very...right at the moment. I love our little family, and everything feels as it was meant to be. We are far from perfect. There are so many aspects of parenthood that make me feel inadequate. That is why I take these moments-the garishly lit up stairs from Cooper's cheap shoes, the bathroom acoustics of his rendition of "Farmer in the Dell," his little hand clutching the fork and the way he threw the fork up in victory-and store them away as the things that matter most. 

It happened.

It happened. I was leaving dinner with Greg this evening (hooray for Christmas gift cards and date night!) when I looked up and thought, "that fence would make a really cool cemetery fence-I wonder if I could build that."

I guess it's good I didn't sell/donate all of the Halloween decorations. 

YNAB

I drank the YNAB koolaid. I have read several tutorials, browsed the forums, and feel like I'm starting to "get it." I was flabbergasted at first. My initial reaction was, what do you mean I don't budget for the month with the money I'm going to have? I can only budget the money that is currently in the account?

After reading through some of the information it started to click. You don't budget ahead with money that's not there because it is not guaranteed. By budgeting what you have, you're protecting yourself from overdraft.

Another thing that really stuck with me is the importance of establishing a rainy day fund. We have such terrible credit card debt that my initial reaction is always "ATTACK THE DEBT!" After reading up on it, it became abundantly clear how important it is to have funds set aside for both planned events (property taxes, insurance, etc.)  as well as unplanned (house repairs, etc.) That way we won't be reaching for our credit cards and dig ourselves deeper into debt. This feels like one of those moments that's so obvious but we have inadvertently handled the wrong way our entire adult lives.

Greg and I have a scary, long road ahead of us in terms of achieving financial stability. I know it will be a long road and we won't reach a "buffer" for quite some time, but for the first time in several years I feel like it's doable. I really feel like this is going to change our relationship with money. Hooray!