Little Happies -- Holidays, Henna, Hot Peppers (and a Little Bit of Fashion Too)

Hello, friends! And welcome back to Little Happies, the link-up in which we share all the little joys of life.

This week's Happies are brought to you by a modge podge of happy!

--one--

Pediatricians dress up as Mario characters and win the hearts of all their patients. 

(That's what the headlines would read if this one went viral.)

Above you see my husband and his team of residents dressed up for Halloween. Pretty awesome if I do say so myself. And he said rounds took foreverrrrr because all their patients and patients' families wanted group pics with all of them. How adorable!

But seriously, my husband's Wario mustache cracks me up most of all. 

--two--

Remember how I mentioned that Pumpkin Patch fundraiser a few weeks ago?

Well, PRAISE GOD, it's finally done! That means my hours will be shorter again, I won't have to work every stinkin' day of the week, AND I've got a successful fundraiser behind me. The teens raised lots of moolah for our youth group summer mission trip, so I'm super pumped about that. It makes it all worth it. But oof, that was a lonnnng month of work!

Here's what makes this one a Little Happy. We cleaned up the patch and moved out all the extra pumpkins this past weekend. I had a handful of teens show up to help and thank goodness for them! They made the work very easy on me. We also found ways to make the work fun, including moving the pumpkins into a giant pile by bowling them across the grass. And though there aren't goalies in bowling, we also had a teen goalie-ing and blocking the pumpkins / direction poorly bowled pumpkins into the pile. It made me smile. :)

--three--

Henna!

Once a year, Memphis has an India Fest that we just have to go to. All the food, the dancing, artwork, and shops... it's always a fun time. I also splurge a little every year and get a henna tattoo. The artist draws on your skin with a thick lavender-scented paste which dries within 30 minutes. After 6 hours, you remove the dried paste and what remains is a really beautifully designed tattoo that lasts about 2 weeks. I'm definitely not a permanent tattoo kinda gal, so this is perfect for me. Plus, they're always so pretty! I can't help but stare at my hand all the time until it fades. 

--four--

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Ok, so I know I'm mega-early on this one, but I decided to have a Thanksgiving feast at youth group last night and the teens loved it. Look at all the tasty food! I was in charge of the turkey, so obviously that meant calling up the nearest BBQ joint and ordering several pounds of sliced, smoked turkey. To be honest, I'm not usually a big fan of Thanksgiving turkey, but this smoked turkey was amazing. And easy. Win-win!

The reason for the early celebration was so that I could chat with the teens about making the whole month of November a month of giving thanks. We created little Thanksgiving bags so they could remember to write one thing they're thankful for each day, place it in the bag, and then hopefully include it in their prayers before bed. It's easy to remember to ask for things in prayer, not as easy to remember to thank, especially at that age. So, hopefully the bags will encourage them to offer prayers of thanksgiving more often. 

But if not, at least the food was good. :P

--five--

Stitch Fix part 8.

Eek! I can't believe I'm on my 8th fix! 

This time around, they sent me a maternity dress, cowl neck seater, maternity leggings, blue blouse, and heavy cardigan. 

The dress was cute, but already super tight around the chest and hips, so I figured it wasn't a good idea for a woman who's about to get BIGGER all around. Also, you might think that's a baby bump you see, but it's just the stripes on the dress and the ruching of the material that give the illusion of a bump. Still no bump here. 

The oversized cowl neck sweater was almost a keeper, but at the last second (seriously, minutes before sealing the bag of clothes to be sent back) I noticed the bottom of the sweater had an uneven hemline. Can you see it in the pic? Right in the middle of the sweater, the two panels don't match up. Perhaps it's part of the design, but it really bugged me as soon as I noticed it. Sayonara sweater!

The maternity leggings are AWESOME. Super high quality material and plenty of room for a big belly. Kept.

The blue blouse is hard to make out in the pic, but it had ruffles and a criss-cross tie up the front, plus cuffed sleeves, so it totally looked like a pirate shirt. Bummer, because it definitely had potential.

And finally, the heavy cardigan. It was way too big and bulky. Plus, John said it looked like the color puke. 

And that was that! I kept the leggings and am very happy with that decision. :) Also, overall I reeeeally liked this fix. The only thing stopping me from buying more was that things didn't quite fit right. Oh, and that one item had the asymmetric hemline. But I definitely think they have my style figured out now. Wahoo! Next one arrives in mid-December.

--six--

These musicians impress me so much. You've gotta watch all the way to the end though. Now that's dedication!


And that's all for this week, folks! Hope you have a happy one. Catch ya next time. :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Little Happies -- Even More Pumpkins

Why, hello! And welcome back to Little Happies, the link-up full of all the things that are small and joyful in our lives.

Just like last week, I've just got one pumpkin-related Happy for you today.

--one--

You may recall from last October that I run a pumpkin patch as a fundraiser with my youth group every year. We spend the whole month trying to sell over a thousand pumpkins. It's always a successful fundraiser, though tons of work. So that's what I've been super busy with lately. 

The Little Happy related to all this happened earlier last week. I was walking around the patch to check out the pumpkins, making sure there weren't any rotten ones hiding about, when I discovered that several of my pumpkins had tried to make a run for it! When I closed the patch the night before, all those pumpkins were safely nestled on a pallet. When I arrived the next morning, about 20 of them were hanging out on the grass!! And all over the patch! I still have no idea how they did it... Perhaps a very strong squirrel was playing a trick on me? Maybe some neighborhood kids? Or maybe it was the Great Pumpkin? 

The world may never know.

:)

Have a happy week, friends!

An InLinkz Link-up

Little Happies -- Carving Pumpkins

Hey, friends! Welcome back to the Little Happies link-up, in which we all share our small happy moments and things from the week past.

This week, I've got one Little Happy brought to you by a fun night with friends.

--one--

One night last week, John and I were just sitting around with no plans in sight. So on a whim we texted some friends who are kinda stuck in their house these days (they just had a baby) and asked if they'd be up for some pumpkin carving and cider sippin' later that evening. I offered to bring all the supplies and they excitedly said YES PLEASE! 

3 pumpkins, 2 carving kits, 6 bottles of hard cider, 2 jugs of virgin cider, 1 apple pie, and 1 big carton of vanilla ice cream. . . sounds like fall, doesn't it? 

We made our way over to our friends' place with all our supplies and just had a fantastic evening celebrating the turn of the season. They even lit their outdoor chimney for us!

Also, I was shocked to find out that the wife of the couple had never carved a pumpkin before!! What?! Crazy!! By the end of the night, she loved communal pumpkin carving so much that she asked if we could make a tradition of it every year. :)

We all agreed that our favorite moment of the night was lighting these bad boys after all our hard work. 

And then we posed with our pumpkin. We've learned over the years that carving a pumpkin, especially one that size, is best done as a team. When my arms would get tired, John would take over, and vice versa. Plus, I was able to convince him to do all the gut scooping while I did all the seed sorting. I think I got the easier job. :)

Hope you're all having a lovely fall, friends. Have you carved any pumpkins yet? 

An InLinkz Link-up

Life Lately

The sweet husband and I have been very busy lately, but having a complete blast while we're at it. I should admit, when he has his weeks off, I tend to have trouble finding time to blog. We'd just rather spend the precious free time together, ya know? But he's back to work today, so I figured I'd take a few mins to fill everyone in on the whirlwind of fun we've been having these past few weeks.

With my new job comes new responsibilities. For the month of October, our parish runs a pumpkin patch as a fundraiser for our youth group, which actually means I run a pumpkin patch. And I'll tell you what, while it's a fair bit of work, it's also a fair bit of fun. During the first weekend of October, with the help of over 40 teens, we unloaded over 1,000 pumpkins from a large truck trailer, all sent to us from a Native American Reservation in New Mexico. We've worked with this pumpkin supplier for over 10 years and though they travel far to bring us pumpkins, they're great, high quality pumpkins, and we're happy that our fundraiser also supports Native American families out west.

After several hours of unloading and pumpkin patch set-up, we're
kinda stinky and very happy with the work we've accomplished.

After the great pumpkin unloading, I now mainly spend all my time begging the youth group teens to sign up to work the cash box every day and checking for rotten pumpkins. Oh, and I also try to wrack my brain for creative ways to advertise. So far we've made decent money, so that's been good. What's best about it, though, is the opportunity it provides for the teens to spend more time together, getting to know each other outside of our regular meetings. It's pretty adorbs watching the friendships blossom.

Posing with the pumpkins.

Teens working the cash box. 

Pumpkins!

Last weekend, a friend invited us over for a pumpkin carving party. Good thing I know a good place to buy pumpkins. :) John and I decided on the "skeleton with a mustache and monocle" design for our pumpkin, 'cause we're classy like that.

Our pumpkin mustache you a question.

Sir Pumpkington hanging outside of our apartment with
his two other pumpkin friends we bought at the patch.

Unfortunately, our carved pumpkin didn't last very long...

Ick!

That mold grew overnight! We've had some unseasonably hot and humid October weather here in Memphis, so I think that's what caused it. Oh well, at least we got a cute picture with him when he was moldless.

Last weekend I also got a great idea to make a blanket for my four-year-old niece, Lindsey. My sister is pregnant with baby #2, due in February, so I thought it would be cute to make Lindsey a "big sister blanket." I wrote her a card explaining that her new blanket was for cuddling with her baby brother once he arrives. My sister tells me Lindsey had nothing but a big ol' smile on her face when she read her my card. It can be hard living so far from my family sometimes (they all live in RI), so making my niece smile from afar with this little present brought me lots of joy.

Tying the blanket and watching some Sherlock.

In the past week, we've discovered two new favorite board games - Dixit and Pandemic. Dixit is a great family or party game, kind of like Apples to Apples, but with pictures instead of words. And Pandemic is a cooperative game, where you try to beat the game together rather than competing against each other. Both provided lots of fun in our little apartment these past few days.

We've also gotten into Doctor Who. We heard from a friend that the first season was not the best, so we went into it expecting that, and now that we're past it, it's gotten awesome! Not to mention, the 10th Doctor is prettttty dreeeamyyy! Don't worry, my husband knows, and he's not jealous, because he also knows I think he's the dreamiest of them all.

My sweet in-laws got me season tickets to 2 different community theaters here in the Memphis area as a verrrry early birthday present. I'm pumped that John and I now have a whole bunch of free date nights in our future. Last Thursday, we used our first two tickets to see Young Frankenstein, the musical, and it was HILARIOUS! Also, the acting, set designs, costumes, all of it, was so well done! Looking forward to seeing more shows at that theater now, especially Jesus Christ Superstar in March.

In addition to all the random fun, we've also spent a bit of time tackling some of our adoption paperwork. It's quite a stack to get through, but we've enjoyed diving into it together. This week, our focus was completing several questionnaires - one about our feelings towards adoption and what kind of connection we'd like with the child's birthparents, one about infertility, one about our marriage, and one about our parenting styles. I have to say, I wasn't expecting the questionnaires to take as long as they have. Though all of the questions are good to think about, I don't think I would have reflected on any of them had we gotten pregnant and hadn't looked into adoption. For example: Define how you see your spouse's role as a parent. How or will it be different? What values were emphasized in your childhood and which of these values do you plan to instill?How do you feel you might react to your child's decision to search for his/her birthparents? Hard questions, right? I'm glad I took time to reflect on them, but it gets me thinking...

It's interesting to reflect on how different this path is from the path most families will take to have children. It requires much more screening, much more preparedness, and much more time (not to mention money) to adopt. I understand the reasons for all of these things, but it doesn't help me from wondering why our journey can't just be like most everyone else's. Especially knowing that every day there are women out there who are so far from being prepared to parent a child getting pregnant so easily. Maybe I'm just called to something bigger and better than having a large family. And maybe their own crosses are ones that are far worse than IF. I suppose it'll all make more sense one day.

And that leads me to the last bit of my little life update. I started on a low dose of Clomid earlier in this cycle and now I'm doing a little ultrasound series to see how the follicles are growing. After my first ultrasound on CD10, where the ultrasound tech didn't see a single dominant follicle, Dr. G said he didn't think the Clomid was working the way he had planned it to, so I think that means an adjustment for my next cycle is already in the works. I went back today for a second ultrasound, now CD13, and there was a dominant one on my right ovary (thank you, ovary!) though the ultrasound tech couldn't see signs of an egg, just like the last time I had an ultrasound series. I'm going back on Thursday for a third ultrasound and then for bloodwork around P+7 to see if Clomid has affected my post-peak hormones. The good news is I didn't turn into a Clo-monster on this low dose of Clomid. Yay! We'll see if that story stays the same next cycle; I'm assuming Dr. G will considering upping my Clomid dose.

Honestly, though adoption paperwork and silly follicles can be a bit of work, John and I have had a lot of fun filling our time in between those activities with plenty of adventures this month. Life lately gets an 8 out of 10 from me. And that's keeping this IF girl happy.

Now it's back to the pumpkin patch for me. Time to look for squishy, moldy pumpkins and count the cash box. All in an October day's work!