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First Trick or Treatin’!

Tonight will be Hayden’s first year of trick or treating! We’re having a trunk or treat at church, so I’m not sure we’ll go door-to-door after that, but it’s good enough for me!

Here are our family photos from a party last week. This year, we were a family from the 1920s.

halloween 2007 2
Happy family

halloween 2008 1
Full body shot of Hayden (I knit his little knickers, but they ended up being too small!)

halloween 2007 3
Happy family—full body shot

halloween 2007 4
Handsome devil, iddn’t he?

If you want to be specific, we’re from 1926. I’m a bit particular about these things. If you can spot any anachronisms (other than the setting, of course, LOL), go for it!

Last year for Halloween, we were the unambiguously Scottish trio.

My list of pregnancy and maternity costumes is a pretty useful resource (if I do say so myself) if you’re still looking for one!

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Breast Cancer Awareness Month

cancer-awareness.jpgLisa C. tagged me for a good cause. We have less than a week left in Breast Cancer Awareness month, but we can fight this killer all year long!

Do self-exams, schedule a mammogram, donate to cancer research. And once you’ve been warned—warn your neighbor.

What else can we do to help fight this disease? Please leave any suggestions in the comments!

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The Ultimate List of Pregnancy and Maternity Costumes

updated for 2012

Don’t miss the ultimate list of family costumes!

I was almost six months pregnant with my first when Halloween rolled around. I was completely stumped for a good costume, and we had a party to go to. After looking on dozens of message boards and lots and lots of web searches, I assembled the granddaddy of all lists of pregnancy-related costumes.

jrrshalloween05I realize that not everyone is looking for a couple/pregnancy costume, so the list starts off with “stand alone” costumes that highlight your “baby bump.” Next is couple costumes, although there is some overlap between the two. Most of the costumes were fairly self explanatory, but I elucidated a bit for a few. Please note that I’m not saying that I think these ideas are good/creative/funny; they’re just everything I found. Also note that any links in the list are affiliate links; I get a small percentage of any purchase made after clicking on the links. Not all linked costumes are “maternity” costumes, but they may still fit.

Not the costume type?
Check out these “instant costume” t-shirts, including a skeleton baby, “I’m dressed up as my mom,” jack-o’-lantern print and “This year my costume is ‘exhausted pregnant chick.'”

Stand Alone

  • 8 Ball (you could even be magic, if you feel so inclined)
  • alien creature coming out of your belly
  • angel
  • baker
  • Baker’s Wife (“Into the Woods”)
  • Barney
  • big baby
  • Belly Dancer
  • Big Bird
  • Bowling Ball
  • bumblebee
  • angel
  • bump in the road (wear all black, use sticky-backed felt strips to create road markings. Stick some cars on your belly)

Couple Costumes

There were a few things on my list that were “topical” (read: “dated”). Can you tell what year this was?

My favorite idea wasn’t really related to pregnancy, but adorable: Sesame Street Martians (see for awesome instructions instructible and their family song if you’ve forgotten it .) I told my husband it’d be cute to put “Yip, yip, YOU!” on his back and “Yip, yip, ME!” on my back and “Yip, yip, BABY!” on my belly. Ryan laughed at me.

Our choice? That’s us at the top of the post. The day of the party, I got some pipe cleaners and headbands and made myself a halo and Ryan a set of sparkly red “horns.” He wore his red boots and his shirt with flames on it; I wore a flowy white shirt and skirt. It ended up being so flowy that almost no one could tell I was pregnant. Oh well.

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Word crazy!

Wow, I’ve been kind of slacking off at . . . well, everything lately. I had a dream—no, it’s not quite that inspiring, though it has inspired me to write a story.

The story has turned out to be a lot longer than I’d anticipated. Like right now I’m on chapter nine of a story I thought would max out at fifteen pages.

So I’ve been a bit word crazy lately. I was wondering just how addled my poor little mind had gotten, so I did a little math:

A little less than 25,000 words in the story + About 1850 words on MamaBlogga + Just under 4000 words on Marketing Pilgrim (not including large quotations from other articles/blockquotes) = Around 30,000 words.

If that’s not enough to boggle your mind, let’s add this to the equation:

~30,000 words
10 days

Three. Thousand. Words. A day. Even NaNoWriMo only takes 1700 words a day!

Speaking of which, if I did end up getting to 50,000 words in the story within 30 days, do you think I should qualify myself as a winner? The FAQ says no. Pity. I’ll probably have lost my mind entirely by the time NaNoWriMo starts on November 1.

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I’m a Total Blogger!

If you’ve been here before, you probably already knew this, but I figured I’d make it official:

The mom blogger quiz from MamaBlogga

Are you totally into blogging, or your kids? Take my quiz to find out!

Of course, this quiz is not to indicate whether or not you have children, nor is it to indicate whether you love them more than you love your blog. It is for entertainment purposes only. It doesn’t matter whether you’re more of a blogger or more of a mom according to this quiz, you’re a mom and a blogger—and that’s okay. We know you love your kids more than your blog.

Take the MamaBlogga Mom Blogger quiz!

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My middle name

I’ve been tagged by Deb for a middle name meme.

My middle name is Rebecca. I’m named after my great-grandmother on my dad’s side (well, we think her legal name was just Becca, but anyway). I really like my middle name.

Now I’m supposed to come up with adjectives to describe myself based on each letter of my middle name. I can’t remember the last time I tried to do one of these writing exercises.

R – Random. I have a tendency to suddenly jump from topic to topic in conversation. And sometimes I just don’t have the patience to go back and explain my train of thought.
E – Excited. When I first get into a project, I’m super enthusiastic! Sometimes that enthusiasm wanes long before I’m done. Sometimes I manage to finish it anyway.
B – Blogger. In case you hadn’t noticed. 😉
E – Eclectic. Like most people, I have wide-ranging tastes in television shows, music and hobbies. I don’t think my tastes are particularly diverse, but they’re an interesting combination.
C – Crazy. Before I met my husband, one of my criteria for a spouse was that he would be willing to dance to music being played by Brookstone in the airport. (It was “Twist ‘n’ Shout.” Come on, if there’s ever a case for public dancing, that’s it!) I don’t know if Ryan would really do that, though.
C – Clever. Speaking of Ryan, he submitted that one.
A – Assiduous. Dutiful. Workaholic. Committed. Should be committed?

I’m supposed to tag someone for each letter of my name, but I don’t think I even know bloggers with all those letters. So join in in the comments! I love names!

:niceI’ve also received the Nice Matters Award from SingForHim @ RealLife (who was featured on ProBlogger this week!) and Jennifer @ The Life of a School Bus Driver. Thank you ladies!

Just about everyone that I’ve ever contacted in the blogosphere has been nothing but nice, so it’s hard to choose just three people to pass this award on to. But the people who’ve gone out of their way to help me is a little less hard:

  1. Michelle @ scribbit. She was one of my very first blogging friends and fans; which was really exciting!
  2. Jen @ Semantically Driven. She helped me with one of my first tutorials by writing instructions for switching to full feeds in TypePad.
  3. Kailani @ Island Life. The Carnival of Family Life was one of the first ways I received traffic and comments on my blog, and Kailani always tries to mention my latest pet project

So thank you, ladies, for always being so nice to me.

Edited to add: Deb, Mom of 3, also kindly named me as a nice blogger!