Happy October! I hope this new month is off to a great start for you. For me, October always kicks off what feels like three months of holiday celebrations with Halloween in October, Thanksgiving in November and Christmas in December. I love all of the decorating and festivities.
We have had a great time decorating for Halloween this last week. I got this cute “hello pumpkin” door mat at Aldi along with a 25 foot rope spider web that came with two stuffed spiders. I used a step ladder to attach the web to the top of the front door and ran it out into the yard. We also added a new inflatable and a skeleton to the Halloween decor this year.
We got the skeleton at Walmart. They are five ft and very posable. I kind of want a whole set of them to arrange in the yard in various yoga poses. I also think it would be fun to drive around with one in your passenger seat. If you’d like to know who is NOT a fan of the skeleton, that would be Benji. 10/10 terrified so we keep him out of Benji’s line of site.
The light up air rockets in our cart were a birthday gift for a party we went to on Saturday morning. The party was at Charlotte All-Stars and all of the kiddos had an absolute blast. The party was 90 minutes. We had full private access to the gym for the first hour and then moved to a party room for the last 30 minutes for pizza and cake that was brought in from outside. Me and a couple other moms bonded over our past cheer days. I would like to think that I could still throw a round off, back handspring, back tuck on the spring floor but I know that’s likely a fantasy and not reality haha.
If you’re in the area, Charlotte All Stars is an excellent idea for a birthday party! They have a giant inflatable 40 foot obstacle course IN THE GYM along with 20 foot side-by-side inflatable slides, an obstacle/agility course, tons of trampolines and tumble traks, foam pits, swinging ropes, high bars, balance beams and much more.
One more thing – they have “Lil Bit Fit Time” Monday-Friday from 10:30-noon. It’s for toddlers through TK and $6 per session. You get access to the open gym to play and explore. Note, it’s not guided by a staff member. Finn also loves doing this at Perfect Balance. Their tot time is 11:30-12:30a M-F.
Other weekend activities included lots of cooking and baking. Finn discovered a love for pumpkin bread. Oh and he’s wearing a Christmas shirt because they dressed in “C” clothing for school on Friday. 🙂
We also made slime – every parents dream, right? I like this recipe for fluffy slime. Finn loves mixing different food colorings to see what color he can turn the slime.
I got in a Saturday evening stroller run. I ran 4 and walked the last mile to cool down while we chatted with my grandmother.
I got stressed out about a couple of football games. The Georgia/Auburn game was WAY too close for comfort. Thank god for Brock Bowers and that late fourth quarter interception to give us the W. I also watched the Duke/Notre Dame game and my heart was a little broken for Duke in the last few minutes of that game. What a season they are having! I’ve lived in North Carolina for 14 years now with no real allegiance to any home state team. After all the time I’ve spent at Duke over the last two years, I’ve become a Blue Devil. 🙂
I’m all in on holiday-themed jammies. Finn gets so much enjoyment out of them that it makes it extra fun. I picked out these glow-in-the-dark monster pjs for Halloween this year and he went crazy over them. Perfectly paired with his glow-in-the-dark ghosty plushy.
We took an outing to the dog wash at Blackhawk Hardware. Zoey and Benji got all cleaned up and we were the spectacle of the store while we were there. When I rolled up the to dog wash with two big dogs and a five year old, one of the store employees asked me if I’d washed both dogs at the same time before. I assured him I had things under control and we were in and out of there in well under 20 minutes! We had no less than five people stop to watch, pat the dogs, talk about their dogs, etc.
After getting the dogs clean, I decided a couch disassembling and washing was in order. The dogs have never been allowed on the furniture but somehow it has become the thing Zoey and Benji do during the day while I’m gone. Honestly, what I like least about it is that they make the couch SO dirty and hairy. Luckily, my Ikea couch can be completely taken apart and all the covers can be stripped off and washed. It took me three separate loads and I washed each load twice with a scoop of Oxyclean and a Tide pod and then dried them on low for 20 minutes. I’m still working on getting all the covers back on and the couch back together.
I’m also ordering a baby gate to section off the living room so the dogs stay off the couch and out of the windows. If you have a wide gate that you like, I’m all ears. Has anyone used one of the mesh-style retractable gates?
Speaking of the dogs and Zoey, we had a little scare with her last Thursday. We left for about two hours that afternoon and came home to find she’d been both kinds of sick all over the house. She was also excessively drooling like I have never seen her drool before.
We loaded her up and made an evening trip to Veterinary Emergency Group. It was our first time using VEG and I cannot recommend them enough. The care was swift, friendly and compassionate and they really worked with me from a budget standpoint by offering low and high estimates and really talking me through what they recommended I do that evening versus what I could follow up with her vet on. One great thing about VEG is that you get to stay with your pet. I shared about them on Instagram and got nothing but positive feedback from others too. The Charlotte location is in SouthPark but they have locations all over the country.
Thankfully, Zoey checked out okay so they just gave her an intravenous shot of an anti-nausea medicine (they said the excessive drool is a sign of nausea in dogs). One thing that did come up during the visit was some additional weight loss that I was concerned about since her annual check-up a few months ago. They sent us home with instructions to follow up with our regular vet. I talked to them the next day and we put a plan in place to increase Zoey’s food for a few weeks and bring her in for a weight check (we had cut her food a little over a year ago because she was 80 lbs, she’s down to 64 now which is pretty low for her). If she’s gained weight, then we know it’s just a nutrition thing. If she stays where she is or continues to lose, we’ll go looking for something else. She turns 9 in a few days and is in that senior golden time when health issues become very top-of-mind. We would appreciate prayers!
And I think that brings us up to speed on life lately around here! It was picture day at school today so I was able to get Finn into a collared shirt and jeans instead of “cozies.” I’m just grateful he went along with it!
QUESTIONS
Do you decorate for Halloween?
Have you done any fall baking?
Do you have any October goals?
