Halloween 2015

Halloween is a marathon, not a sprint, in our house. Over the past month we have had many celebrations and Halloween events. We have done crafts, eaten scary food, read Halloween books, and watched all our favorite Halloween movies. Last night Zach and I went to a grown up Halloween party at my friend Jenny's house. Jenny loves Halloween as much as I do, so I thoroughly enjoyed checking out her very spooky house. We only knew two couples there, so we didn't stay long, but fun to have a little grown up Halloween fun in the midst of all our kid celebrations.

 Zach and I with Teddy, who was looking very classy in his top hat and bow tie.

Two of my work friends, Sarah (Princess Leia) and Jenny (Wilma).

Tonight was the grand finale of all our Halloween events, it was finally time to go trick or treating. This year we went to Aunt Abbey's house for Halloween fun and trick or treating. This is there first year in this neighborhood and we were all very excited to take part in there fun neighborhood activities. We started at the neighborhood party, enjoying a bouncy house and pizza, before heading back to Abbey's to play a little bit before hitting the streets.

 This evening Zach added a classy hat to his vampire outfit. 

Before heading out I had to get pictures of my very scary vampire and super cute pirate boys!

 Zane's skull cane was the final addition to his amazing vampire costume.

Next up we took to the beautiful streets of Abbey's neighborhood. It was a very fun atmosphere with lots of spooky houses and all sorts of scary creatures roaming the streets. Zane is an old pro at trick or treating, but Rowan on the other hand struggled a bit. Rowan is one of the laziest people I know and would have been perfectly happy with taking the sucker he got from the first house and heading home. Also, Rowan cannot, will not, be rushed. He has one speed and one speed only, slow, not unlike his namesake. The big kids were running down the street and Rowan went to every third house or so with them. "There too many houses." "I can't, it's too hard." "It too far away." All the quotes I heard from my tired little pirate this evening, in his very cute, two year old voice. 

 And they are off!!

 This one sucker was his pride and joy.

Little boy cuteness

Probably the highlight of our trick or treating journey was a very spooky house, complete with tombstones, scary smoke machines, bridges to nowhere, skeletons, and a zombie. 

 

It was a great evening and everyone had a wonderful time. Of course our trick or treating journey ended back at Abbey's house, where Grandma had been handing out candy while we were gone. By this point we had a very crabby, sleepy pirate on our hands so we headed home. We made one last stop at my friend Annie's house before calling it a night. What a great end to a wonderful Halloween season. 

Ten on Tuesday

1. Our first official Halloween events were this Saturday. Starting with the Fall Festival at Zane's school. Zane was extremely excited about this, but turned into a very shy Vampire once we got there. Not himself at all. So we wondered through the rooms of fun activities then had some tasty Catfish from a food truck.

 Take a moment to let the cuteness of this little tiger soak in for a minute. Too cute and nice and warm on a chilly fall evening.

Zane was in his full vampire get up, including his hair gel downed into a vampire V. So cute!

2. Next up was a stop at the spice shop to wish Uncle Able a happy birthday! Yes there were tigers and vampires on the loose in the Spice Shop for a little bit.

 Happy Birthday Uncle Able, we love you!!

3. Then for the nights biggest event, Monster Mash at Pumpkinville at the Myriad Gardens. It was lots of fun, though a little bit cold. Everyone got their pumpkins filled with candy, ran, played, spun, and had a grand time. I took the Richards kids home which made for a big car full of sugared up kids!!

 Turns out a vampire cape makes spinning much more fun.

These two adorable little boys were just too much cuteness.

 

4. On Sunday morning this kid woke up and rocked this amazing outfit, chosen by him. The shirt, underneath his adorable seersucker blazer, is a surfer shirt with pearl snaps, classic Zane. And his new chucky T's really push it over the top, to say nothing for his impeccable posing. Love this kid!

 5. Rowan has become quite a ham as of late. He has the most entertaining facial expressions, all made better by his new found love to dress up in all sorts of fun costumes. Also this week he found Zane's little baby that he now loves to feed, cuddle, sing to, and carry around the house. Silly silly boy!

 6. As I have mentioned before Zane gets an Animal Tracker box every month with a different African animal to learn about in it. I mainly find it entertaining to see which African animal the people making the box choose. This month, vultures. We have yet to have an elephant, but we did spend a lot of time learning about what being a scavenger means this week. So random, but fantastic!

 7. The boys and I spent most of the week prepping for the big Halloween party at my house. I helped Zane make fun Halloween puppets. He put on numerous puppet shows for me, but got too distracted with Halloween fun to put on a show at the party.

8. Sunday evening was the October birthday party at our house. Of course the theme was all Halloween. As an added bonus this year the Boulder Dotters happened to be in town for Grandpa's 90th birthday celebrations and stopped by our party before heading to the airport. I was so glad they could come by and take part in all the Halloween fun! 

 Here the whole crew!

 The Dotters

 Blakley Grandchildren

Dotter Grandchildren

9. It was a very creepy menu at the party including snake tenderloin, zombie brains, zombie throw up, vampire cookies, cheese bones, bone puffs, and a very spooky cemetery cake.

 Zombie brains (mac and cheese courtesy of the Blakleys). Zombie throw up was a vegetable and rice mixture that Abbey brought which was actually very delicious, though not pictured.

 The famous Dotter cheese ball in the shape of bones. This sold very quickly, as always.

 Witches broom sticks, vampire teeth cookies.

Yes those are gummy rattle snakes surrounding our creepy cemetery. 

10. We played bat in the cave, carved pumpkins, ate way too much, drank blood punch with eye balls in it, and had a great time enjoying the beautiful fall weather. Hopefully all the birthday people enjoyed themselves. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Blakley

 Mr. and Mrs. Richards

 My sweet little pirate.

If you can't tell all of these pumpkins are supposed to be Harry Potter, but all the designs were done by the kids.

Zane's Fifth Heart Birthday

Today marks five years since Zane had his heart surgery. Five years seems like a big number, a long time ago, but it also feels like yesterday. This morning as I swam laps I replayed that morning yet again. All of it seems crystal clear until I talk to someone else about that morning then I realize that large chunks of it are missing, probably for the best. Looking through pictures today with Zane I was yet again amazed by the truly wonderful people I was surrounded by in St. Louis. By the grace of God we were there when Zane was born. The pictures made me miss St. Louis Childrens and everyone in my St. Louis family, all of whom stood by me and helped me through some of my toughest days. I will never be able to thank them enough.

 

 Then and now!

 

 Zane's heart birthday present this year was his long awaited Mandrill Monkey. He saw this at the museum in Norman and has been asking for one ever since. Zane named his Frankenstein, Franky for short, obviously. We then went to the library and got a book all about Mandrill monkeys.

My original goal for celebrating this day was to turn one of my toughest days into a happy day, a day of celebration, and not a day that I dreaded coming around each year. Five years later my goal has been accomplished. Zane has come to love his heart birthday. He has grown to be very proud of scar and proud of how big and brave  he was during surgery. He has learned that he is a very lucky boy and that not everyone who is born with a broken heart gets to have their hearts fixed, earning a stripe like his. He often says no one has a heart or heart beat just like his, which is oh so true. For a long time he thought that he was the only child with a stripe, but this year he finally got to meet another little boy with a stripe, which was very exciting. Most days when I get home from work he asks if I had any kids named Zane's or any kids with stripes. I do take care of kids with stripes sometimes now, which Zane thoroughly enjoys.

Zane started Sunday school this year which has added another wonderful level to Zane's understanding of his heart journey. He has learned what the word blessing means and understands that he is a very blessed little boy. They learned about guardian angels and we have talked about how his Grandpa is his guardian angel and how very special that is. Recently we had been praying for little Nolan, a baby who had not yet been born but who was going to need a stripe once he was born. This led to talking about heart angel, little kids who had broken hearts who went to live with Jesus and became  angels. Today, when we were talking about how blessed we are, I told him that every time a bell rings an angel gets it's wings. This was followed closely by church bells ringing. Perfect. I love that he is starting to understand this very important part of his heart story.

For me this fifth year has truly been about understanding that I can use our heart story for good. If my worst days can bring hope to someone else, making their lives a little bit better or easier, that would be a great blessing to me. There have been a few different heart families at work who I have talked to, sharing our truly perfect outcomes to bring hope to families just starting their journeys. I have connected with a couple different heart moms who are frequently in the hospital with their little heart warriors, and I think they find comfort in having a fellow heart mom on their medical team. I have gotten much more involved in the heart mom/CHD community online and on social media. I have learned about lots of new things happening in the CHD world and am still trying to find ways to get more involved, advocating for CHD children and families, and trying to share my happy ending to bring hope to others families dealing with their heart warriors journey.

Today Zane's heart birthday brought many more, very in depth questions, some of which I could not answer or explain to a five year old. Things like, "Well, what did they do to my heart in surgery?" "How was I living if the doctors were working on my heart?" "What did you do while I was in surgery mom?" How do you explain a TET repair surgery and heart bi-pass to a five year old. I landed on "They patched a hole in your heart (leaving out the pulmonary artery stenosis part) and that he had machine pumping his heart, basically a robot heart, during surgery. We looked at all his hospital pictures, he asked lots of questions about who all was there on surgery day, he asked lots of questions about all the tubes attached to him, and why I wasn't holding him. All valid questions, but still hard to explain. He was excited to see Mooley and Tet the bear and very confused to see that Jangle Boy was there, but couldn't understand why Jingle Boy wasn't (Jingle Boy was imprisoned in a trash bag, in a closet at that time, a story for another day). I can tell he truly wants to understand what exactly happened, and how, but it's not an easy thing to translate to a five year old. I did my best.

As always today was about celebrating Zane's life and our many blessings, so the boys and I went on an adventure to Orr Family Farms in Moore. It's somewhere we only go once a year, unlike the Zoo or the Science Museum where we go a lot, so Zane felt that it was extra special. Once we got there Zane proceeded to tell the woman selling us our tickets that today was his heart birthday, which I then explained to her meant he had had open heart surgery five years ago today. Of course the woman was truly amazed and this earned my little heart warrior a free pony ride, making his whole heart ordeal worth it to him I'm sure. Then we were off to enjoy two hours of fall fun. Both boys were amazingly well behaved, we had a grand time, leaving happy, and full of kettle corn.

Watching my big boy, riding a horse, with no fear, was the one point in the day I got a little misty eyed. It's truly been a long five years to get to this point.

 These two boys are the loves of my life and both  miraculous here, healthy, and all mine. It's a wonderful life!

 The best part about these two is that they truly adore one another. They watch out for each other, love playing with each other, find each other hysterically entertaining, and are oh so adorable!

This is what true love looks like.