Happy Birthday, Scott!

Happy Birthday to the best friend and husband I could ask for! Gavin and I love you very much and are so grateful for all you do for us. We love our time with you and are happy we were able to celebrate your birthday today by going to Outback, where we rarely go but we all enjoyed! Since there are no pictures of your birthday and you pretty much avoid the camera at all costs, I will include a cute picture of Gavin instead, because no post is complete without at least one cute picture of him!

Long Weekend!

It has been quite the weekend. We have been busy, having a lot of fun and had a few not so fun moments mixed in.

Friday, Gavin and I went to my parents house to spend some time with them and my Aunt and Uncle while they were still in town (they left Saturday). This also allowed Scott to work We got to my parents house in time to head out to the rail trail for a nice walk. My Dad and Uncle rode bikes while my Mom, Aunt, Gavin and I walked. It was a beautiful day, sunny, warm (60's) with a nice breeze and nice scenery.

After our walk, we went back to my parents house and since Gavin passed out on the maybe 5 minute drive back, he just sat and chatted quietly for a bit. It was nice to visit some more, even though it wasn't for too long since Gavin and I needed to head home for dinner when he woke up.

Gavin and I picked up pizza for dinner on our way home (Scott's request and I am glad he did because aside from it being nice to have minimal cleanup after dinner and not need to cook when I got home since I had not started anything that morning, it was absolutely delicious)! After dinner, not too long before it was time for Gavin's bath, I found something I was hoping I would never find on him, a tick! Ugh! I am thankful that 1. it was just crawling around and not attached and 2. it was not a deer tick. Despite those two things, I freaked out a bit and proceeded to strip Gavin and closely check the rest of him to see if there were anymore. This was seen as absolute torture by Gavin and he struggled to get away and was whined and cried when I wouldn't let him go. Unfortunately, a necessary evil. I was so grateful when I didn't find anymore! I then did the same for me since it was possible I could have one (or more, gross) on me, but there was no struggling, whining or crying. It was then nice, hot shower time. That was calming for the still somewhat unhappy Gavin (especially since he was even more unhappy when he heard the shower be turned on and he wasn't allowed to immediately get in). He loves water. Showers, baths, pools, rain, sinks, cups, water bottles and pretty much any other way he can play in/with.

Saturday the weather was still sunny and warm so Gavin and I were able to spend some time outside in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be a terrible idea that resulted in freak out number 2 for the weekend. I found 2 more ticks crawling on him! UGH! So, after another strip down and search struggle, I ruled there would be no more outside time, ever!

Well, that was a bit of an overreaction. I couldn't help it! We have spent so much time outside, all spring, summer and fall! No ticks. Then in two days, 3! 3! At the end of November! Crazy! So, while the weather is warm, Gavin and I stay inside, other than to go get the mail or boxes. No more outside time that could/will result in ticks because I can't take finding another one right now, it's too stressful!

Today, even though the weather was still beautiful, Gavin and I stayed inside and played, listened to Christmas music, had a few Christmas movies on in the background, etc. A pretty typical day of fun for us.

 We ventured downstairs from time to time to see what Scott was working on and so Gavin could explore everything. As always seems to be the case, even with longer weekends, it was time for Gavin's bath and bedtime. Gavin and I have a fairly quiet week this week with our typical things around the house, some time at the museum, playgroup and then we have a party Saturday afternoon at one of my friend's houses that I am really looking forward to. Scott's birthday is Wednesday but we are not doing anything big this year. We are going to go out to dinner at some point, we just haven't decided what day yet and we will have ice cream cake, per Scott's request. It should be a great week with some fun stories and pictures!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! I have so much to be thankful for this year (and every year)!

I am thankful for a wonderful husband that loves and supports me and our family. He works so incredibly hard for us so that I can be home to take care of Gavin (which I love every minute of). I am thankful for how kind and thoughtful he is, even though I know he is so busy and just as exhausted (if not more so) than I often am. He is such an amazing father and I love watching him and Gavin play together! It is no wonder that Gavin absolutely adores him. He runs to meet him at the gate when he hears the garage door open when Scott gets home at night. Gavin greets him with a huge smile while jumping up and down waiting to be picked up for a hug and kiss. I love him more every day! I am so thankful for the 6 and a half years we have had together and look forward to all the years to come!

I am thankful for my sweet, happy, curious, and healthy little boy, Gavin! He is absolutely perfect in every way (even though I sometimes forget that when he is having a whiny day). I love him more than I could possible describe. I am thankful for Gavin's smiles, laughs and curiosity. He is such a joy to be around and I love that he wants to check everything out and find out what it does and how it works. I am so thankful to be his mother and to be able to spend all my time with him. There is nothing that I would rather be doing with my life!

I am thankful for our extended family (both mine and Scott's). I cherish the time we have with each of them and look forward to whenever we have visits planned. I wish we lived closer so that we could spend more time together! I am thankful for the love, strength, friendship, and support we receive. I am thankful that we have so many people that are constantly there for us, no matter what we need. We are so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

I am thankful for our warm and comfortable home we live in, our reliable and safe cars, and the food we have to eat each day. I am thankful for the clothes we have to wear, the blankets we have to keep warm and the power we have to run our house.

Although I am thankful every day, I am glad to have a day to really celebrate and remind me of how much I have to be thankful for. I have so much more to be thankful for but I don't want to go on forever.

We had a wonderful day together. Gavin and I made waffles for breakfast. Scott and Gavin played while I started potato rolls and took a shower. Gavin took a ridiculously long nap (two and a half hours) that allowed me to finish rolls, pack up everything that needed to go with us and load the family truckster. I felt awful when I had to wake him up to get him dressed because we had to get on the road to get to my parents house!

We ate lots of great food! Artichoke dip, spicy sausage dip and crackers. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, asparagus and rolls. Apple pie, sour cream raisin pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie and toffee! Everything was absolutely delicious.

Pumpkin pie I baked last night...

 

Toffee I made last night... 

 

Gavin investigating what was happening and trying to Grandma and Grandpa in the kitchen today!

Watching Cars with Dad!

Playing the piano.

 Playing with Grandma!

Time to eat!!!

Yum!

Playing on a pillow after dinner.

We had a lot of fun visiting with my parents, Uncle Roger and Aunt Billie Rae! Gavin enjoyed all the extra attention and the extra playmates. He was exhausted by the time we got home to get him in bed!

A wonderful Thanksgiving with my family!

Mommy's Little Helper!

Gavin is such a big helper! He loves to be involved whenever I am cooking and cleaning. He loves to help dust, vacuum, sort and do laundry. He loves to check out what is in the oven or on the stove. He even loves to help stir and see what the kitchen aid is doing. I try to let him help whenever possible because I am hoping that he will continue to show the interest in being involved.

Right now, it is a bit harder since he doesn't quite understand the concept of stirring and not flinging food everywhere in the process. So sometimes I just hand him his own whisk, spoon, spatula or measuring cup or spoon depending on what we are doing. Sometimes I let him help by holding on to the spoon I am stirring with too. He really loves that. Whenever I walk into the kitchen to cook or bake anything, he is right there with me wanting (and demanding) to help!

Today, Scott was around to capture how excited he is when he gets to hold on to the spoon as we stir. He took some video too, but I am just going to share the pictures for now.



He is such a good boy! I am so lucky to have a kid that was to help, especially since we have had a lot to do the last couple of days!

Dinner and a Movie!

I have such an amazing husband and family! I haven't gotten around to blogging about this yet, but we bought a new camera! I am so excited about it. I have been wanting a nicer camera for a while and we have talked off and on about when and what we might do. Although I would have loved to get a really nice camera, I just decided it wasn't really worth the money at this point because we had a perfectly good camera already.

Well, Scott decided that it was time we do some serious research as to what is out there in our price range. He let me know what he was looking at and I said I would take on the research part and let him know what one seemed to be the best deal and had the best picture quality. I still figured we would wait a bit before we actually bought anything but Scott had already decided it was time. We needed to be able to take better pictures of our family. Scott had originally thought of doing it and it being a surprise present, but he is so busy with work and other commitments, it was easier for me to take the time to do the reading.

Once we had discussed our options, we picked out our new camera. A Canon T2i! We picked out the accessories we needed and I started doing more reading to learn more about how to use the camera and picture taking tips. We decided to order it last week since we had picked everything out so we could take pictures of the holidays with a much nicer camera.

We ordered it from Amazon because they had the best prices and free second day shipping with our current Amazon Prime membership (thank you Amazon Mom for a free year of that)! It arrived Friday evening! I am so used to the fast shipping now, I am so spoiled! I took it out to charge the battery so we could take some test shots after Gavin was in bed. We went about our normal nightly routine from there, dinner, playtime, bath and bed. Scott and I had a good time testing out our new camera. We were really looking forward to Saturday and being able to take some pictures in the sunlight.

Saturday when Gavin and I got up, I pulled out the camera to take some pictures of Gavin playing. Although I took lots of pictures, most were deleted because they were not very good, I am still working on my photography skills. Below are a few that were worth keeping.

Watching a few minutes of Cars so I could get breakfast ready and take a few pictures!


Putting the blocks through the holes! He figured how to do this a few weeks ago. He is so proud that he can do it all by himself now! I used to just put the blocks partway in and he would knock them through, but he doesn't need me to do that anymore!


He loves to grab our feet and bite them. He always has such a big smile on his face! I managed to get a decent picture, although it isn't totally in focus. I still love it though!


The rest of the day, Gavin and I did much of what we normally do (pick up around the house, read, play, etc) but since it was sunny and a little warmer than it had been the last couple of days, we were able to hang diapers out for a few hours and play outside. Of course, the camera came along for the fun too. We brought Gavin's truck out for him to ride around in and push. Gavin also played in Scott's truck. Gavin loves his own truck, but he will pick Scott's truck over his own any day!





Saturday evening we had a yummy dinner of beef and broccoli over rice and relaxed. It was fun to relax and take some pictures and check them out on the computer.

Sunday morning we decided that we were going to go out to eat (which we very rarely do anymore) and watch a movie we got from Netflix after Gavin was in bed. It was a nice day together. Taking pictures, playing and just enjoying being together. We went to the diner for dinner because I figured that would be easiest and the most exciting for Gavin. That was definitely true. He loved people watching. He even ate most of his own dinner, which is more than he will often do at home. Our dinners were delicious and I was really glad to have a night off from cooking and be out of the house together.

After Gavin was in bed, Scott and I put on the new Transformers. Unfortunately, we didn't get the see the end yet, Gavin woke up and didn't want to be laid down alone, so I ended up going to bed and letting him snuggle with me so he could sleep. Hopefully we will get to watch the rest tonight! So far, it is good so I am looking forward to watching the rest and then seeing the whole thing again!

We have a busy week this week with our normal activities, cleaning and errands plus getting ready for Thanksgiving! I am really looking forward to Thanksgiving day, my Uncle Roger and Aunt Billie Rae are coming up to visit for a few days. I can't wait to see them and of course I am excited about all the delicious food we will be having. My parents are doing most of the cooking but we are making a few things to bring. We will take lots of pictures for me to share, I promise!

Family Weekend!

We are having a really wonderful weekend together! We have been spending lots of time hanging out and playing, doing some research for an up and coming potential purchase and are planning to get the family truckster washed up (since we need both of us to work together to keep Gavin occupied and wash the Terrain). Gavin and I have a lot of fun together during the week but that doesn't come close to comparing to our weekends. Gavin clearly loves the weekends because he gets more time with Scott. Even when Scott has things to do around the house and outside, he still seems him a lot more and he loves it. He follows Scott around wherever he can manage. I love watching them together. Scott teaching Gavin about what he is doing and the tools he is using and Gavin trying to help.

It is especially nice this weekend since we got a bonus day yesterday. Scott worked part of last weekend, so he was able to take yesterday off. I love when vacations, long weekends and holidays come around because we get more time together as a family!

Playgroup!

Gavin and I have joined a playgroup at the museum! I am so excited! I have been looking around for playgroup options for us. It gets us both out of the house for something other than just playtime at the museum, errands and visiting my parents and it gives Gavin more time with kids closer to his age. The options close by are limited so I was really glad to see the museum had something that we could take advantage of.

We had our first "meeting" this morning and it was so much fun! Gavin was quiet and even a little clingy which is strange for him. He loves the museum and he generally has no trouble with strangers, given he often walks right up to them. We still had fun playing some games, singing songs and listening to stories. We met some other cute kids and moms too. I am really looking forward to our meeting next week!

Shopping and a Blue Bath...

I am determined to have all our Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving, including our Christmas card. At the very least, I want everything that needs to be purchased in a store done because I don't want to deal with the crowds with Gavin unless we just want to go to the mall to get out of the house. Gavin and I made a trip to Toys R Us last week to pick up his presents and take advantage of all kinds of awesome sales and free items. I had prepared a list of what we needed at the mall and Target, compiled sale information and coupons and was ready for an afternoon of shopping yesterday, including a stop at the grocery store on our way home. Gavin had other ideas.

We were all packed up and headed down to the garage, like we always do. He was in a good mood, so I was hopeful that he would survive the couple of hours it would take between our mall trip, the grocery store and driving. As I was loading coats, my purse and his diaper wet/dry bag into the car, Gavin was exploring the garage. He often likes to check out the snow blower and generator because what little boy wouldn't love those. This time, he decided to find the tub of used motor oil that was sitting by the generator that Scott had not gotten a chance to get rid of yet. I turned around to his hand, elbow deep, in said tub. I yelled, "NOOOOOO", which was the worst thing I could do because that caused Gavin to freak out. His hand flew out of the oil and he tried to grab me to pick him up. This caused the freak out to deteriorate to meltdown levels quickly as I wouldn't pick him up because I didn't want to be covered in oil too!

Thankfully, there was a roll of paper towels close by, so I quickly grabbed those to try to minimize any additional damage. Gavin had a long sleeved shirt on, so that was soaked up past his elbow, his hand had dripped on other parts of his shirt, all over his pants and shoes and all over the floor and the generator box. It was such a mess.

I managed to get him wiped off enough I could strip him down without smearing much oil all over the rest of him and cleaned up the floor enough there were not giant drips of oil all over. We went back upstairs and I got him in the tub and grabbed the dawn dish soap. Yup, Gavin took a bath with dish soap! Nothing else was going to clean up the oil from his skin better than a soap intended to cut grease. I am so glad that we had plain, original dawn. I had picked it up because it has been recommended for stripping diapers (which you do periodically to ensure they are super clean and absorbing properly) because I prefer a different dawn when I wash dishes by hand. I think this was the only time Gavin was not happy about being in the bathtub.


It is hard to tell that the water is blue in the picture, but the it was quite blue and there were A LOT of bubbles. I probably could have used less dawn, but I wasn't taking any chances!

After he was out of the tub, I attempted to save his clothes. I soaked them in the sink with dawn and periodically drained the water , rinsed and wrung out before refilling with soap and water. This morning I put them in the washer with Tide and Oxy Clean to see if I could get rid of the oil smell and to also see if they would survive the oil incident. They seem to be ok, other than being a bit smelly still. I am hoping another run through or two with Oxy Clean will fix that. At least there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage in terms of stains.

There was no way we were going to do all our shopping but since we really needed to go to the grocery store, we made a quick trip there for what we needed yesterday and I planned to try again today. It seemed as though we were on track to make it to the mall for the afternoon, until Gavin decided he would take a nap after lunch! He had taken a late morning nap so I figured he would be good and would either nap on our way home or take one when we got home. I was quite wrong. He was ready for a nap, so I let him sleep and hoped it would be a short one. Wrong again. As it got later I figured I should start dinner so we could maybe still make it to the mall and only have to finish putting dinner together when we got home. When he finally woke up, it was pretty late but I was determined to at least do some of the errands because there were some things we actually needed from Target that I had been putting off picking up until I made a trip there. So, I loaded all our stuff up and off we went.

We managed to get the things we needed, pick up a few more Christmas presents and get home in time to quickly finish dinner up. Scott managed to get home before us, so that was a huge help in me getting dinner on the table because by the time we got home, Gavin was running around like a crazy person from being cooped up in the car, cart and then the car again for the last two hours or so. It was totally worth it though! We are one step closer to being done with our Christmas shopping!

Happy Halloween!

A day late, but better late than never, right? I have a good excuse given we didn't have power for close to 2 days and once we got it back I was running around doing a little bit of cleaning, laundry and making dinner. Then we had to take care of trick or treaters and by the time I got Gavin in bed, I was exhausted and didn't feel well enough to do (or finish) anything. So I went to be a little earlier than usual.

Halloween weekend started off with some fun and relaxation time. Gavin and I spent Friday afternoon at the museum and came home to make dinner. The rest of the night was fairly typical, dinner, playtime, bath and bed (for Gavin) and then Scott and I hung out before I headed to bed. With the forecast of snow for Saturday (and all kinds of crazy predictions on how much, when and what damage it could do), Gavin and I got ready and out of the house first thing in the morning to see if we could find him some boots, mittens and a hat. I had browsed a little in stores and online and hadn't really found anything yet but I figured I still had some time before we would need them. Based on the forecast, I was wrong. Thankfully we already had found his snowsuit and winter coat and that arrived a few weeks ago. So, Gavin and I set off for the mall to see what we could find.

We went to several stores and spent a lot longer there than I thought we would since Target and the department stores were the only stores open before 10 (since when does the mall not open until 10)! We managed to find a really cute Lightening McQueen hat, some waterproof mittens (harder to find than I thought... what good are knit mittens in the snow, they just result in soaking wet and cold hands) that are a little big, but better than nothing and some cute boots. All of which coordinate fairly well with his snowsuit. So we headed home with a quick stop at the grocery store for milk, potatoes and bananas (woah, total chaos there... glad we have plenty on hand at all times that we don't need to be a part of the panicked filling their carts with food and essentials).

When we got home, Gavin took a nap while I got lunch ready and we sat back and waited for the supposed snow to start. Before Gavin woke up, we saw the first flakes. I was shocked, I was half hoping for snow, half hoping they were wrong and trying not to get my hopes up for the half hoping for snow so I wouldn't be disappointed if there was none.

Well, it certainly started to look like they weren't going to be wrong with their huge predictions of snow. It started coming down heavy and fast and everything was white. It was beautiful but it certainly didn't feel like October. It made it feel like December or January as we sat and watched the snow. After Gavin woke up and ate his lunch we hung out, played and watched the snow until there was enough to go out and play in. We got all suited up (Scott complained about how long it took, but getting myself and Gavin ready while finding Scott's hat, gloves and boots too takes more than 5 minutes... then trying to get Gavin to stop squirming so I can get him dressed... it was quite the undertaking) and headed outside.



Gavin wasn't quite as thrilled as he was with the little bit of snow we had a couple of days before. He didn't seem to know what to make of it when the snow was covering the ground and still coming down. It didn't help that he was having trouble walking in his new boots. He had finally gotten pretty good at walking in his snowsuit the other day but throwing the new boots at him made his life pretty difficult. He wasn't interested in walking after that, he just wanted to be carried around.

Despite not wanting to be down in the snow, he was really happy to be outside. He was laughing at Scott and I throwing snowballs, he liked the snowman we made and he liked watching and trying to catch the snow coming down (and being shaken from trees). We walked around trying to knock some of the snow off of the trees because it was such a wet heavy snow and not all the trees had dropped all their leaves, some were really sagging and if too much snow piled up it could destroy them. The only actual tree loss we had was a large branch that came down from the Magnolia. It tried to take me out with it. I was doing some finish work on our snowman and it came down right next to me. It came down so fast that I barely had time to move away and see what was going on. I am very grateful that it missed me! Scott learned after the storm was over that it was a really good thing it missed because we didn't really know how big and heavy it was. Scott wasn't able to move it right away because it was so heavy!


After we had been outside for a while, it was time to head in and get warmed up and dry. Gavin and I played and made dinner (quickly because although we were hopeful about not losing power, we weren't sure what would happen) while Scott went out again to knock snow down from trees because it was still snowing hard and building up fast. We had a few flickers so we made sure that our flashlights were handy and ready with batteries. We stuck to our normal nightly routine with Gavin. We had dinner, played and he took a bath before bed. After he was in bed I ran around a bit trying to take advantage of us still having power. I wanted to get some things taken care of, just in case we didn't have power much longer. Scott went out and knocked snow off trees one more time and then we hung out in bed with phone and computer chargers so that everything could remain at full power for as long as possible.

I went to sleep and woke up around 11:30 when the house went silent. I got up for a minute to check on Gavin since his white noise was obviously gone now and then went back to sleep. So much for making it through without losing power. At least we were lucky enough to have kept it long enough we could warm up the house more than we normally would and cook and eat dinner.

Since we had warmed up the house to the low 70's, it had only dropped to about 64 by the time we got up in the morning. Although that is typically where I keep the house during the day, it felt a bit colder than it normally would but not too bad. I just made sure that Gavin was warm enough by putting him in socks and some flannel pajamas. He didn't even notice much difference. He just pulled out toys as usual and he ate some waffle for breakfast that had been defrosted (I always freeze the extra pancakes and waffles so that I can pull one out for a quick easy breakfast for us). The only difference Gavin probably noticed was that the phone no longer made noise when he played with it and light switches were now boring because nothing happened when he pressed them. Other than that, he went about his day like he always does.

Scott took care of clearing off the driveway and checked out to see if we had any other damage. Other than the branch that came down while we were outside, nothing had been damaged. We were amazed. Scott took a measurement of 9 inches of snow. A lot of snow considering we don't typically see much until at least December and very often January.

We decided after Gavin had napped and we had all had some lunch that we would get out of the house and go for a drive. We were also hoping that we might find a place where we had cell service since we had nothing at home. We moved Gavin's car seat to Scott's truck because we didn't want to open the garage door to back the family truckster out and lose all that heat. We were hoping we would get power back soon but we didn't want to count on that and lose the little "warmth" we still had in the house.

We drove around the neighborhood first, to see what things looked like, and it was very interesting. There were quite a few trees down and people out working on things and checking out damage from the storm. We found the spot that a tree came down to finally take our power out. Then we headed over to my parents house. Since we didn't have cell service, we couldn't call them to see if they had power or if they were home. We figured it was worth it to just drive over and get out of the house for a bit, even if they weren't there.

On our drive over, we saw much worse than was in our neighborhood. It was incredible to see how much damage the storm had done and how much more snow there was only a short distance from us. When we got to my parents house, they were not there, but on our way over we had been able to find cell service and Scott was able to reach his dad. What a huge lifesaver that ended up being. Scott had been wanting to get a generator and just hadn't done it yet. He had already done the research and decided what to get, it was just a matter of getting it. Since getting it locally was out of the question (not much available and not the one Scott had picked out), his dad offered to pick it up by him, if it was available and would meet Scott half way. We were able to get through to a local store in Washington, PA and they had it in stock.

So, we went home and Scott got ready to drive to Carlisle, PA to meet his dad. I decided that I would rather stay home with Gavin because it would be easier to let him play and try to get him to bed as close to his normal time as possible instead of having him strapped in his car seat for 8 hours. So, Gavin and I played (while I tried to keep him layered and warm) and Scott hit the road. It turned out to be a good thing Gavin and I stayed home. My parents stopped by after church to see if we were home and whether or not we had power. They had lost their power Saturday afternoon and decided to see if the church had power and went over early.

Gavin and I played until we needed flashlights and then we ended up putting on cars on my laptop and hanging out in the bedroom until about 7 when I finally decided it was time to just get Gavin to bed. He was getting restless and frustrated by the darkness so it wasn't worth trying to keep busy until 7:30. He went right out and I just hung out and stared out the window. It was interesting because everything was dark, until you saw the next street over because they still had power. They are only a few houses away! Crazy how that can work out.

I went to bed early too and drifted in and out waiting to hear Scott come home. He got home sometime after 1 (I don't remember exactly) and was working on getting the generator box opened. I got up to bring him a flashlight and to see what I could do to help. I pulled out the tools it listed while he got some other things ready and we waited for a friend to come by and help. What a huge help that was too, there is no way that I could have helped lift this thing, it is heavy, 200+ pounds! After I got all the tools out and did what little else I could, I went back to check on Gavin and be closer so I could hear him if he woke up. I listened to Scott and Andy work and before long, they were opening the garage door to take out the assembled, oiled and gassed generator outside to get it started. It was amazing how fast they got that done and had it wired to the boiler to get the heat up and running. Scott had planned to back feed into the main panel, but he didn't have everything he needed to be able to do that and was getting some strange readings on his meter, so he decided to just get the heat working and would deal with the rest in the morning.

I got back up and Scott and I chatted while we waited for the heat to warm up the house to a normal temperature (it was down to about 53 by the time Scott got home) so Scott could shut off the generator and go to sleep. I went back to bed before the house was fully warmed but it felt instantly warmer and we were very grateful!

It was nice to wake up to a house that was a bit warmer than it had been, even though it still lost some of the heat. Scott got up and warmed the house up again and we just relaxed. Scott took a shower so that he could get the oil changed in the generator and decide what else he wanted to do with it that day. My mom stopped by (there was no school for their district) and hung out in the warmth with us. After I showered, Scott checked the power (he still had the main breaker off) and saw that we had gotten power back. What a nice surprise! We had figured it would be a lot longer than that before we got power back. It was about noon, so I heated up some lunch for all of us. It was nice to have some warm food to eat!

We were so grateful to have our power back. I know so many people had it much worse. Locally, many didn't get power back until Tuesday and Wednesday night and in Massachusetts and Connecticut many waited until the following weekend before their power was restored. Although we are now prepared for any future power outages, we are very grateful this one wasn't more than the almost 2 days it was.

We hung out and relaxed for most of the day. Scott had a few items to take care of to prepare for the trick or treaters, like getting the light bulbs replaced in the lights outside and I made dinner, started some laungry and got Gavin in his monkey costume. We were going to go to the mall and go "trick or treating" with Gavin, but with everything that happened we decided to just stay home and hand out candy. Gavin had a good time playing with the bucket we had the candy in and was dancing around with us to the fun Halloween music we had playing.



Gavin also loved the trick or treaters. He had fun checking out all the costumes and especially loved the little boy dressed as Lightening McQueen. Before long it was time for his bath and bed. Gavin's second Halloween was a definite success despite the crazy snowstorm. I am sure next year will be even more fun and maybe we will actually make it out for some trick or treating!