Halloween and High Cotton

November 07, 2017

Halloween and High Cotton

October 2017

I wanted to take our cotton photos on Sunday, but it was just too cold, so we decided to do them on Monday since the high was going to be around 68 degrees. It was a beautiful day, and the sun was going to set around 6:00 pm so I got home as quick as I could, figuring we'd have about 30 minutes to get some photos. That's really all the time I needed, as Daniel and I have gotten good at jumping out of the car and getting great images fast! I have a wireless remote for my camera which makes doing family photos soooo much easier! I've almost broken my ankle before setting that dang timer and running back and forth!

We got some great images in the cotton field by our house, but what we did not anticipate were the mosquitoes!!! There was a literal cloud of mosquitoes right above us, the buzzing was so loud it sounded like a helicopter was flying over. They were everywhere and HUGE! So, what was supposed to be about a 30 min photo shoot turned into a fast and furious 10 minutes of changing, swatting and shooting so that we could get out of there as fast as possible! Della and Daniel came out unscathed, but I was covered in whelps when we got home. I tend to swell up in hives when bitten, but was better by the next day. Hopefully we will have a good frost and they will all die by the time we do our big family pics!

Cinderella, Jaq, Perla and a Spooky Schnauzer!

For Halloween we were Cinderella and her mice! We sometimes call Della "Cinderdelly" like the mice sing in the movie, so we thought it would be super cute... and it was! Bernie was a slacker and didn't pick out a new costume 😉 so she wore her Halloween dress from last year. I made our mouse hats and ears from some felt, pipe cleaners and hot-glue and got my apron from Hobby Lobby. Della's dress is from Primary.com (awesome baby/kids clothes!) and a tutu from HL. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a costume she would only wear once, so I got a dress she could actually wear and then just added the tutu so maybe she would look like cinderella... I think we got the point across...

Daniel is such a good sport when it comes to taking pictures. This is two days in a row of me setting up my camera on a tripod and trying to get some good images of us, a baby, then we throw a dog in there! Oh, and in costume! Ha! But it always turns out good, and I love having these memories to look back on. You can't get them back, so they need to be well-documented!

Really!? 😂

We went to the church first, then my parents' house and ended at Daniel's dad's. Della was done by the second stop, lol! It was lots of fun seeing everyone, and they loved our costumes! We already have great ideas for the next couple years and it will be so much fun when she can toddle around and get excited too!

Elgin UMC Blessing Bags

My parents with Cinderella

Dan and Carolyn

and DONE! These spooks were tired!

#gradschoollife

This week I had another paper due for my other class, then I have one more paper and a couple of reading review left and I'll be done with that one! Now I just have to finish my final draft of my capstone and I'll be in the home stretch! I've got to pull and analyze my data, get a few more sources and examples in there and should be done right after Thanksgiving! I am SO ready! I can't wait to only have to think about work, baby, house renovation, other projects, eating healthy, crochet.... and not school! LOL! I tell ya, everybody has to think about too much these days! It will feel good to have that diploma in my hands and check that off the bucket list. I never thought I would get a masters degree, since my undergrad is in art and I didn't have a desire to get a masters in it, but when the opportunity presented itself I would have been a fool not to take advantage. It's taken me 2 years, but it's been time well spent.

4 month old baby girl!

Della had her 4 month checkup this week and she is doing great! She is on track with weight gain and all that, staying steady on the 3rd percentile... 😂 She just going to be a little one! She weighed in at 10 pounds 13 ounces, 22.5 inches long, and her head is a little over 16 inches around. She is hitting all the milestones appropriately, laughing out loud, rolling over, goo-gooing and ga-gaing in response to us talking to her and all those fun things. She pretty much sleeps through the night, and I still have her in her box by our bed, but we will probably move her to her crib in the next couple months. Here lately she's been waking up once during the night to nurse sometimes and I just get more sleep having her next to me, easy to grab.

Baby's first fever = everyone is concerned

She did run a fever Friday night after her shots, and even though I knew that's what it was from it was still kinda scary... I could tell she just didn't feel good when we were eating dinner, I took her temperature when we got home and it was 100.4. My mom came over and brought some baby Motrin, so we gave her some of that and a cool washcloth on her head, and it came down by the time we went to bed. I just hated seeing her not feel good, and I got all the mama feels!

10 lbs, 13 oz!

pretty girl!

not looking forward to shots

grabbing her feets!

poor baby

fever finally came down

Daddy is the chicken stew King!

On Saturday our church had our annual chicken stew, so Della and I went up to the church to visit, then Mama went with us to Rogersville's Christmas Open House. We were hoping to see Santa and get some pictures, but he had already left by the time we got there.... We'll get to see him at UNA in December so I wasn't that worried about missing him. But we went shopping at Pam's and found some cute outfits we may wear for our family pics this coming weekend! I plan to go back to the same cotton field we did our pics in this week, hopefully with less mosquitoes!

all Christmas'ed out...

On Sunday we went to Birmingham to see Kellie and Henry and go to church with them! It felt like it had been so long since we had seen them! Daniel didn't have to drill on Sunday so he got to go with us! This was the first time Della made the trip back and forth in one day, the previous trip we stayed with Kellie for a couple days... and I think it was just too much time in the car seat. The last hour on the way home she just cried! She doesn't like being in the car seat for that long and she was just done.

But we had a great time seeing Kellie and Henry and got to eat lunch with the church after the service. We hung out for a bit at their house before heading home, and they got to see how much Della has grown! They'll be up here on Friday and we'll do pictures on Saturday so I'm glad we'll get to see them again so soon!