Something fierce

First, everything is fine. I know I have been pretty good about posting at least every other week, so missing two Sundays in a row has worried some people. Fortunately, the worst that is going on around here is that I am completely losing track of time due to busyness. I keep telling Jeff that I'm going to be less busy "next week," and unfortunately next week never seems to arrive even though it's been a few weeks. But I swear that starting on Wednesday I'm going to be less busy. Unless a bunch of unexpected stuff comes up like has been happening at work the last few weeks :-)

We had an amazing Halloween with tons of decorations, so many trick-or-treaters we couldn't keep count (probably around 200 according to one estimate, based on the amount of candy that we purchased and ran out of). It was Maren's first Halloween as a trick-or-treater. She absolutely loved it. And it turns out she also loves chocolate, which we have been avoiding giving her but the jig is up.

Sadly, I don't have many pictures from Halloween. Jeff tried to take a few but I don't have those. This is kind of the best I have:

I don't know why it is coming up sideways, and I don't know how to fix it, so there it is. Maren is not wearing a shirt in this photo because she peed on it. I feel like only parents who have had toddlers can understand how she managed to pee on her shirt but not her pants (hint: it has to do with spending a lot of time wearing no pants).

Maren is absolutely hilarious lately. She has started using phrases that she hears other people use, and repeating things that other people have said. Jeff sent me a text yesterday after Maren told him that another child at daycare "Was crying something fierce." I am 100% certain that neither Jeff nor I has ever used that phrase. It is hard not to laugh.

So in the last two weeks we went from fall to winter. About a week and a half ago Jeff was raking leaves, and then yesterday and the day before Jeff and Maren went sledding. It was a very abrupt transition, but at least there was no wishy-washy time when we were unable to say whether it was fall or winter. On October 31 it was fall, then it snowed overnight and on November 1 it was winter. Life in Saskatchewan.