Parties and cleaning

Sara Beth had a great time on Halloween. We had plans to go trick or treating with two other families, but as we walked around the neighborhood, we saw more and more friends, and the gaggle of children grew larger and larger. At one point, we had about 15 kids and 10 adults all roving from house to house in one massive group. It was sheer chaos. Bara Beth had a good time, and brought back a decent haul of candy.

In preparation for Hudson, we decided we needed to get the carpets professionally cleaned. It is cheaper if they don't have to move any of the furniture. So the night before they came to clean, we moved all the furniture off the carpets. We put most of Sara Beth's stuff on the back patio. She still wanted to play with some of her toys, so I helped navigate her through the obstacle course. And of course, we may be in a sever drought here in Texas, but the one day we put indoor furniture on the back patio meant that it had to rain a little that evening.

In addition to cleaning the carpets, I needed to do some maintenance on the rocking chair. It was a cheap one from walmart, which Heather used extensively while nursing Sara Beth. The hinges were getting old and squeaking. The chair came with a ottoman that had the same type of hinges and was not as heavily used. So I swapped around the hinges and re-greased the whole thing. Sara Beth was a good helper during the process.

Heather's birthday was back on the 27th. Sara Beth, of course, helped open all of her presents.

For those of you who don't know, the Dallas area is experiencing a massive shortage of rain. My dad found a way to take advantage of the situation and take us down to the lake. The water level was down about 10 feet, which meant that the shore line had receded back about a quarter mile from where it used to be, and what used to be the lake bottom was now dry land. It was a perfect time to explore and collect shells.

Sara Beth picked up on the shell collection procedures quickly. She scurried around collecting shells in her bucket. As the bucket got more and more full, I asked her if she wanted to start taking out some of the smaller or broken shells to make more room for the larger ones, but she didn't want to give up any of them. Eventually, her bucket was full, and so heavy that she asked Heather to carry it for her.

Sara Beth had a school recital this past week. Just like the recitals from last year, she sang out long and loud, but this time, she had friends in her class that she wanted to play with once the performance was over.