I just want to turn on the faucet and have water! I don't want to know where it's coming from!!

Once upon a time, it was October . . .

Our apartment complex has repeatedly had problems with water, be it pipes breaking or . . . other pipes breaking. In any case they decided to finally fix the problem by replacing all the old water pipes with new ones. In order to do this they were forced to shut off the water all day long in certain apartment blocks - for THREE days in a row. Having no flushing toilets, no bath water and no water with which to wash dishes and/or hands, for eight hours a day, for three days in a row is not good news for a mother of three small children. I managed to live through this crisis by filling our tub early in the morning before the water was shut off so the kids could still bathe. I also filled several large containers with water so we could still use the toilet. Lastly, we tried to spend most of our day away from the house in places where running water still existed. The worst part was when a notice of one more waterless day failed to reach us and I was caught without extra water for the toilet. Yeesh. This is just another testament to me that I was never meant to live in an age where indoor plumbing did not exist.

Luke had his first taste of baby food. He was not a fan. He's still gaining plenty of weight though. Last month he was dubbed a "12 pound turkey" by his nurse. October found him to be a plump 15 pounds 14 ounces and in the 75th percentile for everything. Adri remains in about the 5th percentile while Juliet is about 25th. And if you don't really know the significance of any of those numbers just know that neither girl cried during any of their shots this year. Adri had two shots and didn't even flinch, and Juliet just seemed excited about the shiny bandage that the nurse put on her arm as soon as she pulled out the needle.


After surviving a few waterless days, we had a run-in with a fever that, thankfully, did not make its way through our entire family. Adri and Juliet were the only ones who got sick. Juliet so much so that she merited a day off from church. She remained grumpy and lethargic for about two weeks so it was extra nice when she got well. I had forgotten how well-behaved she can be.

One night we had a dance party in the girls' room.

Juliet declined to dance and instead did this.

On the subject of Juliet being weird, we found out that, along with having an 'outie' bellybutton, she's also left-handed! Very strange indeed.

The kids have good news, too. Yes, some of them have been sick but all of them, yes ALL of them, are consistently sleeping through the night! Every once in a while someone will decide to rebel, but mostly Jason and I have been enjoying a good 8 hours of sleep every night. It is awesome. Almost as awesome as these wax lips Gramma Joyce and Cat sent us for Halloween.




In honor of one such night (meaning I wasn't grumpy the next day so I was up for doing something fun) I took the kids to the mall for about 4 hours. We played at the toy stores, got some free underwear for me with a gift certificate I found online, bought some ice cream with a five dollar bill Jason had found on the ground at the grocery store the previous night then bought some chocolate with the $3 I had left on a Macy's gift card. I talked to Alixa on the way home and she told me I was very good at being poor. I looked back on my day and thought, indeed, I am.

And what October would be complete without the Winn grand kids getting their Halloween pictures taken together? Some drove 4 hours, some were flown in, but all 9 grandchildren were present for this year's picture. I guess the final edited version is not what ended up on our CD but I don't know how to edit anything so this is basically what we got.

Luke went as a giraffe after Jenna discarded this costume in favor of a witch costume

Adri decided to go as Alice in Wonderland this year. The only problem was that after wearing her costume for pictures, then trunk-or-treat at the church she was a little bored with wearing the same thing. She decided to don her Mariposa dress and wings for Malloween (trick-or-treating at the mall) and then wore an old dress-up wedding dress for Halloween. It was all fine with me as long as she ended up with a bucket full of candy - preferably with some jr. mints in there somewhere.


I decided to be Awesome Mom after they were done at Malloween and let the girls eat as much candy as they wanted. This resulted in me experiencing my first ever kids-won't-go-to-sleep-because-they're-on-a-sugar-high night. Very interesting.


Juliet seemed satisfied to dress as Cinderella for pictures, trunk-or-treat and Malloween but changed into a tiger costume for Halloween.

We had a lovely weekend with all of our cousins in town. We attended the wedding of some friends and did a lot of hanging out. While hanging out with Alixa I boasted that Juliet knew they lived in Tennessee. She told this to Jarom and, upon hearing this news, he claimed he could live on Mars for all the difference it made to Juliet. So we taught Juliet that Jarom lives on Mars. She seems suspicious that it is a joke but still answers "at Mars" if you ask where Jarom and Lixie live.

I have been working quite a bit since all the major card holidays are quickly approaching. I go in several nights a week so the girls and I are trying to fit lots of fun in during the day. We made egg carton caterpillars one day. After we finished painting them we painted on some paper too.

I asked Adri where she got such a cute face and she said Jesus gave it to her.

I asked Juliet what she was painting and she said, "Yellow." Duh, Mom.

And finally some quotes:

Juliet is very good at expressing herself but can still get a little tangled up with what message she is trying to get across

Juliet: I having an idea!

Annie: What is your idea?

Juliet: (confusedly) I don't know. I don't have an idea.

As we walked outside one morning there were quite a few crows in the sky, cawing loudly.

Juliet commented, "The eagles are kooking!"

We ran in my room and yelled "Surprise!" to Jason. Juliet tried to tell Jason what had just happened (in case he hadn't been paying attention I guess).

Juliet: Daddy, we said, su . . . sur . . . sss . . . (confusedly) I don't know what we said.