Things to Love in October

I'm really excited that October is here.  I feel like I've been waiting for this month for so long, but I guess it's only been 6 weeks, although that has been long enough.

Here are some of the happenings that we have to look forward to:

*Thursday night we'll get Pat at the airport.  It's been almost 6 weeks since the kids saw him last.  We've done two facetime sessions, but that just isn't enough.  The boys miss their daddy.

*Friday we close on our new house.  I am so excited.  I cannot wait to see our new home.  We have very little time to settle in before Pat leaves again, so we'll start working on settling in and making the house our home that afternoon.

*Saturday all our stuff will arrive.  I am not so much looking forward to unpacking, but I will be happy when everything is in it's place.

*Halloween at the end of the month in our new home is an exciting thought.  I think we have a great neighborhood for trick or treating.

One last thing that is exciting about October that everyone can be happy about:

*Mandarin Moon is the scent of the month for Scentsy.  You can order it for 10% off all month long.  I've opened an online order party on my website if you'd like to order.  Click HERE.

For centuries, people have been giving the gift of juicy citrus to brighten the dark winter months.  Light up this season with Mandarin Moon--spirited cinnamon and glowing ginger illuminated by sweet orange and star anise.  

So far everyone I've heard from likes this scent.  It is a nice citrus smell that is warmed by the spices.   I think it is a great cozy scent for this time of year.  

I'll post pictures and update about the move as soon as I can.  We won't have internet at the house for a few days, so hopefully by the time that is up and running we'll almost be all settled.  Until then, Happy October!

Early Birthday Party

One of the things I missed the most living far away from family was not being able to share holidays and birthdays with them.  Now that we're back in the same state though that is going to change.

This weekend my sister hosted a birthday party for Sean.  It's about a week early because next weekend we'll be moving.  I cannot thank my sister enough for putting it all together.  It meant so much to me and Sean that he could have a real party.

Sean wanted a dog party.  My sister did a great job decorating to fit his theme.

We had puppy chow.

 And dogs in a blanket.

And there was the dog birthday cake.  Since all my cake decorating supplies are currently in a POD, we bought the cake.  It would have been easy enough to make it myself if I had my supplies.  Sean was so excited to see his dog cake.  

But the best part was being together with family and watching all the kids play together.

 Sean was all smiles at cake time.

It was a great party, and I cannot wait to celebrate many more birthdays with everyone.  

So Much To Say

It's been so long since I've written that I have so much to say.  It's been a bit crazy and stressful lately, so I just didn't feel like sharing for a while.  But now I'm ready to fill you in on everything that has been going on.

We're still at my parents house.  Only about a week and a couple days until I am officially a homeowner again.  Yesterday I drove through our new town (actually it's a city).  And I drove by our new house too.  That was my first time seeing it.  I only got a quick glimpse, but I liked what I saw in my neighborhood.  Can you believe we bought a house in a city I had never explored and a house I had never seen? Yeah sometimes I cannot believe it either.  

Oh before I forget there is a Scentsy promotion that I wanted to show you.  Have you ever seen the Scentsy Buddy line?  They are cute and soft stuffed animals with a zipper pouch to put a scent pack in. Right now (and thru Dec. 31 or while supplies last) it is Buy One Buddy, Get One Free!

Choose any two of these popular Buddies:
Lenny the Lamb
Penny the Pig
Roarbert the Lion
Ribbert the Frog
Ollie the Elephant
Mollie the Monkey
Patch the Dog
Scratch the Cat
Barnabus the Bear
Wellington the Duck

Then, bring your new Scentsy Buddies to life with two Scent Paks -- one for each of your new friends:
Scent Pak #1: Choose any Scent Pak fragrance in the Scentsy Fragrance Fall/Winter 2012 Catalog!
Scent Pak #2: Scentsy will choose a second Scent Pak for you!
It's a great deal and a perfect time to start Christmas shopping.  Contact me to place an order, or go check out my website linked in my sidebar.  And make sure to ask me about my personal end of the month specials!  

So the one thing I had been hesitating about blogging about is my dog situation.  So this happened:

Sammy has a broken leg and puncture wounds too.  Think that's bad?  Abbey my other dog did it to him.  
It's been something we've been dealing with for a while now.  Abbey will just randomly attack Sammy.  She's fine with everyone else, but it is a dominance battle with him.  So for a very long time now we've been keeping the two dogs completely separate.  That is until one of the kids let Sam out of his crate while Abbey was out.  Definitely not what I needed right now.  After the $650+ vet bill along with what will be 8+ weeks of casts, Sammy is doing just fine.  
This whole dog situation is such a crappy place to be.  We would have definitely re-homed Abbey already to a home where she could be happy and Sammy could be safe if it were that easy.   But because of Abbey's chronic medical conditions it's not that easy.  So we're still working on more solutions to this whole thing.  And it upsets me to talk about it and write about it, so I hope you won't have anything negative to say to this whole thing.  I take it very seriously and it is a very personal and emotional thing.  

And the last thing I'll comment on is about Ryan and school.  I'm now super stressed out about school for him.  I was in our new city to meet with the school.  We were looking at the Public Pre-K because then he'd be able to receive his speech therapy through the public school.  But I'm really a bit worried about the school program.  I'm not sure it will prepare him enough for Kindergarten next year.  Next month we should be meeting to create an IEP (and this is a whole new thing to me, so that in itself is overwhelming) and I'll hopefully get more info on how the school will work for him.  But for the price that I'll have to pay, I'm not sure I'm getting the best for him.  It just seems so hard to try to navigate this system, and it's not like anyone is making it that easy either.  

So between the mortgage stuff, dogs, school, and just adjusting to New England I've been a bit stressed out.  Hopefully over the next two weeks things fall into place.  I cannot wait to show you pictures of the new house when we settle in.