The whirlwind that was October 2018...

Seeing as this is my longest break from blogging since I started this blog ten years ago, I better communicate just how crazy our month of October was. My time was completely filled with doing a million and a half different things. Being PTA president this year has been a strain, but one I except and work hard at because it does still afford me some level of selfishness so that I can continue to ask for extra help for Oliver while he is at school. He is on a 504 plan but without an IEP his needs can sometimes go un-met because the school is short staffed. So I powered through a very busy PTA month during October.

The three chess clubs that I run also started in October and that takes three mornings before school away from being a mom (a time I usually spend getting my kids ready for school and outside for the bus). Thankfully my parents help on those mornings I'm at chess clubs.

I also work part time for a photographer friend on mine. Her busiest time of the year is October when she is booked solid with school photos. I put in a LOT of time working on her online ordering system and answering her client emails. In total 50 hours of work during the single month of October. Mom helped me one weekend stamping and addressing a school of 300 kids' photo orders.

That doesn't even include my regular day job working with other peoples kids who have behavior needs. My own ten year old has been really struggling during the past month with his own behaviors. We're back to weekly OT with his therapist and two nights a week he attends a dance class. We're trying everything we can to keep him and other kids safe from him at school, but its a difficult challenge when his sensory needs go un-met. He has a really hard time regulating and then his aggressive behaviors come out in full force.

All that to say- October seriously did FLY past in the blind of an eye. We had our first snow fall some time mid Oct. But the time we got back from the store having purchased new snow pants and gloves for Lucius, the snow had all melted.

When it wasn't snowing, the boys spent a lot of time raking leaves and building leaf piles. Our tree doesn't loose its leaves till after the end of November so they boys raked all the neighbors leaves into our yard. I'm pretty sure she was super happy about it, cause it was a LOT of extra leaves she didn't have to clean up.

Oliver and I took our first ever make up class together. He wanted to learn about lipsticks. Sephora did a great job teaching him what he really wanted to know and he got to learn how to put it on correctly too. I learned there is a LOT of different products that you can purchase just for lips.

We found the make up class one crazy night before school picture day. We actually had gone to the mall to find an outfit for Oliver to where in his photo and he just had to go to a new store his best friend had told him all about: Justice. This store is an explosion of glitter, its literally EVERYWHERE in this store. But he found a cat top with matching cat leggings. On our way out of the shop he spotted the Sephora directly across the hallway and away he zoomed. He made friends with just about every employee in the store and had me signing him up for almost all their makeup classes.

Oliver continues to find my phone laying around the house and I constantly find images like this randomly on my phone...

 We had a fun game night one evening when daddy was out of town. That was fun.

We did manage to see Oma one saturday morning. We were going to go find a corn maze, but it was cold so we ate a yummy breakfast and did some shopping at Costco.

My parents watched Oliver so Jerimy and I could go watch the last home game of the MN United soccer team. Lucius also attended with a friend of his but he was all the way across the field.

Halloween was a fun time to wonder the stores and look for costumes. This year we kept finding these giant animal heads and they crack me up!

Lucius finished up soccer some time in October, I forget when. Jerimy usually took him to his games and practices. I do know he loves every minute of soccer and playing on the team. He is playing even more soccer throughout the winter, but in a different form: it's called Futsal.

Gosh- I think that's most if not all of our month of OCTOBER, besides Halloween- which I'll save for another post. Thanks for reading this far and forgiving me from the long blogging break.