Happy Halloween + Happy News!

Happy Halloween everybody! Okay, so I'm a couple days late. But I had to wait until I had some pictures to post. And Lydia wasn't cooperative with pictures for any of the pre-Halloween activities. Luckily she was in a good mood on Halloween and happily put on her cowgirl hat and vest for pictures. Yay! I was so scared we wouldn't get any!

This year for Halloween Lydia and I had several fun adventures! We dressed up for storytime at the Library (there she wore the hat and vest for about 5 minutes before she wanted them off). Then, on Friday, we went to the Houston Zoo for the Zoo Boo. They had a few trick or treat stations throughout the zoo and a "pumpkin patch" area where the kids could paint pumpkins (with paint pens! Very clever!). It was Lydia's first time to the zoo and she was so excited! Her favorite by far was the seals. She squealed excitedly as they swam around and even had to grab my hand and drag me over to see them more closely with her. Then, Friday night, our ward had it's annual Halloween activity. She enjoyed a few carnival games, including a cake walk and spook alley (which she handled like a pro!), and then experienced her first real trunk or treating. Of course, she refused to wear her hat and vest and I had to carry them the whole time. Stinker. But when we pulled out her costume for her to wear on Halloween, she happily put on the entire outfit and even gave us some cute "Yeehaw's" during her photo shoot. We took her to the trick or treating and carnival at A&M on Pelican Island. She enjoyed going door to door and even had to touch the creepy pumpkin head man who was standing on one of the corners! I thought she would have cowered and started crying! Maybe we will get cute pictures with Santa this year! Overall, we had a fun Halloween holiday and Lydia made the cutest little cowgirl you ever did see!

Lydia trick or treating at A&M.

Roping her cattle (with a pretend rope) as she yelled "Yeehaw"!

I sewed her cowgirl vest and fixed up her hat. The pants were some cute hand-me-downs from a friend and so were the cowgirl boots. Overall I think I paid $7.50 for the shirt from Walmart. Everything else we already had on hand. Yay for cheap and cute costumes!

Painting her pumpkin at the Zoo Boo. She was very focused on it and had to try all of the different colors.

She was a little unsure of sitting on a bunch of pumpkins. And she wasn't really in the mood for giving cute pictures. Too bad! There were a ton of cute spots to do it!

Now, as I hinted at in the topic of the post, we do have some happy news! We will be having a cute new little one in our family soon! Hooray! We are so excited for this long awaited surprise! I am now 11 weeks along. Almost done with the first trimester! This one, overall, had been both better and worse than with Lydia. I've had more specific food aversions this time (bread, avocado, baked sweets (I still eat them, but they have a funny aftertaste to them), chicken, and other things that depend on the day), yet I've also been able to eat more this time. With Lydia I lost 3 lbs in the first trimester, but so far I've gained a couple pounds this time. It's hard to tell if I'm more nauseous this time. It definitely started later in the pregnancy (with Lydia I was nauseous before the tests even said I was pregnant) but I also notice my nausea more his time because I'm not constantly busy with a full time job. I lay down on the couch while Lydia gets addicted to Blue's Clues (which she asks for by name now) and Sesame Street. We try to get out and do things often because otherwise I feel even more sick in the house. I can definitely vouch that every pregancy is different though! It's amazing! If I went by how I've been eating and feeling this time, I would say that we'll definitely have a boy. It'll be funny if I'm right! We won't find out until the beginning of January though.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure everyone's asking when the due date is. Drumroll please ... my due date is May 21,2012. Just 2 days after David's birthday. David claims that if it is a boy and it's born on his birthday that he needs to be David Joseph Dickinson, Jr. For my sake, please pray that that doesn't happen. It's not a bad name, I just don't like the whole Jr. thing. It gets too confusing. If y'all have any ideas for cute names that go good with Dickinson, please pass them along. I really like family names, but David doesn't really care. I think we'll have a bigger dispute this time though. Oh well. As long as the kid likes it when they get older.