Busy Weekend = Long Post (Halloween & Big Kid Room)

We started off the weekend with Caleb's Halloween party at school. Mom and Mr. L. came to witness the fun. This party was much tamer than his Christmas party last year. Basically, the kids just ate their snack in their costumes. Here are a couple of pictures... After the party, we came home. Caleb was in a horribly whiny, fussy, cranky mood. He cried about everything, yelled at all of us and basically was not himself at all. I put him in time out and had to give him a spanking within a matter of an hour. Mom & Mr. L. were going to take him out for pizza, but wisely decided against it. Instead, they went and picked up a pizza to eat at home while Rudy and I went out to Bonefish Grill for my birthday dinner. When we got home, we thought about carving pumpkins, but we were too tired. We decided to just go to bed instead. (We never did carve pumpkins this year. Oh, well.)

Saturday morning, I took Caleb to Alivia's birthday party. He was still not himself, but his behavior was improved enough to make it through the party. (Though he did get a spanking before we left because he yelled at Pops. Rudy wasn't having any of that!) Caleb loved getting another chance to wear his costume, but he wasn't so sure about all of those 5 year olds having so much party fun. He stuck pretty close to me and really just wanted to go play in Alivia's room. I did find the irony in watching him play in her pink room with her pink toys while wearing his football uniform (complete with shoulder pads and cleats). Here are a couple of pics from the party...

Livi the birthday girl and her sweet Mama, Stacy:

My favorite Razorback player and the cupcake he decorated:

Ah, the irony...
While Caleb and I were gone to the party, a major transformation was happening at our house. Mom, Mr. L and Rudy were taking all of the furniture out of our guest room and moving Caleb's bedroom furniture into what will soon become Nola's room! They moved the bed from the guest room into Caleb's room to become his BIG KID BED! They packed up the headboard, chest of drawers, night stand and chair from the guest room to take to a consignment store in Hot Springs. When Caleb and I got home from the party, I handed him off to Rudy to attempt to get a nap or at least some rest and Mom and I went to Target in search of big kid furniture and bedding. They had everything we needed, so we came home loaded down with 3 boxes of furniture to be assembled, a quilt, sheets, pillowcases, wall hangings, etc, etc, etc.

Here are the before pictures. The room is messy, but I didn't worry with cleaning it up just for "before" pictures. This is the furniture we got when Caleb was born. His dresser has a changing table and his bed is converted from his crib. The rocking chair on the left side was the rocking chair that my mom used when I was a baby.

These shelves hold lots of memorabilia and some books that I was keeping out of Caleb's reach until he learned not to tear the pages. The lamp that looks like a hot air balloon was in my nursery when I was a baby.

Here are the after pictures, but the room isn't quite finished. The chest and bookcase went together beautifully, but the nightstand box was missing one piece. Rudy is calling tomorrow to have that sent to us. The nightstand goes in the corner and will probably have a lamp on it. That far corner needs something tall and that makes the most sense. We also need something on the wall above Caleb's bed. I was going to put the square wall hangings of the sports balls there as a makeshift headboard, but Rudy and I were afraid Caleb would knock them off the wall onto his head. I'm now debating on a vinyl cutout of his name or something like that. Whatever it is will have to be pretty big, so I'm not sure yet.

Now the top shelf has baby memorabilia, but the other 2 shelves have Caleb's favorite stuffed "friends." I'm sure we'll whittle those away over time, but I'm not ready to see them go just yet. He still really likes them and they make me smile. The kite was on the ceiling above his toddler bed and he asked me to put it back in his big kid room. I tried to find a way to make it work. The tail goes all the way down the wall.

You can barely see it, but there is a set of hooks on the wall behind the door. It's hung low so that Caleb can reach the hooks for his hats and backpack. It's one of my favorite parts of the room.

And, of course, Saturday night was Halloween. We didn't get off to a very good start. Nobody on our street was home! The first house we actually went to was crazy, though! They were giving out five dollar bills! Rudy and I tried to figure out if we could change clothes and take Caleb back in a different costume, but decided that was just stingy. :) Pops pulled Caleb in his wagon and we all walked through the neighborhood to do the trick-or-treat circuit. Caleb loved it this year. At one house, instead of saying "trick-or-treat," he said "Touchdown Arkansas!" I laughed so hard I almost cried! When we had had our fill of trick-or-treating, we came home and Mom heated up a big pot of crawfish/shrimp etouffee for our supper. We watched the Razorback game on DVR delay and they manhandled Eastern Michigan. We were shocked that we only had 2 sets of trick-or-treaters. I bought a ton of candy and we now have a ton of candy to get rid of. We gave those kids that came by almost a whole bucketful and still have bunches left over.

This morning, Mom and Mr. L. left for home and the three of us went to church. After church, we came home to eat lunch and work some more on Caleb's room. Caleb loved helping his daddy build. Rudy went to meet some college friends for dinner this evening. Now, we're all home and Caleb is in his big kid bed for the first time all by himself. We'll see how it goes. I'm hoping that the time change will play in our favor and he'll be tired enough to get to sleep by himself. I should probably get to bed early tonight just in case we have one of those nights...