Nance Magic: November 2010

A Very Nance Halloween

We are not much into Halloween. Last year, we did not put 1-month-old Paul in any sort of costume, not even a cute pumpkin shirt or anything. We stayed home and turned off the lights. When one trick-or-treater still rang the doorbell, Mark went undercover by reading the rest of the night. With a flashlight. In the bathroom.

So, we were all very shocked and surprised with ourselves that we ALL had costumes this year!

Mark and I dressed up for our 10K (6.2 mile) run, the Highway to Hale race for the Hale Center Theater here in Orem. We had a lot of fun, and my time (1:01:something) was close to my goal (of 1 hour) -- miraculous considering how little I had trained and how terrible I felt during the run. At one point, Mark was speedwalking faster than I was "jogging".

Mark was so sweet to stick with slow ol' me the whole race though "so our costumes would make sense." [We were originally going to have our shirts say "Max Hall hates me" (mine, the devil) and "Max Hall loves me" (Mark's, the angel) but we 1) ran out of time and 2) really liked the shirts and wanted to wear them again. :)] Running at my even-slower-than-normal pace did a number on his already-bad knees, since he couldn't hit his normal stride and still match my teeny tiny strides. But he was determined to run with me. Isn't my husband the best??

And Paul looked SO cute as our very own Pint-sized Blue (since I'm not sure he qualifies to be Big Blue yet):

Originally the hat didn't have the A on it, but I had to add it because everyone at our ward trunk-or-treat kept asking if he was a viking. Seriously? The jersey that says UTAH STATE on the front and AGGIES on the back wasn't a big enough clue for you? It must be a side effect of living in Utah County... I even had one person tell me that we were cheering for the wrong team. I can't wait until basketball season...when it's so much easier to be proud to be an Aggie...

But back to the topic at hand... the cutest little mascot on the planet.

Here's the rear view... I love the little tail!

Thanks to Uncle Jace and Aunt Lindsey for the jersey!

Paul was SUCH a good sport about the whole costume thing. He was so good during the whole on-and-off and try-it-on and hold-still-while-mommy-surgically-removes-the-your-costume thing.

Yup, that's right. I forgot to add the seam allowances to the pattern, which meant that the fleece shirt was too small. The bottom of the shirt barely fit over his head... but I was determined... so I literally squeezed him into it. And then couldn't get him back out of it. So I pinned the already-screaming child between my knees and held his hand in one hand to keep it stretched above his head so that I could cut the shirt up one side seam and then the other, which of course only made the poor kid (who is also cranky since he's getting FOUR new teeth right now) scream even harder.

And then I let him play with scissors to calm him down. (I expect the Mom of the Year award to show up on my doorstep any day now.)

A couple strips of fabric fixed the shirt so it fit and off to the trunk-or-treat we went. And then to another trunk-or-treat at the parents' ward the next night. And then he let me put it on him again this morning to take these pictures in the daylight. Probably just so he could pull faces like this

as he ate my blantantly obvious bribery-so-you'll-stand-still-since-you-hate-standing cookies

And then scooted away to perform some other mischief, dragging his cute little tail behind him.

Happy Halloween!

In October...

We celebrated a full-salary paycheck by going out to the new and fancy Magleby's here in town... at lunch... for the free chocolate cake...

Mark was SO thrilled that I documented the moment...
the moment that he had been talking about so much with his colleagues
that they asked him every day if we'd been to Magleby's yet. :)

We introduced Paul to Oreos. They hit it off well.

We met our newest cousin, Finn (here with Aunt Sarah).

Paul discovered that he has a new smile style...

We visited the pumpkin patch (and came home with an indestructible 50¢ gourd instead).

And we used our Trafalga/Orem Owls/Utah Flash season passes for some batting practice for Mark.

(Paul was not impressed.)

Finishing up Paul's birthday

Mark's class just happened to earn Baby Paul's visit the day before his birthday... so we went to visit with cupcakes. Paul enjoyed his cupcake very much... more so than he enjoyed his cake the next day at his party. :)

He didn't really get the idea of opening presents, but he loves the toys!

The cake pre-smash (although there was very little smashing). I spent way too long frosting it and making sure the sprinkles were ONLY on the sides... to the point that I forgot to remove one of the paper towels that I used to line one of the cake layers! Paul didn't notice and neither did Grandma Waddoups when she ate a slice later. :)