October 2012

October has been moving along at a quick pace, so probably the best place to start is with an update on our house. Last month, I mentioned that we were putting up some fiber cement siding along with finishing our basement. Well, with only a few hiccups, the basement is ready for carpet and a couch to be delivered in early November and the house is half painted and the siding is complete. Our goal of having both of these projects done by the holidays is easily going to happen and we couldn’t be happier with the progress that has been made. We were looking forward to hosting a few Colts games coming up maybe in November, but we haven’t decided on a new TV for the basement yet!


Allison is getting more and more talkative. The only catch is, we can only make out a small percentage of what she is saying! She will babble, sing and carry on and then laugh or say “Yeah!” and we know she is enjoying whatever she is talking about. I assume most of what she is saying is something sang or talked about at daycare, which makes sense why we may not quite be able to figure it out! As she gets more talkative, she gets a little whiny sometimes (can’t imagine where she gets that from…I can see the collective roll of eyes from all readers indicating that I am getting what I deserve). Her eating is sporadic at times and her sleeping is still going really well. She has also started to pick up several animal sounds, like cow, duck, lion, sheep, monkey and even donkey!

Beth’s fiancé, Matt, had his bachelor party in early October and we went to Cincinnati for the weekend. We met up at a casino in Lawrenceburg, IN and enjoyed a night of gambling and a steak dinner. We then went to Kings Island the next day and remembered why many adults don’t ride coasters as easily as teenagers. I’d say the long lines helped us and were appreciated! Pete was able to make it and everyone had a good time.

Deb and I had our first vacation without Allison. We went to Green Bay, WI for a Packers game. Deb has a friend up there that got us tickets so we enjoyed seeing such a great venue for a sporting event. We stopped off in Chicago on the way up and stayed with the Ragos. We went out to a bar for a fundraiser and Tim and Amy Benck were able to come out and see us. While in Green Bay, we enjoyed a chance to work out, sleep in and have some nice meals in the area. I think Deb and I did well being away from Allison, but on the day we were to come back, we were both up a little early and ready to leave and head back to see her!

We celebrated Halloween by going to our neighborhood pizza party and then Allison and I went trick or treating to a few houses while Deb stayed at the house to hand out candy.  Allison dressed up as Elmo thanks to Deb’s mom who made the awesome costume.  Allison loved being Elmo and actually stayed warm because of her costume. 

A few more items from this month:
• We had our 5th Light the Night Fundraiser for LLS. It isn’t an easy day to try to raise money for a disease that affected our lives and took away a loved one, but we hope doing it will honor dad and hopefully bring us closer to a cure or better treatments.

• We had a check-up at the doctor and everything with baby #2 looks great. We have decided to not found out if it is a boy or a girl, which is what we did for Allison also.

• We enjoyed a dinner with Matt and Beth. They brought over Papa Murphy’s pizza and caught up a little. They both sounded excited for the wedding coming up on Nov. 3rd.

• We attended a party at the McGrath’s. It was our first chance to see their new house and it was good to see our Purdue friends.

• Deb had a work function where she went duck-pin bowling. She was the only one to get a strike!

• We had our second round of family pictures taken. We did them outside around our house.

• Deb and I went to the Colts game vs. the Browns.

• I got a chance to hang out with Brian and Gareth, 2 of my high school buddies, during the middle of the month. It had been way too long since I had seen those guys.