halloween....it's what we do for the candy.

my snow white, cinderella, and fire man were amazing trick or treaters this year! it was so FUN to watch them run from door to door collecting their candy. it's a special day for me...to watch them enjoy themselves so much. these kids are magic to me and i count myself blessed to be their mom.

cinerella and snow white...is it weird that i never want them to grow up?

they were so cute that now i want to dress them like this everyday.

my lil' fireman. he was so good at trick-or-treating this year! he ran from house to house telling each person what he was...he could not have enjoyed it more.

a perfect cinderella! she was super excited for the dress and the makeup and the candy...she has her priorities straight.

ahhhh...just. too. cute. for. me. her sweet face could knock me to the ground. she was such a great mommy too...reminding ellee and casey to say thank you at each house.

casey threw a fit about getting his costume on...so i demonstrated how easy it was by slipping into a spare thomas costume...and then it just kinda stuck. keeeelasic.

nora. she is so adorable, she didn't even need a costume.

the crew...ready to work the streets for a bucket full of fun sized chocolate bars.

what it meant to us.

for us, going to michigan this past weekend was more than just a road trip with one smiley boy....

one very patient 7 month old baby...

an imaginative 3 year old...

a driving machine....

a crazy momma....

and a sleeping beauty...

this weekend was more than fun at the play world...

although they did love the playworld..

this trip was special...

this trip was a lot more than the (very few) moments i captured...

it was more than an afternoon with the (very) special people who love us and who are loved from so far away...

being with our schans family was even more than family meeting family...

it was us. us at our best. us happy.

our family. relaxed.

our family. reconnecting.

it was magic. thanks all. we love you.

winner winner chicken dinner.

thanks mckmama for the corn maze tickets! (for those of you who don't read her blog, you should. i mean, what are you thinking? the site is below. click it. love it.) and thanks to all the visitors for checking out this ol' blog! how fun is this, am i right?

this little bit of fun really made my day! see...here's me finding out that i get to take my husband and small army of children to the super fun corn maze!

here's what i was doing before i won...this is a disheveled pile of semi-folded laundry. looks fun, but not as fun as the corn maze!

here's what i think of the whole deal...i'm pretty stoked. thanks again mckmama!

the beginning of us.

when i was younger, i wanted to have everything. i didn't dream of getting married. i never had boyfriends or a binder full of baby names. but i did have a vision. dreams of my life to come included an apartment in the city. a busy, high-powered job, and dinners delivered to me late at night. it's what i wanted, or at least, what i thought i wanted.

when i was a freshman in college, i met matt. i remember the first time i spoke with him. i was sitting on the floor of a bustling south hall lobby playing euchre with my posse. he came in with his then girlfriend. she kindly introduced me to this tall, lanky boy wearing a green spartans hat. it was just a moment. nothing special. i took note of him only because his girlfriend was a friend and she lived directly across the hall from me and so i figured i would see him pretty regularly.

throughout his first couple of years, matt dated a hand full of other girls within my circle of friends (one of my very best friends in fact!) but still, i never really noticed him and i am certain the same was true for him about me.

until junior year that is. matt and i were both hired as resident assistants. matt and i did our first 'in-duty' (a security funtion where we had to patrol the campus together for hours on a roatting basis) together in january of that year. he had recently become single and talked with me all night about what he was looking for. together, while on a break, we sat in my dark living room; i remember almost everything about those minutes. our chirstmas lights provided the dim glow of a guy in a baseball hat who was sad and a little lost. the way that matt was able to talk about what he wanted from his life and from his future wife was so honest. for the first time, he made it safe for me to think about what i wanted for myself too. over the course of those four hours, i literally fell in love with him. when our shift was over, i went home, and told my roommate that if i ever got married, it would be to him.

we remained close friends throughout the next year...but still only friends (sigh). in january of our senior year, we took a road trip to geneva college where we were both considering for graduate school. i was as giddy as a school girl getting to spend so much time alone with someone i just adored. after three days in pennsylvania had passed, it was time to head home. we loaded up in his black grand am and began our 6 hour drive back to chicago. about an hour in, for whatever reason, the wipers on matt's car stopped working. the temp outside could not have been above 15 degrees and the dirt and sand that the trucks were kicking up at the windshield coated the glass making it nearly impossible to see out of. i suggested numerous (brilliant) solutions, but matt remained steadfast. that is to say, he was disinterested in remedying the problem, but would have rather have driven home behind the cataracts of a filthy windshield than listen to me about how to fix it.

i was irritated. he was irritated. we were in a fight. (our first!)

after about an hour (of dodging semi trucks and searching for clean spots), matt stopped at a gas station and somehow, fixed the wipers. more importantly, he apologized. (his first!) and i melted. it struck me that he cared that i was upset. and it got me thinking...maybe.

as we got closer to home, i was feeling sad. maybe it was because matt was talking about an ex-girlfriend and the possibility of him meeting and marrying a girl in pennsylvania (i could have killed him....can you imagine?). maybe because i was quiet (i am usually not quiet) or maybe he had the same realization that i had but matt was quiet too. as this trip sped toward its end, i realized that if we didn't have the ol' DTR (define the relationship) discussion before we got home, it was never going to happen.

just then i said 'do you every think we have a weird relationship?' without hesitating, he said 'do you think it's weird that we have never dated?' almost before he could finish his sentence, i blurted 'YES!'. and with that, matt said the words that changed our lives... 'shannon whalen, would you like to go on a date with me?'

i am not exaggerating when i say that in the moment i said yes to a date, i knew that we would end up married. eight months later we were engaged, and 10 months after that, i became matt's wife.

in those pivotal moments, when our choices were laid out in front of us and we could have gone in one of many directions, matt and i decided to go it together.

as i fell in love with matt, gone from my dreams were fancy apartments in the city, late night delivery and a high powered anything. it became clear that i wanted a life with him, no matter what. when we were 21, we never could have imagined what our life together would hold. from infertility, to our mid-west moves, to a busy life with four children. never never never could i have imagined what we have today.

i am beyond blessed. i love my husband and i adore my children. no matter where the road takes us, we have each other and that's everything.

30 hours

over the course of the last 30 hours, i...

* woke up when the clock still had a 5 as its first number, fed nora
* got ready, finished packing
* got casey up, changed a diaper, reminded him that i was going to chicago
* welcomed our WONDERFUL babysitters (i OWE you, heather, tegan, tavi, and thea!!)
* debriefed said babysitters on our crazy schedule
* hugged sophie, casey, nora and a sleeping ellee
* ran to the car, luggage in hand, and drove to the airport
* parked, checked in, found the gate
* boarded a plane and flew to my second home, chicago
* landed, debarked the plane, and ran to the car rental
* madly texted the alumni board to let them know i was on the way
* rented a car, drove like a crazy woman to trinity
* scoured the TCC parking lot, finally found a spot no less than 2 miles from my building and parked
* ran to the meeting and overly-participated...all day
* meetings meetings meetings
* chatted with friends, made plans for the night, hiked back to the rental car and set out for the hotel
* checked in, went to my room
* checked for bed bugs, found a colony of spiders (sick sick sick)
* called the front desk, requested and was granted a new room, moved to it, and madly texted friends from earlier that i was on my way
* realized that i had forgotten my rental car keys in room #1, contacted the front desk (yeah, they loved me), got let in to spider-fest 2010, retrieved keys and ran to the car (you can only imagine the words that came from my mouth)
* went to hunan inn, ate chinese and reconnected with a dear friend over delicious mushu and sweet and sour. (nadia, you know i adore you!)
* thought for an hour about what it would take for me to write a book (i really really really want to, but it's hard)
* said my good byes and began my two stop hunt for contact solution, found it, bought it, and headed back to the hotel
* fell into bed, watched jimmy fallon's 'thank you notes' and said good bye to the day
* said hello to the day again three times as drunk wedding goers ran and screamed up and down the hallway all night
* woke up for good at an ungodly hour, got ready, ran to the car and enjoyed coffee with another dear friend (keith, no matter what you choose, you will be fantastic!)
* texted, confirmed, and ran to the car for a breakfast date with two more of my very best friends
* ordered, ate, laughed and celebrated before running to the car, picking up another coffee, and headed to the airport. (love you kelli and jeni!)
* stopped at a grocery store to pee
* found the airport, dropped off rental car, and ran to the check in
* waited a mere minutes and boarded the plane.
* flew to minnesota, landed, and located my car in the long-term parking.
* crawled into my car from the passenger door because some butt-hole parked three inches from the drivers side making it impossible to get into from that door (again with the words i said to this particular driver)
* paid, left, drove home
* walked into what looked like a tornado-ravaged home, hugged my family (the tornadoes) and yawned.

i said to matt 'i am so tired.' he responded with 'why are YOU so tired? you have been on vacation.'

well....right.