The Lyon's Den: Pre-Halloween Festivities

Graphic photos included in this update - you've been warned.

Monday started out awesome. Avery and I slept in until 10:30!! We are both getting a lot of extra sleep without the noise from Steven working in the morning. I had planned to stay in my pajamas all day but quickly realized that Avery had no diapers :/ When we got home from the store Yvette stopped by for a visit. I was glad to have Yvette over because Avery had spent the day demonstrating the power of Terrible Twos.

On Tuesday I was determined to potty train Avery. She spent the entire day without a diaper (except for nap time) but refuses to use the potty :/ Avery will gladly sit on the potty, make a fake peeing sound, and pull up her pants but she won't actually go. I wanted her potty trained by 2 but that dream is quickly fading away.
After Avery's nap that day we headed out to Meridian for dinner with my parents. I stopped at my doctor's office to get a flu shot since it was on my way. The nurse was awesome, I didn't feel a thing :) Dinner with my parents was awesome as usual. I got a phone call from Steven while I was there, he was having a blast! He said he would try and call me in a few days.

Avery helping her favorite girl at Starbucks restock

On Wednesday I made an appointment for Avery to get her flu shot. My mom had planned to stay the night at my house so she picked us up and drove us to the pediatrician. I asked the nurse to give Avery her Hep A shot also, she wasn't able to get it at her 18 month appointment, so I decided to get it out of the way so she wouldn't have to get any shots at her 2 year appointment. We got the sweetest nurse who was also incredibly fast at giving shots, the entire thing lasted 3 seconds max. Avery handled her shots like a champ and afterwards the nurse let her pick a toy out of the treasure chest. Avery normally takes her time choosing something from the treasure chest but the second she saw a small stuffed dog she snatched it up :)

On the drive home we stopped at Coldstone, I had a gift card. I got salted caramel and sweet cream, mom got salted caramel and mint. We gave Avery a few tiny bites, she would've devoured the entire thing but she's still sensitive to milk :/ After ice cream we went back to my house for dinner, I made a lasagna, and Yvette came over to eat with us. It was nice having an all-girls night :)

Sharing Mimi's ice cream

By the time I woke up on Thursday my mom had already left for work. She called a few hours later to say she had Chinese food for lunch and the leftovers were mine if I wanted them - heck yes! Avery and I went to my mom's house for dinner that night. I was expecting a call from Steven and I got it - he told me that he was coming home early! He showed up at my parents' house about 45 minutes later, it was a great surprise :)

Steven and his dad on their trip

On Friday we lazed around until Yvette got off work, we took Avery to her apartment and switched cars, she was babysitting that night. Yvette took Avery and Anne out to dinner, then back to Mike's house to sleep. Steven and I had a date night. We went to Anne's restaurant for dinner then went to the Farmstead. We did the regular corn maze first, we were in there for about 2 hours! It was a lot of fun though, we had a little map and completed the entire thing :) When it was dark we went through the Field of Screams (basically a scary maze), the two girls who were in line in front of us were too scared to go alone and asked us to go with them. The scary maze was a big let down to be honest. It wasn't scary, some actors were just walking around with their masks off, and the family in front of us was SO slow that the actors who were actually doing their job didn't have time to 'reset' before we got there :/ We decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory after that and each got a slice of cheesecake. I don't really care for cheesecake but I love their dulce de leche cheesecake!

Yvette brought Avery home the next day. Steven made the difficult decision to sell his Xbox 360 in order to pay for the PS4. We took all the Xbox stuff to Game Stop and surprisingly made over $250 (in store credit) and put it towards the PS4, which is Steven's Christmas present this year. The sucky part about sell the Xbox is that we have no DVD player, no Netflix, no regular channels, and no video games for a month... Within 2 hours we were bored out of our minds. I sat in silence the first year we lived in Korea and to be honest I'm not looking forward to doing it for a month.

Sunday was busier than usual. We went to Mike's house to drop off Avery and trade cars with Yvette. We then went to Steven's grandparents' house to get his deer - Steven had to cut the head off before we took it to the butcher. We traded cars with Yvette because I didn't want a decapitated dead animal in the Durango :) We dropped the deer off at the butcher and put in our order - jerky, steaks, sausage, etc.

Steven and his grandma cutting the head off his deer

We picked up Avery and took her to my parents' house for Sunday dinner and pumpkin carving :D Its early in the month for carving pumpkins but Quinn was going to be off work to participate so we carved anyway. Avery got to color her pumpkin with sharpies :)