What is Halloween if not the perfect opportunity to force your children to look ridiculous for your own amusement? Case in point.

So this year I wavered for a while on what Finn’s costume was going to be. I was pretty proud of last years and wanted something equally unique. My first idea was Max from Where the Wild Things Are but Patrick pointed out that it might be a popular idea. It turns out it wasn’t, because there are no commercially produced Max costumes, so only kids of amazingly talented mamas were Max. Check out this amazing one by a friend in our ward.

So I moved on the leprechaun idea. With his red curls and charm, Finn would be the most adorable Notre Dame mascot ever. Plus we could take him to campus on game days and show him off. When it came time to make the costume though, I just let it get way too late and then got intimidated by having to sew a vest and jacket. Maybe next year. We scrambled and settled on aging rock star (we had just seen It Might Get Loud and were inspired by Jimmy Page’s rambling coolness). But then while in Texas, inspiration hit and the perfect costume hit us: mariachi!

So I think the twins shock is finally starting to wear off,  if that’s even possible. We’ve gotten used to the idea and started doing our research. We still have many momentary panics as we realize yet another way that life will be completely changed, but we figure that we wouldn’t be blessed with these babies if we couldn’t handle them. And my mantra from Finn’s early months is being resurrected when I need reassurance: “Stupider women than me have done this.” If I knew how to cross-stitch, that would definitely go on a pillow.

So in my last post I mentioned that as soon as we found out whether we were having a boy or a girl, I’d be at the yarn shop picking colors. Well folks, here is the winner….

It must be a combination of crisp fall weather, friends having babies in the past couple weeks, and an early nesting period, but I have been knitting like a grandma on crack lately.

So while we’re loving life back in the good ol’ US of A, life just isn’t as strange and interesting and definitely not as bloggable. I don’t have clever boab stories or tales of the latest disastrous vacation on the Red Sea. Everytime I think now “Oooh, I need to blog that!” it usually involves Finn. And while he’s great and all, I’m just really hesitant to become… a mommy blogger. Shh! Even the words make me cringe.

You know what I’m talking about. Blogs that show potty training pictures and are non-stop updates of cute things kids did. It’s just not for me.  With d’Nile, we’ve had so many interesting other things going on that we were able to have more balance. Now that I’m home with Finn and the unborn all day with no Nadia, taxis, or Egyptian soldiers involved, it’s a little more difficult. So I end up not writing at all, rather than forcing myself to blog something I don’t want to.

But I’m going to try to do better. Because come on, life isn’t totally boring just because there aren’t sandstorms in South Bend.

…a post!

Yeah, yeah, I know. I won’t insult you by making up excuses to cover the fact that I’m lazy and I won’t bore you with a re-cap of everything we’ve been up to lately.

So onto the big news: we’re having another baby!!!

The air smelled like sugar and barbecue all at the same time. Around us, interesting looking people wandered from booth to booth, their arms overflowing with elephant ears, goldfish in baggies, and giant stuffed panda bears. To our left, a kid walked by pulling three large cows with colorful spray paint on their bums. Neon lights blinked and danced from the creaking rides nearby, illuminating bored carnies with mullets and goaties pulling levers. The sign above our heads loudly proclaimed “deep fried Pepsi!” We were at the St Joe County Fair.

Thought I’d share a clip of what Finn was up to in Texas.

Yes, that’s a mop bucket.

What a month it’s been since we last posted. We’ve been crazy busy making the transition from settled expatriates to unsettled transients to settled homeowners. There’s a lot that goes into that. Now the chaos is finally dying down, we have a strong wireless connection courtesy of someone in the neighborhood (we’re getting our own set up tomorrow), and State of d’Nile is back, albeit with a few less boab stories.

Melissa has charged with summing up the end of our Egyptian adventure. Since I had charged her with singlehandedly buying a house, I think it’s a fair tradeoff.

Our time in Egypt ended as it began – strange and wonderful and foreign and familiar.