It's a boy!

It is with the greatest joy of our lives that we introduce you to Ivar Nicholas Groves. This little guy came into the world on Monday afternoon, November 1st at 1:57 and has multiplied our capacity for love in exponential ways. Our hearts are full and so content. And he is complete peace and joy and awe and wonder all wrapped up in 8 pounds and 5 ounces of beautiful baby.

It's Halloween, Baby!

When I first met Rory, he told me about this tradition that he and his friend John Link had every Halloween. They set up Rory's porch with a "dummy" man next to a bowl of candy. The dummy however was John and when the kids got close enough he would just slightly move his hand or something and scare the little children.

The kicker is that they had a video camera all rigged up and in the house, behind the porch windows Rory threw a party each year where the guests could watch in real time as John scared the children.

I participated one year while we were dating, but then after we got married John moved away and I just felt funny about being the house on the block that was known for scaring children. So the tradition ended with me. Talk about a kill joy.

Our friend Beth recently asked about the video footage and in the midst of the boxes downstairs we found a dvd of one of the years. Rory clipped it together as sort of a best of. If you're not into Halloween, you may not appreciate this. But if you are, you may find yourself laughing and getting pretty fired up for an evening of trick or treating. Happy Halloween, everybody!

Boo! Halloween Live at the Groves from Becca Groves on Vimeo.

Happy Halloween!

I'm starting to get phone calls during the day wondering if I'm in labor since I didn't post anything on my blog! Ha! The truth is, I'm just really tuckered out. And I cannot tell you how scattered I am these past few days. Even when I think about what to blog about, I get all distracted because my content is crazy and unrelated and it makes me not want to write anything. But just so everyone knows I am still great withchild, I thought I'd post a few of the things I am thinking about in regards to halloween:

**My niece, Mara, carved her pumpkin last weekend. She told me over the phone, "And Aunt Becca, it is fierce." "Fierce? Wow. What makes it fierce?" "Well, one eye brow is a diagonal line going down this way, and the other eye brow is a different diagonal going down this other way, and it is fierce." She's five and I found this commentary hysterical. Her folks have no idea where she learned this word.

***We tivo's Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and tonight is the night we're going to watch this classic. I'm excited. I also have high hopes of not having this baby before halloween because I have a costume idea I am excited to try to pull off.

***(this has nothing to do with halloween) My sister called and said that her little Svea is already moving into the next size of diapers and probably soon will be out of her 0-3 month clothes. This kills me because I haven't even gotten to HOLD SVEA YET!!! But, she has been posting lots of fun stories and pics if you want to read all about Sweet Svea here.

***I talked to both Annika and my bff Heidi today and their 5 year olds both had costume changes before school this morning. Both mom's thought they were going as one thing, but the kids had a different idea when they woke up. And both mom's thought the original costume idea was way cuter, but in the end, you can't really mess with a 5 year old. Mara changed from a witch to a bee at the last minute and Isaiah switched from a Knight to a fire-fighting-army-super-hero.

***Stay tuned this weekend for a video of Rory's idea of a good time on Halloween. You will not want to miss it.

trader joe's

Do you remember the first time you shopped at Trader Joe's? I do. It was this morning. And even though I know I'm late to the party, I am so, so excited about this place.

hot soup

This picture was taken two weeks ago...

Something dramatic happened in the weather yesterday, and it turned cold. And very, very windy. I think these first days of the change of season are very jarring. I kept thinking yesterday, "Oh that's right, the wind sucks the breath from your mouth. I hate that." And then I remembered that I need to wear my contacts on rainy days when I'm running errands because they steam up so badly from building to building.

But I'm trying to take this change of seasons with a positive attitude. I do like to hunker down and cozy up. We started a hopeful new tradition at the Groves house this fall. We call it "Soup Sunday" and try to make a big pot of something each Sunday afternoon. So far we've had a few winners including chicken and dumplings, chili, wild rice soup and chicken noodle.

Here are two absolute winner recipes:
Byerly's Wild Rice Soup
Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (best ever.) **I recommend using a rotisserie chicken and two boxes of Chicken stock and I left out the cooking sherry because it was too expensive...

Hope the thoughts of warm goodness keep you toasty today!