Preserving Family Memories from October 2023 | The Abbey Archives

October is always one of my favorite months – fall is at peak color, the weather is typically beautiful, it’s my birthday month – but this particular October we’ll look back at as a roller coaster.
The month had it’s highs and it’s very lowly lows.

Let’s start with the highs: Derrick threw me a wonderful birthday party – my entire family came over, we ate ice cream sundaes, and set off a confetti canon – it was great (and that officially means that the birthday confetti tradition is now a whole year old!)

We discovered that Leander had a super loose tooth – he was initially freaked out by it (he asked if I could give him some medicine to help it stay in), but eventually warmed up to the idea of losing a tooth like some of his “cool” cousins have. He wiggled it to the point of it barely hanging on, but couldn’t bring himself to actually pull it out – so Derrick did the honors for him!

Halloween was FREEZING, but nothing could keep our little Mario and Princess Peach from galavanting around the neighborhood, collecting their weight in candy and treats (seriously, every year we are SHOCKED at how many treats they bring home!)

Abby did give us a little bit of a scare and Derrick ended up taking her to an emergency vet about an hour away. Thankfully, it was just an infection and after a round of antibiotics, she has gotten back to her normal self.

And sadly, my Grandma passed away about 2 weeks ago. We knew she had been deteriorating and thankfully had some really nice last few visits with her. The reality of her being gone is still very fresh and real and we miss her every single day.

Moments of note this month:
(0:37) Braelynn created a Crayola Color Pet Tutorial (she’s been obsessed with these little toys for over a year!)
(1:21) Carving pumpkins
(3:04) Abby gave us a little bit of a health “scare”, Derrick had to take her to an emergency vet an hour away – thankfully it was just an infection and after some antibiotics, she’s back to her normal self
(3:09) My friend Tiffany opened her brand new studio space and we celebrated
(4:09) Happy birthday to me!
(6:20) Leander discovered he had his FIRST loose tooth!
(8:04) Our last visit to Kennywood before the park flips into Christmas mode
(8:49) Leander LOSES his tooth!
(9:47) Trick or treating!
(10:46) My Grandma passed away this month and we miss her terribly – words cannot describe how thankful I am to have the photos and videos of her that I do!

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Just in case you’ve missed what I’m doing – I decided that I wanted to create a curated “home video” for our family every month (remember those old “home movies” our families used to create? with the giant video recorders that an entire VHS tape fit in?) Those videos were fantastic, but if you’ve ever sat down to watch one (does anyone even own a VHS player anymore?) you very quickly realize that you do a lot of “fast-forwarding”.

So, my goal, is to take all the little videos I take of our family over the course of a month & create a short (my goal is to be around 10 minutes) video of my favorite snippets. I am SO excited to finally have a dedicated place to chronicle my family videos & keep them safe & accessible.

Enjoy a little peek into what our October looked like!