Fall in the Neighborhood and Grandma Time

After crazy September rain storms, we had such a nice October with lots of sunny, dry weather.  The girls, and rest of the kids on our block, have enjoyed the annual tradition of playing in piles of our neighbors beautiful red maple leaves that always fall early when the weather is still nice.  It makes for great after school fun.  We also got a quick escape to the beach house while the weather was still beautiful.  The girls loved exploring the rocks and tunnel, we got to carve some pumpkins, and Sam and I had some quality time sitting on the deck in the fall sunshine!

Oceanside rock climbers

Sunshine girl

The sun lit up her jack-o-lantern.

Since Halloween was on the heels of our Disney trip, I knew that my girls would probably end up some kind of princess this year. And they were.  While in Disneyland, Sasha's obsession with all things mermaid led her to choose an Ariel costume, Morgan really wanted to be "Sophia the First," a new tv show about a girl princess.  Unfortunately, they don't have a Sophia costume, so she settled on Sleeping Beauty, I mean "Princess Aurora," which we were often corrected on.  And despite there being large amounts of glitter around the house for a few weeks, both girls looked fabulous on Halloween.  We had a lot of fun trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with friends.  The weather was perfect and there were so many more kids this year - our neighborhood is really growing.  Some neighbors even made a piñata for the kids to do before trick-or-treating.  It might become a new Halloween tradition!

Ready for candy!

Sasha had no problem keeping up with Morgan.

 Morgan was the only brave girl to whack at the piñata.

Awesome, adorable neighbors!

Princesses, astronaut and transformer attack the leaves!

The girls also had a lot of fun doing "Grandma Art."  Ron and Dinda came over for dinner, and Dinda brought over a whole bag of art supplies so the girls could make owl puppets.  Dinda is so thoughtful and, ever the teacher, always coming up with great ideas for the kids to do.  Even with limited vision, she dives right in to help them, and I love listening to the conversations they have together.  Grandma Dinda always explains things in a way that makes perfect sense to kids (and adults!), and I love how she makes everything you do totally okay, mistakes and all.  She is such a great model for her granddaughters.  And the fact that she thinks they are the most brilliant children in the world makes her even more amazing!

Trick or Treat Cuties

This year, when I asked Morgan what she wanted to dress up as, I was quite happy to hear she wanted to be a cat.  I can handle that!  So, with a tail and ears set from Target and using the cool face painting kit she got for her birthday, her costume was very easy and also very cute.  Morgan wanted Sasha to be a little kitten as well, but I never got around to getting organized, and despite Sasha wearing pieces of Morgan's costume around the house for weeks, figured she probably wouldn't be that into dressing up this year.

But Sasha did great when it came to face paint.  I painted a mouse nose and whiskers on her, and she held so still.  A friend who has a daughter Sasha's age wondered at how I was able to put face paint on her and have her keep it on.  Oh, the power of the big sister!  So with her face paint and Minnie Mouse ears, Sasha became a mouse to go with Morgan's cat.

Over the weekend, Morgan enjoyed her preschool fall party, where her best school friend also came dressed as a cat.  Two peas in a pod!  And then last night on Halloween, Sasha and Morgan both dressed up again to trick-or-treat with Morgan's neighbor friend, who was dressed as a witch.  Daddy, Papa Ron, and Aunt Kimmy took the girls out for trick-or-treating - Sasha's first time!  They both came back 45 minutes later with their buckets full of candy and filled with excitement.  And amazingly, the rain stopped and the weather was just right.

It was a great Halloween!

Trick or Treat?

We had lots of opportunities to celebrate Halloween this year, and Morgan was raring to go several weeks ago.  Her initial costume idea of a "rainbow" left me wondering what I was going to do.  Then she switched to wanting to be a "red butterfly" so that made life easier...sort of.  Her preschool fall celebration was ten days before Halloween and exactly one day after I started looking for a costume.  I was determined not to spend a bunch of money on a store-bought butterfly costume, which essentially all look like (for the girls) a modified princess costume.  No matter what kind of outfit you are looking for... be it a bug, pirate, animal, or otherwise... all the girl's costumes (and women's as well) are all just frilly dresses.  And those aren't even the "princess" costumes.  But I won't get into my anti-princess rant because I'm sure that's what Morgan will want to be next year!


But Morgan and I did put together a pretty cute (and cheap) butterfly costume that she was very excited about - that was the most important thing, after all.  Thanks to the wonderful invention of sheets of self-adhesive craft foam, we were able to make one pretty easily...in time for her preschool party.  She was dressed all in red, but insisted on purple pipe cleaner antennae. :)  She also wore her costume to our friends' annual Halloween party, and of course trick-or-treating.  She decided that Sasha should dress up as a bumble bee, and after I came up with an equally cheap, homemade version, she basically refused to wear any of the accessories and ended up looking like a referee.  Oh well!

Our jack-o-lanterns:  "Two-teeth Sasha" and "The Pirate"

Our cute little punkin'

Morgan loved trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood, although in her excited state, managed to fall and trip several times, spilling only a little bit of candy in the dark.  Morgan, Papa Ron and I went out with the neighbor kids across the street and it was a lot of fun.  Sam stayed home with sleepy/sick Sasha and Grandma Dinda.  Morgan quickly figured out how to worm her way to the front of the pack at each house.  I'm pretty sure she never said thank you, despite the millions of reminders ... but we will work on that for next year. 

"Smile, Morgan!"

"Smile with your eyes open, Morgan!"

"Smile normal, Morgan!"

La Mariposa

Ready to head out with Papa Ron on Halloween

Sasha prefers TP-ing the house to dressing up.

 Now it is November, and Sam and I have our own version of trick or treat.  We will be spending five days in Miami, Florida very soon!  He is presenting research at a conference in South Beach, and because it is a work trip, we are turning it into an affordable family trip.  We have been both excited for the sun, beach, and a new city, but also wondering if we are crazy to take both girls and all stay in one hotel room together.  We are very lucky, though, because Aunt Kimmy and cousin Alison will also be joining us to both help out and go out with us!  I am definitely looking forward to a girls night out in South Beach! 

I figure, if we can survive the journey to get there and have low expectations for getting a  lot of sleep, staying on a schedule, etc., we will have a great time.  After all, traveling with kids is not really a "vacation," but it will definitely be a break from the laundry...the dishes...the cooking...and most importantly.....the weather!   (P.S.  I have not been able to get that Will Smith song "Miami" out of my head all week.  Awwww  yeahhhh!)

BOO! It's Halloween!

Halloween has always been a fun holiday, although never my favorite as an adult - probably because I can never think of a good costume. When we lived in Eugene we had a friend who always threw fun Halloween parties at her house, filled with lots of drinking, music, and hilarious costumes (worn by our friends, of course). Those were good times.Since Morgan came into our lives, Halloween has evolved. Her first Halloween she was only a month old. We were still in our 'adult' lifestyle and we even brought her to our friend's Halloween party - before all the festivities began. I think we dressed up as exhausted parents with spit-up on our shoulders and dark circles under our eyes (not too far from reality). Morgan was clueless as she was passed around to our friends (like Janell and Eriel!).When Morgan was one, I had a cute duck outfit for her to wear. But dressing up was not her thing, so after a very brief photo shoot filled with dirty looks and some tears, Halloween was pretty much a non-event. I think we only had two trick-or-treaters at our house anyway.Last year, we were in Portland and Morgan was two. She had also entered the petri dish that is day care, and was sick for most of the fall and winter. By the time Halloween came, Morgan had a bad ear infection and was dazed from fevers and antibiotics. We did have a cute ladybug costume that was passed down from Avery, but there was no way Morgan was going to put it on. Our German neighbors and their two year old were all dressed up and very enthusiastic about this American holiday, unfortunately we weren't able to join them for trick-or-treating. The funny thing was, by the time Christmas came, Morgan was very excited about the ladybug costume and danced in front of the Christmas tree wearing it. Now that Morgan is three, Halloween is quite different. This is the first year that Morgan 'gets it.' She loves dressing up anyway when she plays, so getting encouraged to wear a costume is right up her alley. We had been passed down a very nice dalmatian dog costume from her cousins, but Morgan insisted that I should "go to the monkey store Mommy and get me a monkey costume." (She honestly believes there are stores for every specific item.) I wasn't going to, but then I happened upon a costume that was just her size and on sale, so I caved in and got it for her.

While she was at first a little cautious around ghost and witch paraphernalia, which I tried to avoid, now she likes to pretend she is scared and then laugh. She also likes to repeatedly shout "BOO!!!" at us so that we will act scared. She finds this pretty hilarious. She got to experience her first pumpkin patch complete with pony ride, and pumpkin carving at the beach a couple weekends ago (of course she wanted a monkey jack o'lantern). We also made some Halloween cookies, although she definitely preferred the pumpkin cookie cutter over the cat and ghost ones.This week she kept asking us, "Is it Halloween yet?" so I know that this holiday definitely means something to her. And she got her fill of Halloween all weekend. On Friday, her preschool had a fall potluck for families. The kids got to wear their costumes and do some craft projects at school. On Saturday, our friends threw a Halloween party/open house so Morgan got to dress up again. This time Sam dressed up along with her....as the Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George. All I could come up with was to make my belly look even more like a pumpkin!Finally, Sunday was actually Halloween and Morgan was very excited to go trick-or-treating. Ron, Dinda, Kim, Sanju, and their puppy Kushi (who was also dressed up) came over to see Morgan and hang out for a while. After dinner Sam and I took Morgan to some houses around our neighborhood. It was the first time we had trick-or-treated since we were kids. Morgan knew exactly what to do and loved ringing doorbells and saying "trick-or-treat." She didn't even seem to get spooked by the spider webs and other decorations on people's houses. There were lots of families out and the weather turned out perfect. It was a really fun 'first' Halloween for Morgan and feels like a whole new holiday now that we are parents.