A Super Halloween

Without trying, the kids both picked out superhero costumes for Halloween this year – Ironman and Supergirl.  We packed a lot of activities into this day and only had a couple of minor melt-downs.

After our now traditional “orange lunch” of macaroni and cheese and mandarin oranges, were the obligatory pictures next to the pumpkins.  It’s almost impossible to get a good picture of the two of them together these days. 

Next we were off to a Fall Festival downtown with friends.  The kids played carnival games, Ari went in most of the bounce houses and we enjoyed some corndogs on the lawn in the beautiful weather.  Keira was overwhelmed by the people and the loud announcer.

Finally, we were back home from some quick trick-or-treating and handing out candy of our own.

Ari loves handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters and turned it into quite the science this year.  Keenan instructed him to hand out 3 candies to each kid.  Ari would carefully count out the candies, one kid at a time.  After a while, he decided to be prepared.  During lulls he would count out the candies into piles and even made sure all 3 were the same kind.  Poor kid.  That’s what happens when both your parents are engineers :)

Happy Halloween! :)

Baby Pictures!

Here are a few of the pictures we received from our sonogram the other day.  The baby is healthy, strong and growing right on track.  We got to see lots of kicks and wiggles and most of the time both hands were on the head (you can tell in the straight-on shot) which gave us a clear hand picture.

Profile

Straight-on

Feet

High Five!

Wonder of Wonders

I’ve posted previously about Keira’s boycott on dresses.  I still try to get her to wear one about once a week, but usually a battle ensues and I’ve decided it’s just not worth my time and energy right now.  We already have daily struggles about what she will wear without adding dresses in the mix.  So last night I decided we’d pick out clothes for the morning in hopes of avoiding said struggles.  I pulled out a purple (her favorite color) dress and asked if she’d like to wear it in the morning.  She said yes!  This morning came and she willingly put it on under the impression it was just a long shirt.  She was a bit confused as to why she didn’t have shorts on so I grabbed a pair of short, purple, knit shorts that hid nicely under the dress.  Problem solved!  She kept the dress on all day and didn’t complain once.  She looked so cute and girly!

I pushed my luck further this afternoon when I asked if she’d like me to paint her nails since I had just had mine done.  Again, she said yes!  The last time I attempted to paint her nails she freaked out after the first one yelling “take it off!  take it off!”  I wasn’t expecting any better this time.  To my amazement, she let me paint all 10 fingers and all 10 toes (purple, of course) and even take some pictures.  I had the nail polish remover nearby in case of a repeat incident, so after the pictures she insisted on taking it all off.  Oh well.  It was still a fun little bonding moment none-the-less.

Lil Punkin’s

My sister came to town this weekend for my birthday. After being cooped up in the house for a week from sickness, we were finally able to venture out to the pumpkin farm while she was here. It as actually quite hot that afternoon, but the kids still had fun exploring pumpkins, doing the hay bale maze, riding little tractors, going down the slides and checking out some farm animals.

I owe a big thank you to my sister who also cleaned my house, entertained the kids, treated me to a pedicure and handled both kids at a gymnastics birthday party for me as well! Thank you for a great weekend, Auntie! :)

A Handy Party

When we were picking up party supplies for Keira this summer, Ari spotted the “Handy Manny” (or Handy Mandy and he likes to call him) supplies nearby and soon became set on that theme for his party.  After some brainstorming, Keenan and I came up with a plan to have his friends meet us at the monthly Home Depot Kids Workshop then we’d all go to a park to play and have cake.  It was probably the most laid-back party we’ve hosted so far and I think everyone had a great time.  As a bonus, Yia Yia and Papa were in town for the festivities :)

Ari was ready to work, but Keira was a little sleepy.

They moved the workshop outside this time so we had to wait for them to set up.  Luckily there were some lawn tractors nearby to keep the kids occupied.

Then it was time to get to work.

The finished products – fire boats!

A few more friends were able to meet us at the park.  The weather was great!

What a fun day!!! :)