Visit from Friends

In the beginning of November my very good friends Dana and Kristin came to visit us. We all met at college and bonded quickly, remaining great friends through the distance and changes of adult life.







Kristin brought her 5 mth old daughter, Donna, to visit also. We love having a baby in the house! Her presence was wonderful and the girls LOVED playing with her. They named their baby dolls "baby Donna" and loved gazing at the real Donna and petting her hair very gently. Fiona wanted a bit more "baby" attention for herself during the weekend and a few days afterward, which was to be expected.







The visit was lovely and we did a lot. Friday we went to tiny tots for Fiona's class, then picked up Luli and had a picnic. Luli took us all to see the "magic rocks" and take some pictures there. Saturday we went for a hike and picnic at Great Falls National Park, and Sunday before departure we enjoyed brunch at Patowmack Farm.

Beautiful Weather

We woke up Saturday morning to beautiful weather, getting up to the 70s. Well you can't sit around the house on a day like that in November! We packed up some lunches got dressed in our hiking gear and headed out to Shenandoah. The leaves were a wee bit past prime but it was a beautiful afternoon and the colors were still impressive. After a visit to the visitors center and touching all of the display stuff there we headed out to a short hike with a nice view. I should remember nice view always means rocks with sharp drops. This experience always leads to heightened anxiety for me even when it's just me and Oscar, add in my curious children and I'm a heartbeat away from a heart attack. Oscar likes to climb all over the rocks and Luli really wanted to climb with him. So it was *fun* keeping her with me! You can see in the pictures that I've got anxiety written all over it. Other than that we had a great time and really enjoyed the beautiful skyline drive and hike.

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween festivities started early, with Luli's preschool party. All the kids dressed in their costumes for the day at school and then prepared for the party with all their parents attending. They started with a costume parade around the school house and then inside for the show. The kids performed three songs and then it was time to party. Luli sang and danced the last song, which this year it was surprising that she didn't do the other two. Her teachers say she is the loudest singer in the class! Not surprising, she's a loud singer at home too. You'll remember this is a huge change from who Luli was last year, the shyest in the class.

Fiona also had class on Halloween and continued refusing to wear her costume, instead she carried duck everywhere. Oh well, at least I got it cheap on Ebay! Fiona and I left her class early in order to attend the party, which just required us walking across the hallway. And daddy arrived from work for the festivities.

Then in the evening we waited for Daddy to get home early then ate dinner and got our costumes on...ok well Luli got her costume on and Fiona put on a sweater while she carried duck around. Then we were off to trick or treat! We started at our next door neighbors house, who had a lil pirate and a k9 police officer. We had both police pose for pictures, then a pic of the pirate and his police dog. So cute! We went to all of the neighbors we knew and then a few right in our closer area of houses. The girls had a great time yelling "HAPPY HALLOWEEN TRICK OR TREAT." Fiona would yell her version of "TRICK OR TREAT, DUCK DUCK DUCK!" The girls had a great time and Mommy and Daddy scaled back the treats considerably.

At home for handing out candy we had only a handful of visitors so I'm left with an enormous bowl of candy which is now stashed in the freezer! Some years we have lots of visitors and some we have none, bummer. Luli and Fiona really enjoyed handing out treats so it would have been a lot of fun to have more visitors...maybe next year we'll have a new neighborhood and lots more goblins and princesses to visit us!

A policeman, a duck and a mommy go to Family Fun Night

Luli and Fiona's school hosted a few family fun night Halloween events this week. We went tonight and had a great time. However, getting homework done, dinner fed and out the door by 5:30pm was no easy task! We got there and picked out our pumpkins and started in the pumpkin painting room, which is when Daddy met up with us. We saw many of our preschool friends there, though they were disguised as transformers, firemen, Minny Mouse, Princesses, and Superman. The girls did great jobs painting their pumpkins and Miss Cindy said it right, they looked more like porcelain than pumpkins! Needless to say these didn't dry by the time we were departing, so they'll come home tomorrow.

After pumpkin painting we made bats, and their wings are the shape of our hands! Luli and Fiona both did a great job with this! With two crafts under our belt we headed into the snack room. We found apple cider and lots of sweets! After an energy boost we tried to get on a hayride but it was full...so on to the final craft. This one was to create pumpkins on a fence. The craft corresponds to a song that Luli and Fiona have learned in their classes at the farm. I helped Fiona with her's and I would call it more of a collage than pumpkins on a fence, though I really like it! Luli and Oscar worked on one and it also came out lovely. Attempt number two at the hayride, again no such luck. It was getting late so we chatted with Miss Cindy and Miss Fran for a few moments and then were on our way home for bedtime.

Miss Cindy said tomorrow they're voting for Blue's Clues vs. Elmo, I'll let you know who wins!

Mess Mess Mess

We were in the playroom and Luli said "FIONA! Let's make a mess!" and Fiona responded "YEA!" and they proceeded to pour their toys around the floor and shuffle through them. They were giggling so hard that I couldn't see the harm. That is until they really poured EVERY toy on the floor and were headed for the books, then it was time to clean up!

Pumpkin Time!

This afternoon we carved our pumpkins! After nap the girls got up and had their snack on the deck. It's been a beautiful day with high 60's temps (quite different from the past week). The girls picked out all the pumpkins earlier in the day from the grocery store, two big ones for Mommy and Daddy and small ones for the girls. Once the girls were sufficiently snacked we started the design process. Mommy and Luli teamed up to create a "Happy" pumpkin and Fiona and Daddy teamed to create a "sad" pumpkin. Apparently the sad pumpkin's mommy wouldn't let him be a duck for Halloween!

Luli really wanted to cut but that's a bit advanced so she settled for popping out all the pieces. It seemed a good compromise because she didn't whine for cutting anymore and was totally into the whole process. Also different from years past with Luli and pumpkin cutting, she was really into cleaning out the pumpkin. She still isn't into putting her hands in but she efficiently scooped with a big spoon. Fiona definitely wasn't into putting her hands in the pumpkin but enjoyed holding the spoon next to Daddy as he worked.

Once the pumpkins were carved we did some photo taking and added our pumpkin family to our family portraits. Once the sun set we lit them up and they look pretty cool!

Peanut Brittle

Oscar has been wanting peanut brittle. Apparently he REALLY wanted it because he and the girls made it this weekend. I had planned on making it on Halloween. The girls were really adorable helping out as best they could. Everyone donned their aprons, and the little ones pulled up chairs to the counter and then stove area to help prep and watch Daddy stir. For a first attempt it came out pretty good.