Halloween! Finally!

Alex came in my room this morning and the first words out of his little mouth were, "Are we going trick-or-treating today?" After assuring him that yes, we were, he snuggled with me for a few minutes and watched cartoons. Later this morning we made a cute Halloween craft. I copied this idea from my friend Giannina. I have to admit that I'm not a very crafty person and I didn't think for a long time that Alex would enjoy doing crafts with me. But he actually had a ball making these little candy corns. It was really fun.


Alex is sometimes a stinker about me taking his picture.


After Alex made four of these little candy corns, I decided to hang them up over our mantle in the living room. Look at that happy face! So proud of his work!


And the jury is out! Alex was Lightening McQueen for Halloween. Again. He kept telling me today that he was going to be Batman, but no. He is all dressed and ready to go. He's excited if you couldn't tell by this picture!


Here we are heading out trick-or-treating. I'm happy that Daylight Savings hasn't ended yet, because it was actually dark when we left at 7 p.m. And it was a beautiful night here in Texas! You couldn't have asked for nicer weather on Halloween. Cool, but not cold. Perfect costume weather!


YES! The best part of the night: coming home, out of your costume and dumping your candy bag! After an hour of trick-or-treating, Alex told me he was ready to come home and eat his candy. And that was just fine by me because I think he came home with the perfect amount of treats!

A picture of the kiddos once we got home. Alex was just as happy to pass out candy as he was to receive it. So sweet! He loved our jack-o-lanterns.

Addison wasn't feeling well today. She started getting a runny nose yesterday. So she wasn't the most cooperative kid tonight. But she did get dressed up as Tinker Bell. She just rode in the stroller the whole night as we went trick-or-treating. She did, however, enjoy the loot once we got home! And of course, she went straight for the chocolate. I think she ate more candy than Alex! By the time I bathed her, she was a disgusting, sticky, gooey, chocolatey mess! Thank goodness Halloween is only once a year. Again, it was a really fun Halloween. I did miss Roger and wished he could have been here with us. I hate that he misses out on memorable evenings like this. One of these years, when the stars align, we'll spend Halloween together as a family. Looking forward to that!

And so, Halloween is over. At least we have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up to soften the blow that Halloween is over for a whole 'nother year.

Jack O Laterns

Alex looks forward to "pumpkin time" all year...the time of year when the pumpkins are out at the grocery stores. He asks me all year long, "Is it pumpkin time yet?" So I had the bright idea this year to actually go to a local farm here in Arlington and pick our own pumpkins. It was a good idea in theory. The pumpkins on the farm weren't quite orange yet. But we were assured they would be orange by Halloween.


Or not. And I also had the bright idea of buying four pumpkins, forgetting that Roger was leaving for school for the military. So I spent hours yesterday carving all four of my greenish orange pumpkins. But Alex loved it, so that's all the matters.


Here he is just being silly.


Making a scary face, like his Jack-O-Lantern.





Funny how he kinda looks similar to his pumpkins. Like how some people look similar to their pets. Pets, pumpkins. Work with me here.

Ah, finally, a nice photo of Alex. He was so happy to have Jack-O-Lanterns!

And Addison had to have her picture taken too with the Jack O Lanterns. One shoe and all!

Pumpkin Day

Pumpkin Day is one of our favorite activities that Alex's preschool does every Halloween. We missed it his first year of preschool, and had a ball last year. So we were really excited to go again this year. Pumpkin Day is a day full of Halloween themed activities, and the children go as classes from one 15-minute activity to the next. And the best part is the parents can tag along for the day if they want. I have to confess -- I really enjoy preschool! Not sure what that says for my maturity or my mental state. But seriously, it's so fun to see what Alex does every day and to meet all the different teachers. We have been so pleased with Alex's experience at St. John and can't wait for Addison to have her turn. Pictures to follow in the next post.

Pumpkin Day Pictures

These are a sampling of our pictures from Pumpkin Day. Enjoy!


Our first activity of the day was snack. It was yummy, but cold, and we were eating outside. Alex, the ultra picky one, only eats the sweet stuff, like the marshmallows. Addison chowed the whole thing! Maybe I should make her some snacks of random cereals, marshmallows, raisins, and serve it up in a paper coffee filter at home.


Next we went inside to stations. This is actually Alex's classroom. There were other fun activities set up around the room, but Alex never moved from the pumpkin spice scented play doh. He LOVES play doh!


Next stop was music. It was so fun to hear the cute songs they teach at his preschool. They sang this funny song about a coo-coo clock. Here Alex is running around like the coo-coo bird.


We had craft and story time next. Each activity was only 15 minutes, and you can only be so crafty in such a short amount of time!


Next stop, tattoos and festive pictures. Alex wanted nothing to do with the tattoos. And he wasn't real cooperative for the picture. I tried to get a shot of him kissing Addison, but this is all I got. Oh well.


We headed outside to the pumpkin patch next. Each kiddo picked out a pumpkin, and then played some games. It was really cute and I think this was one of Alex's favorite activities. They had sack races, tossing a ring around the pumpkin and a bean bag toss -- all right up his alley!


While outside still, our next activity was painting pumpkins. However, Alex was distracted by the trucks and really didn't paint his pumpkin.


All he really wanted to do was drive the trucks around. He is still really into trucks right now.


And since Alex didn't paint his pumpkin, we thought we'd let Addison take a turn! Alex's teacher when he was 2, Ms. Josie, was running the painting station, so she just let Addison at it. She LOVED it! She had a ball grabbing every paint color and testing it out on the pumpkin. We also stopped and played on the playground.


And our last activity outside was the petting zoo. Addison really loves animals, as you can see here with the goat. Alex was too busy kicking goat poop for me to get a shot of him. Nice, huh?

The last activity for the day was "Stretch and Grow." This is probably my favorite, favorite thing that Alex does at school. Ok, he does a lot of really good things at school, but I love this one. Stretch and Grow is the "PE" for his preschool. And they just do the cutest, cutest things with the kids. I just love that they learn about their bodies (imagine my shock two years ago when my little two-year old came home saying "obliques" and "bicep, triceps"!). And all the while, they are having fun AND exercising. What a great way for the kids to start learning about taking care of themselves! I just love the creativity and thoughtfulness that goes into Stretch and Grow. It was such a fun day! Sad that this was Alex's last Pumpkin Day, but, thanks to Addison, happy it's not my last Pumpkin Day :)

Sky Ball VII

This past Saturday, Roger and I attended the Sky Ball. Neither one of us have ever been to one before, so we weren't too sure what to expect. It turns out the Sky Ball is actually a pretty significant fund raiser for the Joint Reserve Base. The money raised goes to help a variety of causes, such as Snow Ball Express (something for children who have lost a parent in the war), providing wounded soldiers with prosthetics, Operation International Child (an organization that collects school supplies for the children in Baghdad and Afghanistan) just to name a few. There was also a silent auction going on during the event.

For me, it wasn't exactly what I had thought it was going to be. The name implied something different (like maybe there would be dancing or something). It was held at an American Airlines hangar and they had a bunch of planes set up on the tarmac, which was cool to look at.

The highlight of the night though was the "Red Carpet." For the high rollers who could afford to donate a lot of money, you could purchase a seat on an AA jet, which flew into Alliance Airport. Then everyone deboarded the plane onto a red carpet and walked the red carpet into the Sky Ball. Well, one of these "high rollers" was the actor Gary Sinise! Now, I'm not one to think that I would get all gushy over seeing a celebrity. But I couldn't help but get a little ga-ga over seeing Gary Sinise up close and personal. He walked down the red carpet and I took several close pictures of him with my camera as he walked by. I felt very paparazzi-ish :) Another highlight of the night was hearing from Mike Durant. The real Mike Durant, as in the pilot that was shot down in Mogadishu and who the movie, Black Hawk Down, was about. Hearing from him and seeing him in real life was pretty amazing!

So all in all, it wasn't the night I was expecting. But it was still fun. And as we sat at a table full of high-ranking officers, I was glad Roger and I made the appearance. If nothing else, it was good face for Roger. And a fun excuse to get all dressed up!

October Fun

We have done so many fun things so far this month. I have a lot to catch up on! Today we had a fun Halloween party with our play group. Our sweet hostess really out did herself with festive Halloween food, decorations, games, prizes and just all around fun. Alex had a ball!

Alex really enjoyed playing the games, and here he is playing the bean bag toss. I thought this picture was so cute! Alex has several costume options for Halloween, and today he chose Lighting McQueen.

Alex is giving me his best Lighting McQueen look (not sure what that is exactly!), and his special friend, Ella, is giving me her best princess pose.

Alex is trying out his new vampire teeth.

Addison even played one of the games, although I think she might have been slightly confused by the small tub of water with duckies in it...is this a bath tub or what?

After a while, I realized I hadn't seen Alex for a few minutes. So I went to check on him and found him in the kitchen doing one of his all-time favorite things with one of his all-time favorite girls: decorating sugar cookies and eating only the frosting! How sweet! It was a really fun Halloween party and we're so grateful to our friend Giannina for hosting it. We're looking forward to it again next year!

Good News from Physical Therapy

We are working so hard on getting Addison caught up to where she needs to be: caught up on her weight, caught up on her milestones, caught up on her brain growth. Well, good news on one of these fronts! At 16 months, she is finally walking! It has been such a gradual process. She started with taking a few steps here and there. Then this weekend, she really just walked everywhere she wanted to go. I figured when she was walking more than crawling on any given day then I could officially say she is walking. And this weekend, she did that!

And more good news: Addison's sweet physical therapist, Heather, was so pleased with Addison's progress that Heather only wants to see Addison once a month now instead of once a week. Yay! Heather said that Addison walked holding her sippy cup, which was walking with her hands in front of her instead of out to her sides, steadying herself. This was a goal that Heather set for Addison to reach in 6 months! Heather was so pleased with this because it showed that Addison has good core strength. Who knew? I sure didn't, so I was so proud of my little AddiKat! Heather sent home some more exercises for me to work on with Addison, so we'll be tackling those in the next few weeks. I'm just so happy and so relieved that Addison is making some progress. I could do a jig! But I won't because I look like Elaine when I do jigs. Someone out there with some grooves do a happy dance for me and Addison!

Halloween Mania...It's Starting!

This weekend, I decided to take a walk down Halloween memory lane and drug out all of Alex's old Halloween costumes. He thought this was great fun and has since played dress up every day. Tonight, we thought we would get Addison in the spirit of things and dressed her up too! This Buzz Lightyear costume is from two Halloweens ago and Alex still loves it! So cute!


In other big news, Addison is officially walking! She pretty much walks everywhere now, except when she feels the need for speed. They she gets on all fours again. I'm so excited to see this little milestone reached! Finally! And Yay!


We finished the night with some ghost cookies.

And yes, there are still some foods that Addison still has to eat in the nude. Like cookies with icing. And drinkable yogurts.

They Really Do Love Each Other

Now this is not something you see every day at my house. I'm glad I have proof in the form of a photograph!