Halloween 2010

It is after 11:00pm right now. The only thing I have to complain about this Halloween is that it is a Sunday night, which makes it a school night. There are going to be some tired kiddos in class tomorrow. My girls went to bed an hour ago, way past normal school night bedtime, but it was worth it!

Bridget decided long ago that she wanted to be a gypsy. Becca wanted to be a tiger. I knew the gypsy would be doable fairly easy, I was concerned about the tiger. As it turned out I found a tiger costume on my first trip out for costumes. I pieced the gypsy costume together as I found things. They were both thrilled with the costumes and of course looked adorable!

I decided at the last minute to dress as a gypsy too. Before trick and treating, I carved four pumpkins and the girls painted the other four we had. Schaun continued his tradition of grilling and passing out hot dogs to people all evening. We blast loud Halloween sounds and music from the garage and this year we added the firepit for some warmth. When the candy collecting was all done, the kids resumed normal play in the cul-de-sac and the adults gathered around the fire. We had a fantastic time!

Halloween Spider

Things have been very busy around here. The normal activities, plus throw in Halloween. Yes, I know Halloween is a week away still, but today was the school parties and we had to be ready today. Last week Bridget was in her third grade musical. I have not been through all my pictures, but I'm getting there soon.

Today when I went over to show off my last minute costume to my neighbor, Lynne, I saw this cool looking (or really creepy looking if you are Lynne, hahaha) spider. It was black and yellow and it had orange and black striped legs. Oh remember the other spider I posted about? I told it not to come inside. I don't know if it was that one or a friend, but I was NOT pleased to find it crawling over my foot and checking out my living room.

Weekend crafts

Saturday, I dropped in the thrift store to see what deal I could find. I found a couple bulletin boards for the girls.

This is what I brought home, well, 2 of them.

Bridget's got painted pink to match her room ans he wanted lime green trim.

Becca's is yellow to match her room, with the pink as trim. I had some of these flowers that are all over her room left over for a perfect embellishment on hers!

Park Photos

Since I have been so happy to have my blog and camera both working, I made the girls go out for a little photo shoot. It's time, it's been a while.

A natural pose from Becca. Rare!

Bridget is a natural at posing!

We found this great spot in the creek area.

Here are some of the fun shots that we took along the way.

Ack!

Becca FINALLY wants to learn to scooter.

Clams found in the creek.

Peaceful time

This morning we got up and took Bridget to a tumbling practice for an upcoming meet she will be in. Becca would rather tag along with me than stay home I guess. When we got home, Bridget went up to her room to draw and watch tv alone. Becca disappeared in the playroom. I think it is so cute how she will sit and play sometimes. She likes small things. The little toys from McDonald's, Littlest Pet Shops, and Polly Pockets...stuff like that.

Some playtime

At school, Becca is making some friends of her own. She knows a lot of third graders from going to Brownie meetings with Bridget, but now that she is going to school there, she is getting to know kids her own age. Bridget has a friend named Riley, they were in the same first grade class and are together again this year. Riley has a sister named Reagan, and she is in class this year with Becca. Having these four girls together makes for perfect playtime! I brought all four girls home from school yesterday and they pair up and do their thing. It was interesting to watch the way they behave. The older girls are what I would call happy-go-lucky. Just, go with the flow and enjoy things. Bridget is more like this than Becca in general. Becca is harder to please just in general with everything and I noticed this with Reagan too. While they were here, we went over to the park. Bridget and Riley enjoyed the playground and tree climbing, while Becca and Reagan were busy getting filthy in the sand. They made sand angels and sand beds.

My spider friend

This spider has moved in on my deck. I'm fine with this as long as it does not try to move inside.

More vacation

Schaun keeps asking if I am going to finish blogging about our vacation. I'm not going to go day-by-day as I first intended, but here are some of the highlights.

Seeing the giant mall was cool and amazing, but my favorite part of the trip was something a bit more natural. We went to Minehaha Park and saw this beautiful waterfall. I loved it! While we were in the park, they had these odd bike things to rent. It was actually a tri-cycle with two sets of pedals with two seats for the folks to pedal and a back row seat for the free loading riders. We oddly thought it would fun to rent one and ride around the park. In reality, it was a lot of work to pedal around the two girls that as I realized are just over 100 pounds together now. After we quickly and gladly turned that torture machine back in, we walked around the waterfall area and enjoyed it on foot.

This same day, we traveled around on the light rail system in the city. It was great. I am a fan of good public transportation. I would gladly give up driving and use a system like they have. We rode to the park first and when we finished there, we got back on and continued our travels to the shopping district in Minneapolis. We ate lunch at Hell's Kitchen and walked the area a while. We didn't shop, except for some candy in this old fashioned candy store. We got back on the train and headed back toward the Mall where our car was parked. When we returned to the car we discovered a very flat tire. That was great fun getting fixed. Once the spare was on, it needed some air in it. We had to hunt down a gas station for air to discover the valve stem was broken and we could not get air in. In the end, a nice young guy helped us out by staying late working on our tires. We missed dinner and everybody was getting cranky, but we returned to the hotel and let the girls swim and they were all happy again.

Even though we do not have to go on vacation to swim, that is what they loved the most I think. Well, Bridget loved the rides, but I think Becca liked the pool time best.

Here are a few more random pictures from the Mall. We spent a lot of time walking the whole thing!

This was Bridget's favorite ride. She went on it over and over and over and over!

In the Disney store I dared the girls to stick their head in the gator mouth. Bridget was game for it!