Trick or Tweet!

So, Mommy missed the trick or treating and most of the fun - but I did get to dress up my "Enchanted Mermaid" and little Elmo and get some fun pictures before I left. Mia kept asking me, "Mom come too? Trick or Tweet?" And I had to tell her "No, Daddy will take you. Mommy has to work." So sad. Then she said, "No scary to babies at Mommy's work, okay? No say "Boo!" to babies! Babies say "WAHHHH, WAHHHH!"" Then I asked her what I should do if they do get scared and cry - she said, "Baby needs baby-milk and then Mommy "shhh, shhh" to baby." My sweet little Mia!
So while I feed babies and "shhh, shhh" them, my thoughts are with my sparkly Mermaid and sweet little Elmo and I hope they had a great time with Daddy and ate lots of candy.

Pumpkin Carving

We've been anticipating carving our perfect pumpkins for days. The girls were so excited until I cut off the tops and they saw all the "goo" inside! I have 2 children too squeemish to stick their hands inside a pumpkin or touch the sticky seeds. They gave me their input for the scary faces and quickly lost interest...

They enjoyed the cinnamon-sugar pumpkin seeds and The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown special that was on TV!

Spooky Trails

I heard a great story tonight.

Joe is out of town and I am working all weekend, so Grandma and Auntie Leslie agreed to keep our children. Being the fabulous child care providers they are, they planned some activities to keep everyone entertained during what I'm sure was a very long weekend for the adults! Ali's school had sent home a flier advertising a "Spooky Trails" attraction at a local park. The flier listed admission prices for children under 12 years old and was sent home with Kindergartners, so we assumed the "haunts" would be appropriate for the younger crowd...
The kids were dressed in their Halloween costumes as an Enchanted Mermaid, Elmo and a Dinosaur. When the admission fees were paid, the ticket-taker helpfully asked "You know there are guys with chainsaws in there, right?" So down the trail headed Grandma holding a trembling Elmo, yelling "we have really little kids here!" while being chased by dead guys with chainsaws, ghosts dripping fake blood, bodies hanging from trees and other demons. She dragged the bug-eyed Mermaid by the hand explaining over and over "it's just pretend Ali, keep walking!" while Auntie ran along behind her holding Scared-A-Saurus Rex. Then they got to the hayrack ride which was not as advertised. It was actually an F-150 pulling a picnic table bolted to a flat-bed trailer and it dragged them up a moderately busy street at 45MPH.

So thanks Grandma and Auntie for the supreme babysitting! It certainly made for an entertaining phone call! Maybe next weekend we can take them to see The Strangers or something!!

The Results Are In!!

We've had a terrific family day! Ali stayed home from school to go to our appointments with us. She was really excited to see our baby on "TV". The sonographer was great - she explained to all of us what parts of the baby we were looking at. The girls were interested for about 5 seconds and then Mia said "Baby Monster!" It did look a little scary I suppose. Before we got started we all shared whether we thought it was a baby boy or baby girl. Mia said girl, Daddy and Ali said boy. When the sonographer said we had another baby girl, Joe and I said, "Are you sure? Keep looking... " Mia was happy. Ali was not. "AWWW! I already HAVE a sister!" So, it was a little quiet on the car ride home - but everyone is coming around. We're thrilled our baby appears healthy and that she's half way done "cooking"! As for Daddy - all I can say is that he was meant to be surrounded by beautifull women his entire life. God knows what He's doing!

Recipe For Disaster

Nap time is sacred. Being a night shift worker, I really count on nap time during the week to ward off exhaustion. Mia and I snuggle up for a nice 1.5 hour nap almost every afternoon. Ali's not so into nap time anymore. She usually has "quiet time" followed by a movie or crafts and stays out of trouble. Not today. In her own words....

"Brownie Chocolate Cookie Faker Maker"

3 drops honey

4 spoon scoops chocolate powder

3 dumps flour

2 peanut butter cookies

1 small dump baking soda

1 large dump water

Bake for 31 minutes under the sink in the bathroom so Mom doesn't see it. (Forgets to put ingredients back in pantry which clues Mom into looking for large mess somewhere in house.)

Do These People Ever Go Home?

Kind of like the green grass and goal nets, we're becoming common fixtures at the soccer complex. This evening we found ourselves there for the second time today. We had a picnic in the grass and the girls played soccer with Daddy.

We found this big kid to play with!

Okay, who's hiding the soccer ball?

After soccer and playing at the park, we cruised on out into the country and found a new nature park to explore at a later time. When we were convinced our girls were completely worn out, we returned home to clean 'em up and put 'em to bed.

Taxes

Here's a cute story... Ali was eager to share the fact that she got 2 lollipops from the treasure chest at school today with Mia. She didn't want to share the candy, just the fact that she had it and Mia did not. We worked out a compromise - Ali could eat (instead of look at and hold) the lollipop if she gave the other to her sister. She even went as far as to unwrap it for her eager little sister. I was very impressed until I overheard her tell Mia "It looks yummy, huh Mia? Okay, if you want it, you have to pay the "Ali Tax" And then she helped herself to a few licks before handing it over. I had to laugh. It sounded a lot like the "Daddy Tax" the girls had to pay at the ice cream shop the other night... Just goes to show you how perceptive they are!!