Playing Catch Up - Halloween edition

This is embarrassingly belated, seeing as how we have our Christmas tree up and decorated, and there's actually snow on the ground outside, but this post will be about Halloween. Photo uploading and blogging got lost in the busy transition into our own house, so I'm only just getting around to it. While I could skip a Halloween blog all together to try and save face, I just love pictures of pumpkins and costumes too much to let it slide. So here's a quick narrative through 20 pictures of the way we celebrated Halloween this year.

#1. We went to a second pumpkin patch, one where you could pick your own. Hayden was excited and wanted to walk the length of the patch.

#2. Eliza amongst the little pumpkins in the patch. We were kind of late in the pumpkin picking season so most of the pumpkins were pretty small. And I think there were some pumpkins that had been "planted" (if you will) in the patch for latecomers.

#3. Hayden very carefully selected her perfect pumpkin.

#4. Eliza amongst the BIG pumpkins. These were not in the patch, but on display. And such a perfect photo op. I think Eliza was checking to see if the one next to her was bigger, or maybe she was trying to figure out an escape route.

#5. While you may think I annoy my children by various "photo ops," in this case, I think Eliza liked posing on a giant pumpkin. Once we took her down, she wanted to climb right back up. No mountain (or pumpkin) is too big for our little mountain goat!#6. And after failing to climb Mt. Pumpkin, Eliza discovered that it made a good drum.

#7. Then she explored the mums with poppop. She's a busy one.

#8. Hayden poses with Daddy. Yes we had to bribe her to smile for the picture. (what was the bribe you ask? playing a game on Daddy's new iphone.)

#9. The carved pumpkin! H selected the shapes for eyes and nose. And she insisted on it having a sad mouth. I don't know why.#10. As part of our Halloween-related activities, we made cookies! Grandma was nice enough to mix up some yummy cream cheese cookie dough, and Hayden and I did the rolling, cutting and decorating. (and much of the eating as well!)

#11. Don't they look great?! Which one would YOU pick?

Then there was the trick-or-treating (hereby known as ToTing). We ended up in an situation where Hayden wasn't going to get to go "real" ToTing, because we were headed to State College to move out of our house on Halloween weekend. Durham doesn't move ToTing but we weren't going to be in town. State College moves ToTing when it's on a weekend(don't want to mix little kids in costumes and drunk football-crazy undergrads!) but we weren't going to be in State College in time for the designated night. So we improvised. Grandma was kind enough to recruit 4 neighbors to "practice" their ToT routine. We dressed the kids in costumes and headed out. Hayden was a clown, Eliza was a giraffe.

#12. At first Hayden was an angry clown. This is her "don't take my picture Mommy!" face. She was going through a phase.

#13. One of the great things about doing ToTing on an offnight- everyone gets to go out, because no one has to stay home and give out candy! I think we might have confused a couple people who were out walking that evening.
#14. Can you tell that Hayden is still in "no photos" mode? It's hard to shoot eye daggers at mom while sucking your thumb for comfort and wearing an adorable clown costume!
#15. Caught in the act of ToTing.
#16. Finally! A happy clown! (Yes we bribed her. With her Halloween candy.)
#17. More happy clown - this time with a giraffe as a pet!

#18. Isn't the giraffe the cutest?!!! (Eliza was a trooper. The costume was fleece-ish and it was over 80 degrees. But she didn't seem to mind.)

#19. At the end of ToTing, I ran home to dress up silly so they could ToT at our house. This caused Hayden to get upset ("wait for me Mommy!") and turn back into "no pictures" mode. So it was just me and the giraffe for a family halloween photo by the pumpkin.

#20. The clown eating her bribe. In Hayden world, closing her eyes means I can't take a picture of her. Ha! Little does she know.

Happy Halloween!

Hayden's first haircut

Amidst the craziness of moving (we close on our house tomorrow!), we found time to finally get Hayden's haircut. She had never, ever, ever had her haircut before. We've been talking about it for a while. We've read a book about Elmo visiting a hair salon (he gets his hair turned blue!). She admired Jason's recent hair trim. But we hadn't quite gotten around to it.

But today, we finally took the plunge and got her haircut.

Here's BEFORE and AFTER shots.



She was very nervous. She wanted to hold my hand the whole time. She really wasn't sure about getting her hair blowdried. But she was "very brave" as she announced at lunch afterwards. Plus, she looked awesome with her sparkly red shoes peaking out from the cape. She even got two lollipops from the stylist as a reward.

Doesn't she look great, post-cut? (yes it's hard to tell much difference, but it is shorter and more even...)

House Hunting

As you may know, we've been in the market for a house since moving down to NC, so we're done some serious house hunting. And I mean SERIOUS house hunting - I'm pretty sure we've seen at least 60 houses in Southwest Durham. Crazy. And the girls came along for almost all of our hunting. They are real troopers (as is our wonderfully tolerant real estate agent!).

I never did take any pictures of us on the hunt, but have enough little tidbits about house hunting that I thought I'd share. Hayden has learned A LOT about houses in our search. She now knows what popcorn ceilings are and delights in announcing "daddy there are popcorn ceilings!" though I think she's confused about their desirability. (Jason does NOT want popcorn ceilings, but I think Hayden wants them. They are popcorn after all!)

She has learned the word "trashed" and can use it correctly. We have been in a few foreclosure houses that are in not-so-great shape. I still don't quite understand why that means that the carpet is stained and destroyed and the place is such a mess but usually the foreclosure houses were trashed. We must have commented on this out loud, Hayden picked it up so that in one houses, as we were leaving and passing by a dining room that was actually in pretty good shape, she announced, "Mommy this room isn't trashed!" No Hayden, it was not. :)

Hayden has also taken a strong interest in our lovely realtor, always asking if she will be the one showing us houses (occasionally her husband stepped in), following her around and asking questions. Luckily our realtor was very patient and tolerant and dutifully answered her questions and comments. In one house that was wooing us with chocolate chip cookies, I saw Hayden heading upstairs with one in hand. I asked her what she was doing, since she already had one, and she said, "I'm taking it to Kim, Mommy!" We also had a conversation one evening about what Kim would have for dinner. (I pointed out that I did not think Kim would be having smoothies for dinner, which was something we were considering that evening.)

Hayden definitely enjoyed looking at all the different houses. She was eager to open every single door, all by herself. If we were told there was a cat, she looked all over for it. She wanted to see if there was a pink bedroom available. And was even willing to try strange potties, even as she was just starting to use the "big potty" by herself.

I think both Hayden and Eliza particularly enjoyed the houses without any furniture in them because then they could run around freely. They took advantage of that and ran around and around in circles, laughing all the while. Eliza delighted in climbing whatever stairs she could find and toddling as fast as she could go while Hayden ran around. Both were amazingly tolerant of getting in and out of the car over and over again. We didn't see too many in any one house hunting session, but there was still a lot of transferring. There were only a couple times that Hayden had to be carried out of the house.

Probably the best house hunting story is Eliza's. We pulled up to a house - that ended up being on my short list - and we stopped along the curb to wait for our realtor who was running late. I'd brought sandwiches for the kids, because it was dinner time. I'm feeding pieces to Eliza while she sits in her car seat when suddenly she THROWS UP all over herself, and the carseat. I pack my diaper bag to be prepared for most things, but wasn't really prepared for throw up. I got her out of the car, stood her in the grass while gingerly peeling off her clothes. We used all the napkins we could scavenge in the car to wipe up the throw up. And of course the house was not currently lived in, so there were no paper towels to be found. I did have a change of clothes, and we were able to leave the windows open so it worked out okay. That was the start of the stomach bug that came thru our house a couple weeks ago. And then, when we went back to the house the next week, Eliza spit up AGAIN in the living room. Needless to say, we did not pick that house.

So no pictures from house hunting, but here are a few random ones from our current housing situation. The girls LOVE the child-size rocking chair in the living room and can often be found in it. Eliza climbs in, sometimes stands up, and sometimes gets a leg stuck when she tries to get out.

The other big excitement of being at my parents' is Dooley dog who is the most patient, wonderful yellow lab you ever met. Hayden often takes naps with her. Eliza lights up when she sees her "doo-daw, doo-daw" while signing "dog". And Hayden loves to play chase with her around the house. While Hayden tells me we can't take Dooley with us to our new house, she has already requested her to come visit. Here's a picture of Hayden and Dooley waiting outside for Daddy and Poppop to come home.

Oh, and here's a picture of what WILL be our new house, if everything goes according to plan. Come visit!

Corn Maze

I was feeling a little down, because we were in North Carolina, far away from our favorite pumpkin patch we have visited the past two years. Luckily, Lori lives right near a farm that was doing lots of fun fall activities and invited us to go. That's how we ended up walking across the road from Lori's neighborhood to Green Acres farm, and spending a sunny October morning on a hayride getting licked by cows, wandering in a corn maze and jumping in a bouncy house.
Once we got onto the farm, we hopped right up on the wagon for the hayride. We drove past a little pond, through a field of cows and back to the main action. Jason got licked by a cow and we learned how to sign "cow" to Eliza, though she didn't feel like trying it herself. She was too busy taking it all in.

the cow that licked Jason - it's too bad we couldn't get a picture of that because it was QUITE the tongue.

After the hayride, Hayden insisted on going in the bounce house. It may have taken her awhile to get up the courage to enter a bounce house, but now that she's tried it, she's ready to jump whenever and wherever. She had a great time bouncing.

Then she tried her hand at milking a cow. You had to squeeze pretty hard to get any "milk" to come out but she managed.

Then we headed to the big draw of the day - the corn maze. This is what it looked like. Jason took a picture of it with his phone to use as a "map," though I'm not sure how much it helped us.

You were supposed to find ten stations throughout the maze, but we only managed to find 9 before we got tired and hungry. Eliza got bored early on and took a nap on my back. Hayden alternated between being bored in the stroller and eating anything we offered, and walking while insisting on being the "line leader" and telling us she'd find the next station with her "flashlight eyes."

the view of the cow pasture from inside the maze

After making an escape from the maze, Jason and I tried to "ring the bell" at a strong man game. Jason was indeed a strong man and rang the bell fairly easily on multiple tries. I had multiple tries but was unable to ring the bell. It's a lot harder than it looks - I was too worried about missing the pad to swing with all my might!

Then Eliza woke up and got to try climbing on the huge mound of hay they had for kids to play on. She wasn't too impressed, I think she was still waking up. She did do a wonderful "GQ" pose as Jason called it.

There were also plenty of other photo ops with those funny scene face cut outs. Lori and Wes did one near the corn maze. Then Lori got Hayden in a couple. Cute!and then right before we left to go find lunch, we stopped at the pumpkin display for some seasonal photo ops. Pumpkins were on the pricey side, but they still made a great backdrop. I do love a collection of pumpkins for taking photos! Hard to get the girls both smiling and looking at the camera in the bright sunshine, but even so, they still look cute. Also, please notice their themed shirts!

Happy October!