C is for...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!

Cookie!!! (And candy, which Joshua has a handful of!)

Our gourmet Halloween meal........Mummy Dogs, anyone?


Inside fun once the costumes came off. Joshua (aka Skeletor) and Sydney were having a dance party while Jason played guitar for them. I just about cried laughing at them!

Pajama morning with Mommy...GREAT idea Libby!

That sure is a hodge-podge of pictures for the weekend, but it's been quite a fun few days!

Friday we celebrated Halloween with Joshua and the Bingaman family at our house. There aren't too many Trick-or-Treaters at their house, so we all decided to get together (much overdue) and let the kids enjoy the evening together. For an 18 month old and a just-two year old, they played incredibly nicely with each other. There were even some "pleases" and "thank yous" exchanged between them. We had a very fancy dinner of Mummy Dogs and homemade macaroni and cheese, which both the kids and the grown ups gobbled down. Darla made a wonderful pumpkin cake which I sent back home with her lest I ate the whole thing.


The kids did great handing out candy to the little ghosts and goblins who knocked on our door. Joshua would pick up a piece of candy, put it in their pumpkin or bag and say with a big grin, "Happy Halloweeeeeeeen". It was very cute. Sydney was on the move most of the evening, so she had a few walks with her Mommy and a few with her Daddy. When both of the kids were showing signs that they'd had enough and the flow of little people slowed down, we headed inside to let the kids play. They had a band party (Sydney is a world-champion maraca player!) and they danced for a while to Jason's guitar playing. Special thanks to Aunt Libby for Joshua's very handsome skeleton pajamas (glow-in-the-dark no less). It was the perfect time to wear them for under his Cookie Monster costume and he loved them. We can't wait to wear them again!

Saturday morning started out with a bit of a protest from Joshua about getting a haircut. He was looking pretty shaggy, but would cry at the mention of going to get a haircut. I had almost given up, thinking we were forever going to be plagued with the high pitched scream at the barber shop, until he turned around and said to Jason, "Bye Daddy. I going to get haircut at Rene's." So I looked at Jason, quickly got Joshua's sneakers on his little feet and got out the door while the getting was good. I did have to bribe him with a lollipop, but we are now trimmed up and looking mighty handsome. And he didn't cry at all. Bribery does work...and I'm not ashamed to use it.

When we got home from Rene's, Nana was waiting here for us. Pap was away on a weekend trip, and Jason was headed to Harrisburg for Key Club (acting as both of us), so Mom decided she'd come and spend some time with us. We had so much fun. We headed up to Toys R Us to look for a few Christmas things. I was amazed by the number of people who were quite obviously Christmas shopping. I'm SO not ready to get into all of that yet... I love Christmas and all it stands for, but I need a little time for Thanksgiving before I can jump full steam into Santa and trees and presents. So we left the maniacs to their toys and came home before we got gobbled up into someone's cart and wrapped and stuck under a tree.

After some lunch, Nana put Joshua down for his nap with a few good books. I did a few chores and then had some nice, quiet time to chat with Mom. It's great to do that face-to-face every once in a while. She headed home late in the afternoon and Joshua and I settled in for our night at home while Daddy was away.

Today was a pajama morning. I just couldn't get us motivated to get dressed up to go to church, so we skipped. I feel guilty, but it was nice to have a morning to get a few more chores done around the house and get moving at a slower than break-neck pace. We ran to the store for a few necessaries and then came home to meet Daddy when he got back from Harrisburg. After some lunch, Joshua is in dreamland upstairs and I'm catching up on some ironing, laundry and changing sheets on beds.

I hope you enjoyed the new pictures... We're beginning to work on a little Thanksgiving project here, so I'll have to let you in on that one tomorrow. More then.