Halloween and Galena and that week in Between

I came on to write about our weekend and then got totally sidetracked by the fact that I never wrote about Halloween.  For shame!

Halloween was great.  The girls were so excited to be Satsuki and Mei from Totoro and Felix as a tiny Totoro was pretty darn cute.

In retrospect I'm surprised that it was all as easy as it was.  The costumes weren't too tricky to make, everyone was happy and excited.  Ainsley did want to wear her penguin costume to school but when I picked her up she'd changed into her Mei costume and was so happy to trick or teat in it (in the rain!).  I think she and I have both mellowed quite a bit over this past year.  It's all not such a big deal.

The girls didn't mind the rain at all and we still got two good blocks in, ran into friends and Ainsley in particular REALLY enjoyed handing out candy once we were done.  She was doing this hilarious thing where she'd open the doors, then bend down on one knee and hold the wooden bowl up like an offering to the kids.  It was so hilarious.  I'm laughing out loud right now just thinking about it.  She also switched costumes.  Her Mei costume got a bit wet so she went upstairs and came down in a very eclectic garden fairy costume.  Next year I'll just have them raid their dress up bin I think!  She looked so cute and was so proud!

Carving pumpkins the weekend before Halloween was so fun.  The girls both grabbed some guts, though Ainsley was reluctant at first.  Louise told her to be brave so she did.  She's not one to have her little sister show her up!  The girls both wanted happy pumpkins and were a bit nervous about me making a scary face.  I went ahead with my plan mainly because I'm trying to show them it's not a big deal and not REALLY scary to have a spooky jack o lantern.  They came around in the end and liked all of ours.  Felix had a ball just hugging and patting and sucking on his pumpkin while we all carved.  Just like a 6 month old should.  It was a great time.

So Halloween was great and we spent the next week enjoying normalcy.  I had Felix's 6 month appointment and the girls' conferences, and we scheduled lots of playdates.  The week just flew by!

Felix is holding steady in the 70th percentile for both height and weight.  He's growing so well, eating tons, now I just need him to stop wanting to eat all night!  Thanks to mom friends on Facebook I found a bottle that he'll finally take.  The Playtex nurser.  I find it hilarious that this third baby of mine only wants to nurse and when he will take a bottle it's the cheapest plastic kind.  Ha!  Oh Felix, you're lucky you're so cute :o)

The girls' conferences this year were a breeze.  I remember being so anxious last year.  It was all new!   This year I was looking forward to sitting down with the girls' teachers.  Ainsley's teachers talked about her "astounding and magnificent vocabulary", her impressive (and relentless!) creativity and how well she plays with other children.  I can brag a bit because I'll happily admit that we both agreed we need to work on her transitioning from one activity to another and taking care of her belongings.  It's always good to know that teachers see the same things I do and that we're all working towards the same thing, happy to have our Ainsley girl around.  She's pretty great.

Louise's teacher teared up talking about her.  She's apparently pretty sweet and fun to have in class.  It's always nice when a teacher starts a conference with "she is an absolute joy, i know I'm supposed to find a concern, but I just can't".  I stressed that we're continuing to work on letter recognition with Louise, mainly because she seems to eager to learn to read like Ainsley is and she's ready!  

I'm growing to love conferences.  It's nice to have confirmation that we have two pretty great girls on our hands and aren't completely screwing up in the parenting department :o).

Coming off such a great week I guess I was feeling adventurous and decided we needed a little family trip.  I inquired on Facebook about Galena, IL and got an unexpected message from an old friend offering their house to us in the area.  So we packed up and left on Saturday morning.  Galena is about three hours away and the drive was easy enough.  The scenery out in northwest Illinois is beautiful, rolling hills with trees, lots of farms, sheep, horses, cows.  The home was beautiful and the girls in particular enjoyed the family's fondness of disney, in particular the tinkerbell/princess room they got to stay in.

We ended up just staying for a night and I took NO pictures.  Sadly a lot of the activities that we had counted on were not available.  Horseback riding was closed for the season as was the alpaca farm, and downtown was not as kid friendly (or delicious) as we had been hoping for.  Still it was fun to have a little family adventure.  Ian and I spent our one evening away sipping on mead playing a rousing game of Big Bang Theory Trivia and then went to bed early.  Ian took the girls to the resort pool while I packed up the next afternoon and we were back in Oak Park 36 hours after we left.  I think for now we'll stick to familiar vacation spots.  It's a bit hard to be spontaneous and flexible with two preschoolers and a baby who still doesn't sleep well.

Now we're home.  It's a rainy cold day with the promise of flurries this afternoon.  I'm hopeful!  I went grocery shopping just now all by myself, thanks to Ian having the day off of work, and I'm excited for some good food this week.  I feel like all we've had to eat the last few days are fries and burgers!  On the menu is chicken curry, another batch of a delicious butternut squash soup that I made last week, this time with a side of scallops, alaskan salmon with sweet potato swiss chard gratin, homemade chicken noodle soup per Ainsley's request, and calzones.  Mmmm.  I best get cracking' in the kitchen.  I hope you all had a great weekend!