Halloween 2012

This year we went trick or treating in our new Aliso Viejo Neighborhood. We went with our friends and their four year old son. The night was a little cooler than past Halloweens. We started out at 6:45 and were done by 8:00PM. Ava was a fairy princess and Charlotte a little giraffe. The night before we made Halloween cookies (not from scratch), carved the pumpkins, and roasted pumpkin seeds. We made the most of Halloween without getting into anything scary. Our kids get scared pretty easily. Most Disney movie villains are still too scary for Ava to watch, as well as Barbie movies, and even the Care Bare movies. The villains in the movies are really what scares her, so we always end up turning off the show. She is use to only watching a few favorite TV shows that have no villains. Why rush the movies? When the time comes she and her sister will enjoy the Disney movies and others. She did enjoy cracking up to Snoopy in It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. So, maybe will try to order the Thanksgiving version of Charlie Brown from Netflix next.

                                                                           Halloween 2012

Halloween lunch was uncured hot dogs wrapped in crescent roll dough to make mummies!

                                     Playing pin the nose on the pumpkin with our friend Liam.

                                                    Getting ready to go out and trick or treat.

                                    Carving our pumpkins and getting the seeds out for roasting.

Ava initially was getting gooey with it and decided on her own to go grab some sandwich bags from the kitchen to use as gloves instead of her bare hands to pull out the pumpkin seeds.

           Charlotte meanwhile was very busy decorating her "baby pumpkin" with glue and pompoms.

                                     

Our pumpkin seeds roasted at 325 degrees for 25 minutes with some olive oil and salt. Makes trying to clean the seeds all worth the effort! Yum!

Starting out trick or treating with Grandma and Daddy. I went too of course but there was no way I can actually be carrying the kids or be doing too much walking up and down steps and across lawns or any other obstacles in the dark. At 37 weeks pregnant and trick or treating I enjoyed watching my kids and going but tried to take it easy as well.

                                                      Fairy Princess Ava and Fire Fighter Liam!

                                                            Liam, Charlotte, Ryan and Ava.

                                                           Fairy Princess Ava trick or treating.

Grandma and Charlotte making the rounds. Charlotte was quick to make it to the next house and kept admiring everyone's "baby pumpkins".

                                        Charlotte and Daddy admiring the "baby pumpkins" again.

                                                                 Happy Halloween 2012!
                                                                              The End

Ava at 3yrs 11mo Old

Ava is 3 years and 11 mo old now and is super excited about welcoming her new baby sister. She talks about helping take care of her and naming her. She says my stomach is big enough and thinks that the baby can come out now. Soon, I tell her. Ava turns 4 years old on Nov 29th and her new baby sister is due Nov. 21st. Their birthdays will be very close needless to say. She suggests silly names to name her sister almost daily; such as Humpty Dumpty and Rainbow Dash. Ava was ill 2x in the last month; nine days with the flu and then a 24hr case of fever and vomiting the day after Halloween; poor girl. She is feeling pretty much 100% now. She is still going to gymnastics on Thursday mornings and is getting better at practicing writing her letters and numbers. She loves watching Daddy play Minecraft and has her own Minecraft game on my laptop now. It's a block building game. You pretty much stack blocks and create anything you would like; house, furniture, village etc. She weighs about 35lbs now and is 41.5 inches tall. Her favorite dessert is cookies and cream ice cream or cotton candy flavor Thrifty ice cream.  For lunch she also loves salame, cheddar cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches. She is not big on breakfast and usually only has a strawberry milk and an occasional bread roll. For dinner she enjoys broccoli, green beans and couscous and sometimes chicken or sausage (although very recently she did enjoy some pork tenderloin). And spaghetti with parmesan cheese is always a winner in our home.

                   Watching Daddy play Minecraft and holding her beloved Baby Kitty up.

                        She still loves Bob the Builder. Took a nice 50 cent ride at the mall in passing.

She is still obsessed with kitty cats and paints her nose and gives herself whiskers. She also recently learned to cross her eyes and thinks its funny to do it for pictures. I definitely did not teach her this.

                                                 Drawing and painting are still a favorite activity.

Again, making the silly faces. We recently purchased a booster seat to fit into our mid-size SUV. This is Ava using it on the first day. I would rather have her sit in a 5 point harness car seat, but it's a tight squeeze with three car seats in a row. She does meet the weight and height requirements for the booster seat, but I would still rather have her in a regular car seat. Her regular car seat goes up to 60 lbs weight limit.

Mission Viejo Hometown Halloween Event

We dropped by on Saturday at the Norman Murray Community Center for Mission Viejo's annual Hometown Halloween event. It's sponsored by Saddleback Unified School district and geared for little tikes. It's not scary, there are games, pony rides, hay ride, arts and crafts and trick or treating. They never run out of candy and the kids get to practice saying trick or treat. Plus, they get to wear their costumes early and get more use out of them.  Ava decided to be a fairy princess and Charlotte picked out the giraffe head band and tail at Costume Castle. Ava had been saying she wanted to be a pink kitty cat for the last two months for Halloween. She picked out kitty ears and a tail at the costume shop but was not excited about the actual cat costumes that were black and brown. Once she passed the princess accessories aisle it was game over. She changed her mind about being a pink kitty cat and picked out pink fairy wings, a crown and wand. She has a white dress up gown at home to wear with her accessories. Mom and Dad made it out of the costume shop easy along with our 20% off coupon.

                                       Checking out their first Halloween candy handout of the night.

Ava, Mikey, and Kaia checking out the kitty cat that will eventually pop out of the pumpkin.

                                          Ava and Mikey looking at the ponies after their pony ride.

                                                         Ava and Liam after getting some loot.

                                             All the mamas and the papas with their munchkins.

                    One last trick-or-treat before heading home. Favorite candy: Sour Punch Straws!

                                                    Now, four more days till the real Halloween!!!