Halloween Weekend 2010

Happy Halloween!



I'll probably (hopefully), say this again, but this was like, the best Halloween EVER! We had such a fun weekend.

On Friday, Ava had her Halloween party and parade at school. I have to say that it's refreshing that she attends a school where the children are actually still allowed to celebrate Halloween. As usual, Ava had planned her costume far in advance. She went as Annie Oakley. You might be curious as to how she arrived at her decision to masquerade as this historical sharp-shooter. It stemmed from her newest 6 year-old quirk: documentary watching. The kid loves to watch documentaries. Mostly on The History Channel and Animal Planet. Her latest obsession is Swamp People on the History Channel. It's hilarious to hear her walking around and imitating the bayou accents of the anglers from Swamp People.

Anyway, one day in early September, she watched a whole documentary on Annie Oakley and immeadiately adopted her as a personal hero. Apparently, she identified with Ms. Oakley. "Hey mom, she was born in Ohio, just like me!" For the last month, I've been bombarded with fun facts about Annie Oakley. When I asked Ava what she would like to be for Halloween, guess what she chose?

So, on Friday, I helped her into her costume and curled her hair. "Mom, Annie Oakley had CURLY hair."



Unlike some moms, I don't mind if my kids have play guns (I have a whole platform on this issue, but I won't grandstand just here and now), but I do have 1 rule...the same rule that my parents required of my sisters and I when we went through our childhood Wild West phase: don't EVER point them at another person.

Ava got caught up in the moment (forgot my rule), and pulled a quick-draw. Then she came after me...and my camera, clicking away on her plastic guns.






I finally talked her down and convinced her to take a posed shot or two. Note: she would not let go of her guns. I guess I don't need to push the whole, "stick to your guns" lesson on her.



Hey, Ava....go snake-eyed.



Posing as a cute cow girl.



I have no idea what's up with this pose. She kept doing this with her guns. Maybe from the documentary? Hmmm.



The story of Emily's costume is not nearly as interesting. After going through all of Ava's dress-up clothes, Emily chose to be a witch...and the costume fit. I made this costume for Ava when she was 3. The only obstacle that I had to overcome was that Emily wanted to be an "evil" witch and requested that I paint her green. (Too much Wizard of Oz, I suppose.) I finally convinced her to be a pretty witch, thank goodness!









Here she is demonstrating her newest dance move before our Halloween party: The Robot.




She really was a pretty witch.



Unless you said, "Show me your MEAN witch face." and then she did this:



But her "cuteness" took over again pretty quickly...



After a busy Saturday, we decided to skip our scheduled Trunk or Treat and spend a little family time carving pumpkins.




Ava donned her "pumpkin guts" gloves for the occasion.



Here's my pumpkin. The perfectionist in me hated that the tempra paint started to peel upon drying. Then I reasoned that the peeling paint made the spooky old house appear more realistic. Ha!



Here's some footage from when we lit our pumpkins, just before bedtime.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Today, after church we rushed home to prepare for the Halloween pizza party that we hosted for 6 neighborhood families at our house.

Ava and I had big plans to make these owl cupcakes.



Here's a closer look. Fun cupcakes for such a little bit of effort!



Ava was an awesome sous chef! Her job was to separate the double-stuffed Oreos and sort all of the orange and brown Reece's pieces out of the bag, then press the brown candies into the Oreos for "eyes".



She did take a little break to "enhance" her costume.



While she was working, she decided that since it was Halloween, we needed to serve up a plate of eyeball cookies. She enlisted her little sister and her friend Anna to help.



While we worked on our project, Mike worked on a project of his own...a pumpkin cooler!



I was super impressed by his pumpkin carving. One neighbor pointed out, "Give a man beer, and he can be incredibly creative." lol.



The guests arrived, and 16 kiddos, dressed to impress and anticipating the year's biggest sugar high went wild in our home after filling up on pizza and snacks.

Here are some pics of Ava's girlfriends around the dinner table.





Luckily, I had an excuse to escape the craziness of the house for the driveway, where I fried over 200 donuts and served cider to our trick-or-treaters.

Here I am, manning a turkey fryer full o' fritters.



We served Apple Cider fritters and Pumpkin Spice Donuts with shots of cold cider. I may have also shamelessly plugged Krista's Kitchen, since the recipes were featured on my other blog. As usual the donuts in the driveway were a BIG hit with the neighborhood. I had lots of returning trick or treaters from last year who stated that they were really hoping I'd be in my driveway again. My favorites were the kiddos that exclaimed, "This is the BEST house! This lady did this last year. We LOVE coming here!" Awww. Totally made the work worth the effort!



Here's the final shot from the night- the girls after consuming WAY to much candy before bedtime.(Isn't that a Halloween tradition?) Check out Em. She changed into her p.j.'s to ride out her sugar coma.



Now I sit here and assess the damage incurred over the past 6 hours: I smell like a fried donut, my house looks like it has been hit by a tornado, and I am completely pooped...but I wouldn't change a thing. It was a great Halloween! I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend too!

Ava Sings

Quickie Post! Ava had her choral debut in the Joyful Noise Angels last Sunday at the 9:30 and 11:00 services at our church. She really enjoys going to choir every week and she's taking it very seriously. She keeps asking me when they're going to give her a solo. : )

Here's the clip:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

More Fall Fun October 11th-17th

As promised, here are some pictures of our family enjoying the season this week. Ava's class had Wednesday and Friday off due to parent-teacher conferences. On Wednesday, we met some friends at a trail near our house for a hike. While we waited for our friends to arrive, we hung out on the swings.




Here are some of Ava's best girlfriends who joined us on the hike. You may recognize this scene from pictures of hikes earlier in the year. This 3-mile, kid friendly hike is a beautiful trip and only "treacherous" in a couple of places, PLUS there's a waterfall on the creek, perfect for wading in warm weather. Definitely a favorite spot!

Love these girls!



Livin' on the edge!



The lil' waterfall.




Playing in the trees.



My mom came to visit for a few days last week. We went apple picking with friends.





The trees were loaded!



Ava and one of her "besties", Miss Anna climbed up to get some apples from the top.







Here's our haul of "the apple of the day", the Melrose. They are yummy!Thanks for the apples, Grandma Sally.



Sunday after church, we headed down to the national forest for a hike. I love that we live so close to a national park and all that it has to offer. Here Mike, Ava, and Emily set out for Blue Hen Falls.



It was such a beautiful day!



Daddy's girls



Here's a shot of the falls. The afternoon sunlight filtering down through the trees cast a sort of "magic" on the whole afternoon.





Miss Ava made the steep climp down like a pro (first one down)!



Awww. My girlies!



Emily loves to pose.



When did she become such a lil' blonde bombshell!?



Sweet sisters!



It was a LONG way down!



After climbing out, we passed the "Trail Ends Here" sign for some off-road hiking. So glad we did. The scenery beyond the trail was beautiful. Ava and I stopped along the un-official trail to "tight rope walk" across fallen trees while Mike and Emily continued on.



But always competitive, Ava had to catch up quickly. It didn't help that Emily was screaming, "We beat you! We win!" from her cozy spot in the hiking backpack.



We hiked back to the falls along the creek.







Once home, I raked up a big pile of leaves (per Ava's request) while we waited for the grill to heat up for dinner. Our yard is full of big trees, which means that I will have to rake at least 3 more times this fall...but truthfully, I didn't mind indulging a little more fall fun before the weekend drew to a close. Here's some footage of the girls playing in the first leaf pile of the season:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Fall Fun!

Last week Mike and I took a fall getaway to Atlantic City, NJ complete with side trips to historic Philadelphia, PA and beautiful Cape May, NJ. For Christmas the last couple of years my parents have given us resort certificates, good for a week-long stay at any number of destinations in the US and abroad. Last year, we renewed our certificate and took the girls to Williamsburg, VA for an end of the summer trip. You can read all about that trip HERE. This year, Mike suggested that we use the certificate to go away together...just the two of us. I have to admit that at first I was a little hesitant to leave the girls for so long and indulge in a week away. Okay, truth be told, I was a LOT hesitant. We argued over the idea for a bit and I finally shared my dilemma with my parenting group at church. I really thought that they'd be on my side of the argument. Instead, I heard comments like this, "Are you kidding!? Your husband wants to go away with you. GO!" It's true that Mike and I have only been away together for just one night (on our 5th anniversary) since Ava was born. Once I got over my "mommy in control" issues, I began to embrace the idea of planning our very own couples retreat. By the time we settled on a date and set about choosing our destination, Atlantic City seemed to be calling because 1) It wasn't too far away (a little over 8 hours by car) 2) There was fun stuff to do near Atlantic City-like a visit to Philly or Cape May and 3) Most importantly...they still had vacancy. I am so glad that we ended up on The Jersey Shore. We fell in love with the region. The Jersey Shore is beautiful...even in the off-season AND in the midst of a tropical storm.

Here's the link to some more pictures from our trip:

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If you'd like to read more, check out some details on my other blog, Krista's Kitchen. A big thanks goes to my parents for the resort certificate and to Mike's parent's who came over and watched the girls all week for making this trip possible!



Of course, we were SO excited to see the girls after a week away. We spent the weekend catching up, making meals together, and snuggling. (Ava's new favorite family activity is the "group hug" and when she yells those two words, we all have to come together for a family bear hug.) Mike set up our tent in the backyard and the girls played under the canopy of changing leaves in the beautiful weather for hours. On Saturday, we had "family night" complete with sleeping bags, popcorn, and a Disney movie. And on Sunday, after church, we visited two fall fun destinations with some friends who also have two daughters. The first farm that we visited had a hayride, straw maze, corn maze, petting zoo, and corn pool (easily the favorite activity). Then we hit an apple orchard/pumpkin patch on the way home where we took another hay ride, picked our own pumpkins, and tanked up on cider, donuts, and ice cream. Click the link below to view the pictures from Sunday:

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We just love the fall in Northeastern Ohio. It's gorgeous here! This weekend is supposed to be nice too, so stay tuned for more fall fun!

Weekend at a Glance 9/24-9/26

Hi everyone! I'm behind on the updates as usual. From the month of September, I have some great pictures of our trip to the Purdue vs. Ball State tailgating party, Ava's birthday in Indiana, and Aunt Katie's baby shower, not to mention some shocking footage of Emily covering her whole body with an entire tub of Vaseline. Maybe all of that will make it on here at some point, but since I've just got a little bit of time today, I thought that I would focus solely on the happenings of this weekend.

Ava loved her Indiana birthday party and had a wonderful time, but she was still a little bummed on the way home. "I wanted a party with my friends at home too." She pouted as we drove across the state line and into Ohio. Being the occasional over-indulgent parent that I am, I caved. "Well, maybe we can have a couple of your friends over for cake and ice cream next weekend." Tough negotiator that she is, she came back with, "No cake. Just ice cream." The kid despises birthday cake. Why? She can't stand frosting. (Who is this kid?!) "Okay, just ice cream" I agreed. Hey-no need to spend hours constructing another Ariel birthday cake. Like I was going to argue. So, at the after school pick-up this week, I mentioned to some of the neighborhood moms that we'd be having a little ice cream social at our house on Saturday in honor of my daughter's birthday. I'm glad I indulged her this time. It turns out that a couple of her friends were a little miffed that they'd been excluded from the out-of-state birthday celebration she'd talked about all week .

On Saturday morning, we decorated the dining room with a couple of rolls of streamers.



Then, in the afternoon, a group of Ava's neighborhood friends arrived.




They made sundaes.



The kids all seemed to have a good time, first running off their sugar high in the backyard, then sprawling across Ava's bed to listen to Taylor Swift and the Camp Rock 2 gang on Ava's new boombox. After the dust settled and all of the kiddos were gone...including the guest of honor (she went to play at a neighbor's house), Miss Emily made a new friend. "Grasshopper". He chose her as a companion by jumping right onto her shirt. Have I mentioned that this kid is not scared of anything, including insects? Last week I stopped her a fraction of a second before her chubby little hand closed on a rather large and venomous looking spider!

Here she is with her new "friend".



And here's some footage of Emily and her beloved grasshopper.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Poor kid. I wonder if she just feels "left behind" by Ava and all of the other big kids. I mean, why else would she adopt a grasshopper as her best friend besides the fact that she feels a little lonely? Whatever her motivation, Emily was crazy about Grasshopper. He has escaped more than once, because Emily kept opening the jar so that she could "cuddle" with him. Once he disappeared for over an hour, only to re-appear in the middle of our family room floor. When she first found him on our deck, he only had one leg. I almost felt sorry for him...especially with the way that Em was manhandling him and toting him around everywhere. Within his first few hours in captivity, I actually watched him grab his remaining hind leg in his mouth and wrench it off! At first, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, reasoning that maybe he was just trying to re-establish balance in his life. But still, it was horrifying to watch! The more time grasshopper spends with our family, the less I like him. I don't really feel so sorry for him anymore either. He's clearly crazy. I especially don't like the way that he stares at me...even turning his head to follow my movements around a room. He has a tiny brain and a giant scary mouth, how in the world can this thing have such a personality?! I'm secretly starting to wonder if he tore off his first leg just so we'd feel sorry for him and take him in. What? Paranoid? Me? Nooo. Hahaha.

I didn't expect Grasshopper to make it through the night, what with Emily taking him out to "cuddle" every few minutes and the traumatic limb amputation. (If you ripped even one of my legs off, I'd probably die in a matter of hours without medical care...I'm just sayin'!). Of course, sadistic Ava announced "He's dead. He's definitely not moving!" every few minutes just to watch Emily burst into hopeless grief-stricken sobbing. ARRRGH! Surprisingly, Grasshopper lived through the night. (Sleeping atop Emily's nightstand and next to his detached leg). He even looked chipper this morning as he did a little dance on his 4 remaining legs. I'm pretty sure that this is payback for the baby catfish, lizard, and lake mussels that shared my room when I was a kid.

While the grasshopper thrived, our laptop completely died. The place where the power cord attaches has been busted for months and we've been "babying it". On Saturday, it finally refused to charge, and eventually died. I was pretty devastated. No laptop?! How will I "work"? How can I communicate with the world? What?! People actually used to talk to one another...on the phone and...in person?! Amazing. I know that I had the panicked look and demeanor of a crack addict without her fix. I appealed to Mike, "You can fix it tonight, right?" At first, he gave me a hard time,(something about the broken laptop being my fault because I wasn't careful enough.) But then he took our laptop completely apart, removed the hard drive, pulled out some wires, and scraped out a bigger hole for the "plug in thingie" before heading to Radio Shack for a new part. He came home and retreated to the garage where he soldered the new part to the laptop and reassembled the whole thing.





Guess what? He fixed it! I'm typing this from our new and improved laptop right now! He is my HERO! Seriously, I think that my husband's ability to "fix stuff" just moved up the list to #3 on the "Reasons Why I Married Mike" list. : )

Sunday morning, we participated in the Cleveland Autism Walk. This our family's second year to participate in the event. We walk in support of our good friends, the Lyman's, and their son Chase. As a teacher, I knew the basics about autism, and spent time with an autistic student for a few minutes to a few hours every day. Now, as a friend of a family affected by autism, I see the obstacles that the child and his family deal with on a minute to minute basis. This walk is important. Raising money for autism awareness and research is important. As Ava put it, "We are walking so that scientists can get money to figure out how to help kids like Chase learn to talk better...like me!" Wow. I was super impressed by her interpretation of my explanation about how a fundraiser works and why we were participating.

Some pictures from the walk:

Ava and Em, waiting for the walk to begin.



Ava's best buddy Anna and her brother Chase.



Ava and Anna.



And Emily, chillin' in the wagon.



We wrapped up the weekend with hot wings, a Colt's victory, and some housework. Life is good. And that's the weekend at a glance. Hope you all had a good one!