Party Time

Saturday consisted of making trips to Value Village and Joann Fabrics to come up with our costumes for our neighbor's HUGE Halloween party that night. We had fun shopping altogether and giving eachother suggestions of what to wear. We also had lunch at the Rock pizza in Covington....great pizza and a fun atmosphere too.

Emily's parents came over to our house to enjoy dinner and spending time with my folks as they all watched the grandkiddos on Saturday evening. Half the fun was all our preperations on our Halloween costumes. Michael and John dressed up as trashy Mullet dudes...Mike with his cut off jean shorts and JOhn with his hammer pants (and a fake beer belly...ie; pillow), they were hilarious. Emily cut a hole in her shirt so her pregnant tummy could stick out and we painted it blue and decorated it with shiny sticker fish. We also drapped fabric that looked like seaweed all over her, so she was officially a fish bowl. I went as a brunette Penny Pingleton from Hairspray. Emily took about an hour to do my hair with a beehive and pig tails, and I wore a 50-60's dress that we had found in my Grandma's old house. The party was only three doors down which was so convenient. Our neighbor really went all out with the decorations on the outside and inside of his house. He even added a party tent to the back of his open garage with lights, fog and everything. He had the party catered with awesome food including a chocolate fondue fountain, and many beverages to choose from as well. We had such a great time at the party and laughed so much altogether. It was fun to see all the different costumes too; Robin Hood, a Chick Magnet, Miss Idaho, A biker that had crashed, Star Trek man and woman, a Gypsey, a monk, 2 Cleopatra's, 2 Fairies, a Harley dude, a Ninja Turtle, two nurses, Laura Croft Tombraider, a police woman, a trash bag, cheerleader, martini glass, a penis (that's right), butterfly, gladiator, windblown guy, queen, etc, etc, etc. Most people did not even recognize John because his costume was so dang funny, and Mike and John were only 1 point off of winning the best costume award...darn it. Anyway, we had a blast at the party and look forward to next year's!

Pumpkin Carving

We had a full weekend beginning on Friday evening. I drove the kids downtown to JOhn's work for a show and tell kids day, basically a meet and greet of families at his company that have young children. It was a nice event, with appetizers and in a beautiful meeting room overlooking downtown. We stayed for an hour or so and then headed over to Mike and Em's for dinner and pumpkin carving, and to wait for my folks to arrive from P-town (they came to town to help us watch the kids for a Halloween party we were going to on Saturday night....more details to come). We had a fun time carving pumpkins, although Emilio wasn't so crazy about digging out the pumpkin guts. Marco was even less enthused, in fact, Michael showed him some pumpkin innards and Marco proceeded to gag and then immediately throw up. Poor guy may be scarred for life and may never want to participate in pumpkin carving if his stomach is that sensitive. We all felt really bad for him. Gabi sat on my lap for a little while poking the pumpkin, but basically liked watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Demand. Anyway, we used our creative abilites and made some fun faces, and also enjoyed some baked pumpkin seeds.

Maris Farms Pumpkin Patch

I promise this will be the last pumpkin patch blog and collection of pictures from the season. We went down to Maris Farms in Buckley, WA today with the Maple Valley Community Center playgroup that Emily and I frequent with the kids. It was an awesome day for an outing because it was crisp and sunny out....just beautiful (especially compared to the dreary rainy day we had yesterday here). A woman I had met at the library and her little son (close to Marco and Gabi's age) met us there as well, and so it was really fun to get to know her as we tromped through the mud with the kids. We saw goats, bunnies, chickens and roosters (poor Marco got nipped by a mean rooster), pigs, and sheep and the kids thought that was fun. They got to play in a huge vat of corn kernals for awhile, pump water out from a well pump, pick humongeous pumpkins out, and go on a hay ride. It was a muddy, messy, gloriously sunny adventure and we enjoyed ourselves.





That mean ol' rooster bit poor Marco!

Pumpkin Pix as Promised/Boo Update

I finally received the Pumpkin Patch pictures I have been waiting for....thanks Dad! Also, I wanted to update you all on how our neighborhood "boo" festivities are going. We "boo-ed" some neighbors on Wednesday night and by Friday morning we saw Boo signs going up. That night we heard the doorbell and knew we were getting boo-ed. Emilio and Gabi were sooooo excited, oh what the heck, so were John and I. We were happy to see our festive spirit was spreading. The kids couldn't wait to rip through our cute Boo bag filled with candies and a cute candle. Gabi did her notorious happy feet and grunted until she got some Mike n'Ikes and Emilio paraded around the house with the bag on his arm like he owned everything in it. On Saturday morning we woke up to another Boo cauldron on our porch....ooops I guess we should have put our "Boo" sign out the night before. We decided to take a few things out and add some other things to it and regift it...let's just keep that between you and me okay? :) Michael came over on Saturday night since Em and Marco were out of town and he helped John deliver the 2 Boo Bags and the Regifter (we gave that one to a family around the block to see if it would start up there). ANyway, it's Sunday now and there are at least 8 Boo signs up in our neighborhood already. It has been very fun. Give it a try!

Here are the promised Pumpkin pictures from a few weeks ago (unfortunately John wasn't with us that outing).

It's "Boo" Time

I got a great idea from my blogging buddy Heather today. Her neighborhood is Boo-ing people to add some holiday fun before Halloween. I decided my neighborhood would be very cool to try this with because they are very social, there are lots of kiddos, and even those without kids seem to get very excited about Halloween, by the look of their decorations at least. Anyway, this is how it works;

*Make two bags of treats
*Include the Boo Poem and Ghost Sign in the bags
*Deliver them to two of your neighbors houses, but don't let them see who makes the "drop." Wait until night (with an adult), drop the bag, ring the doorbell, and run. This adds to the fun.
*The neighbors are then responsible to keep the Boo-ing going.
*Hang the ghost in your window or on your door so that people know you've been boo-ed.
*Keep an eye on nearby houses to see how far and fast it spreads until Halloween.

I picked up a bunch of fun things at the Dollar Tree today, including some darling bags....all $1.00! Emilio had a blast putting candy in the mini black cauldrons with me. I made up some more sugar cookies today because I thought all the candy Emilio had added the other day would be a dead giveaway to the neighbors.

Anyway, John didn't get home until 8:30 pm. from work and Emilio ran up to him and blurted out, "we gotta put the bags on the neighbors door, ring the door bell and run run really fast." He was really looking forward to this. So we put some warm clothes over his jammies and he went out with Daddy to make the drop. John said he wasn't sure how he was going to do this without the neighbors seeing them because it was a pretty far run without anything to hide behind, especially carrying Emilio. All of a sudden, Emilio burst into tears, he couldn't handle the pressure. He really didn't want to ruin the surprise. So, we watched from our front door as Daddy made the drop and sprinted back to us. Our neighbors came out and looked around for a few minutes, but we don't think they saw us. Phew! We then went around the alleyway to deliver the second bag. I carried Emilio although he was still a little nervous. We waited around the corner behind a fence as John dropped the other bag. Emilio erupted in giggles as he watched his Dad get a good workout racing to us. It was very fun. We hope everyone else has as much fun with it as we have already.

Here are our Boo Bags.........

Sugar Cookies

Emilio and I got out Grammy's famous sugar cookie recipe today to make some pumpkin, bat, witch, and owl cookies (those happen to be the October-ish cookie cutters I have on hand). We ran to QFC today on the way home from the gym and picked up some candy corn and Fall colored dark chocolate M & M's to decorate the cookies with. Anyway, Emilio wanted to be part of every process of the cookie making...I don't think he understood at first how long it would actually take to get to the fun decorating part. He did have a breakdown when he realized he wouldn't get to do the frosting and toppings until after his rest time, but was encouraged when I told him he was the only one (not Gabi, or Marco who was staying over for naptime)who would get to help mommy decorate. Here are a few pictures of Emilio making some yummy cookies today. P.S. He added loads of toppings to the cookies....Sugar Overload!!!

Waiting for Pumpkin Pix

Nothing too new going on around here, so I haven't written in awhile. Actually we did head down to Portland last weekend. We went down so that I could attend a friend's bridal shower that my mom was hosting. My parents, the kids and I all went to a Pumpkin Patch out in North Plains on Saturday morning. John stayed behind with Andrew because my parents just got a Nintendo Wii and they wanted to play it. Anyway, I'm waiting for my dad to send me the pumpkin patch photos, there are some cute ones that I want to post. John ended up deciding he does want a Wii for his b-day (right after Christmas) and we heard that they were going to be hard to find around Christmas because there weren't enough made or something. So, John ended up finding a few in a Vancouver Target and my parents bought and gave it to him early since his b-day is right after Christmas. I actually just played bowling and tennis the other night on it and it is pretty fun, you kind of feel like you are actually doing the sport, although I'm a lot better on the Wii than I am at actually bowling and playing tennis. What else?....oh, John got to drive Andrew's old beater Honda back to Renton. WE are buying it from my folks so that John has a little easier time at getting to the express bus, or even to Seattle for work. The commute has been a brutal change for John since he only walked 15 minutes to work in downtown Chicago. Anyway, I think this is going to make his life, and ultimately my life, a little easier.

Oh, and Gabriela is really starting to talk lately. She repeats everything. My favorites of her little words so far are;
I dooooooooo = I do (when she sees something she wants)
La u = Love you
Mi Mi = Emilio (hard name to say for a 1 year old apparently)
Here go = Here you go (when handing me something)
Peek Boo = Peek a boo
Pump Pump = Pumpkin
Pop Pop = Popsicle and or popcorn
Wa Wa = Water
Dant doo = Thank you

Anyway, they might not be as cute on the blog, but they sure are sweet words coming from her mouth.

Have a good weekend everyone, and I'll post Pumpkin pictures when I get em'.

Question Man

Emilio has been asking me so many very inquisitive guestions lately. Some of the things he comes up with are so crazy I haven't even thought of them before. I'm worried I won't explain something correctly too, like maybe I need to google the answer first. Man, I didn't realize I'd have to be a walking encyclopedia this early, I mean he's only 3! Here are a few that I remember from this week.

"Mommy, when I hear music in the car, where is it coming from?"
"Mommy, when I'm talking, where is the sound coming from?"
"Mommy, where does the poop go after I flush the toilet?"

Oh, and he's obsessed, I mean OBSESSED with knowing the TIME right now. He asks me every few minutes, "Mommy, what number is it now?" And, "What does that number mean?" He's wearing his new Spiderman watch from his birthday too and checking it often. It is pretty funny. I need to start working with him on his numbers so he can read it himself.

I think the guestions are pretty darn cute though. I think he's going to be into physics and the other sciences like his Daddy, I can tell he's got that kind of brain already.

Oh, and we were riding scooters (yes, I do ride a scooter with my son, it is soooooo much fun!) down our alleyway today before naptime (Gabi had fallen asleep in her lunch and was already tucked in bed), and rode past our neighbor's open garage. Now, our neighbor is consumed with making the biggest, baddest Halloween props ever for a party he's having and Emilio saw this big round ball on a table in the garage. He said, "Hi John, What's that big meatball doing on your table?" I laughed out loud and so did our neighbor. Turns out it is a spider's body for the biggest, meanest looking spider I've ever seen. Anyway, Emilio just keeps cracking me up with his questions this week. Keep em' coming Boo.