Happy Halloween!

Another giggly ghoulish October for the Brooks family record books.  I think the Halloween season lasts longer than the Christmas season in this house.  At least it feels like it does.  With house decorating, costume planning and prepping, school fall festivals, Halloween parties and parades and, finally, last but not least, a sugar filled night of trick or treating, the chaos fun seems to go on forever.  Halloween on a Saturday this year seemed to make it even more of a party.  Natalie had a soccer game early Halloween morning and her coaches asked the team to be there even earlier for a surprise; which turned out to be painting the girls' faces as zombie soccer players for their game.  Pretty fun.  And a little spooky.  So, as usual, we started November today a little sluggish!

Our kickoff to Halloween was our school Fall Carnival last weekend.  Super fun day for the girls:

 This would be a carnival game called Cow Pie Bingo.

It's as silly as it sounds.  The field is painted with a bingo grid,

the bingo squares are sold to hopeful parents, the cow arrives 

mid-morning and hangs out for a couple of hours, 

and when he inevitably poops, the square the 

cowpie lands on is the winner!  Funny.

 These mummy cupcakes were my midnight baking 

adventure that we donated to the Kindergarten cupcake walk.

One of my favorite parts about Halloween is decorating our house to look just spooky enough  (which is to say, more cutsie than spooky):

This year we had another family join us for pumpkin carving, hot spiced cider and dessert.  We had so much fun we want to make a tradition out of it.  The kids scooped the pumpkins and designed the faces and Corey got to work carving them.  They turned out so great.

Halloween day we spent getting our teal pumpkin ready to participate in the Teal Pumpkin Project sponsored by Food Allergy Research and Education to encourage people to offer non-food treats for kids with food allergies.  Hoping one day when we Trick or Treat there are more houses that participate.

And finally, finally, it was time to Trick or Treat.  Such a fun night meeting neighbors and bumping into school friends in the dark. We had a spider witch and a ballerina and they could not have looked cuter!

It's been a full and fun month!

Our American Girl

I took Natalie and her friend to an American Girl event in Palo Alto on Sunday.  It was a 50's style Sock Hop to celebrate the new historical doll that just came out.  I don't know who had more fun, this mama or the girls!  I am a doll lover at heart!  The Sock Hop was located at a hotel a few blocks away from the store so we headed there afterward.  What an amazing store it was!  I think the three of us could have stayed there for the rest of the day.  Natalie had a great time and will likely have a Christmas list a mile long; filled top to bottom with American Girl goodies.  And I think I'm going to ask Santa for a doll of my own!

Such a cool company!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Halloween around here!  These two are crazy about all things Halloween and the celebrating seems to start at 12:01am on October 1st.  The play structure has been decorated in orange twinkle lights, cobwebs and spiders, the witch hat is being worn daily by one or the other, and the little broom from Nana and Papa Franc's old pop-up camper is temporarily a vehicle for flying around the backyard.  It's going to be a full month ahead of fall festivals, classroom Halloween parties, and trying to convince them to officially DECIDE what they want to be for the big day (Natalie is almost sure she wants to be a spider witch and Audrey changes her mind every day).  Stay tuned...

 Yup.  That's Audrey wearing a too-small leotard

with her underwear hanging out.  

Ironically, it's Halloween underwear.

And she's off...

After a scary spell on her bike a few months ago (those driveway dips sure can be problematic to a beginning biker), our little fearless speedy one opted to park her bike and scooter for a while.  But in the garage the other day she noticed a royal accessory that we'd never attached to her little pink princess bike.  It's a pink, sparkly bike basket in the shape of a carriage and in addition to storing collected treasures, it also serves as a seat for a doll or stuffed animal.  Naturally, the discovery of this blingtastic basket (and the handlebar streamers that were tucked inside it) promptly renewed her interest in biking!  She wanted them installed immediately and immediately after that she wanted to hit the trail.

She was a bit nervous at first but in only a matter of minutes she took off at the speed of lightening, her doll (actually, Natalie's doll...not sure how that happened) in tow and her streamers waving in the breeze!  I thought it was impossible for this kid to get cuter...but put her on a bike with a carriage shaped baby doll basket and it happened!  She loved showing it off to the parents at Natalie's soccer practice the other night!

 Pure. Determination.

Metallic Smile

Natalie has had her top braces on for a year now and, because we'd hate for life to get all boring and routine, last week it came time to get bottom braces!  She has a very metallic  mouth these days but is taking it in stride.  It helps that she got to pick Halloween color bands for the next month so she's sporting not just a sparkly mouth, but one with orange and purple accents.  She'll have this full set on for about 8 or 9 months!

 This kid even looks glam in the dental chair!

Such a trooper, this kiddo!