Trick or Treat

This year Evelyn truly understood what Halloween was all about...dressing up and CANDY! We talked for weeks about what she would like to be for Halloween. From day one she said she wanted to dress up as "a tiger." So the search was on for the perfect costume. 

After showing her numerous costumes online, she wasn't happy with any of them. I didn't understand what she was expecting from a tiger costume. They were all pretty much the same - a fuzzy orange and black striped full body jumpsuit with a tail. With a little more questioning, I learned that what she really wanted were tiger ears and a clip on tail. Simple enough. So I lucked out and found tiger ears on a headband and a clip on tail made of fuzzy orange and black striped fabric. Add that to a little girl dressed in black pants and a black shirt (because who can find orange attire?) and you're done. That was almost too easy. Well...

On the morning of Halloween Evelyn woke up and exclaimed that she wanted to dress up as a black cat. What? Not a tiger? Oh my...Lucky for me she happened to dress up as a black cat for her daycare Halloween Party last year. So out comes the black cat ears paired with a borrowed black clip on tail and  a little face paint and we have one happy little girl...and mom.

Eleanor was easy. She had a cute knit strawberry hat that she looks adorable in. So I bought a red shirt paired with brown pants and I was done...our cute chocolate dipped strawberry. 

We had friends over on Halloween morning for a costume party, Halloween crafts, and cookie decorating. It was a lot of fun for all. The kids were so cute in their costumes...Dorothy, Scarecrow, Dinosaur/Dragon, Black Cat and Chocolate Dipped Strawberry. Unfortunately the moms didn't have any luck getting a picture of them all together. 

Evelyn trick or treated at both sets of grandparents' houses and a few houses in the neighborhood and that was enough to satisfy her. The rest of the night was spent looking through her candy stash. I fondly remember doing that as a kid too. Now we just need to teach her to pace her candy eating...she has a mad sweet tooth.

6 months

Eleanor is now a half a year old. When did that happen? I don't know about you, but Ari and I really like 6 month olds...especially ours. Eleanor is now 27 inches long and weighs 16 pounds, 6 ounces. She is a healthy, robust little baby.

At 6 months old, Eleanor...

is sitting up independently.

babbles, giggles, coos, and says "mama."

scoots on her tummy to get from place to place.

is drooling and teething like crazy, but no teeth yet.

eats any pureed food you offer her and happily scarfs it down.

still wakes 1-2 times per night. ugh!

loves taking baths with her sister...and in the kitchen sink!

Fall fun

Mommy in the picture

This article makes me cry every time I read it (which is in the double digits now) and much more aware of capturing memories of my children with photographs that include me.

These words hit home in so many ways...

"Someday I want them to see me, documented, sitting right there beside them: me, the woman who gave birth to them, whom they can thank for their ample thighs and their pretty hair; me, the woman who nursed them all for the first years of their lives, enduring porn star-sized boobs and leaking through her shirts for months on end; me, who ran around gathering snacks to be the week's parent reader or planning the class Valentine's Day party; me, who cried when I dropped them off at preschool, breathed in the smell of their post-bath hair when I read them bedtime stories, and defied speeding laws when I had to rush them to the pediatric ER in the middle of the night for fill-in-the-blank (ear infections, croup, rotavirus). I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother."

Thank you Allison Tate for sharing this powerful message.
Thank you Nicci and Lisa for posting this article on Facebook for me to see.
Thank you Libby for capturing some one-on-one time with me and my littlest E.

I know I am not in this picture, but I couldn't resist sharing this shot of Eleanor

Reflection

Eleanor loves that baby in the mirror.