Halloween and growing up

Oh New Jersey, how we hate your weather right now. First there was Hurricane Sandy, which hit the Monday before Halloween. Given the beating that most of the state took (and the fact that many of our friends are STILL without power) we got off easy. There was no damage to our house and we only lost power for about 52 hours. And, thankfully, my grandmother and sister never lost power at their homes so my sister kindly stored our food in extra freezer so nothing went bad and Nana offered up her house to us so we had a nice warm, well lit place to take shelter. Hooray for family! And then, yesterday, we got a snow storm. On November 7th. Because, you know, Mother Nature hates us. We got several inches, but again, we are lucky compared to some other areas which got significantly more snow that caused people to lose power AGAIN. Not cool, weather gods. Not cool. But anyway, in between the hurricane and snow storm, we squeezed in Halloween. So what if we trick-or-treated on November 5th and it was freaking freezing? Charlie and Lily got to wear their costumes and had a blast.

I present to you Lily the Owl.

And Charlie as Thomas the Tank Engine. (Joe made that costume. How awesome is it?!? To say that Charlie loved it would be an understatement.)

Charlie and Lily trick-or-treated with their friend Grace. Grace is in their preschool class and lives just one block over from us and the kids both love her. As a flamingo, Grace added a little flare to our group.

The kids definitely weren't shy about going up to houses for candy. Charlie even walked right into a few, lol. And as we made our way down the sidewalks Lily kept flapping her "wings" and whoooo-ing while Charlie could be heard saying, "I'm Thomas. Yes I am" and "I'm just chugging along!" Ha!

MomMom was kind enough to stay at our house to hand out candy while we were gone, and when we returned she had some special treats for Charlie and Lily including socks, goldfish crackers, pretzels and Thomas and Dora DVDs.

Then Lily decided to give dressing up one more go and put together this fashionable ensemble of MomMom's shoes, purse and witches' hat.

In other news, this boy right here? He's potty trained!!! Halleluiah! One down, one to go. (I'm looking at you, Miss Lily...)

Due to good old Hurricane Sandy, Joe's school has been closed for two weeks. TWO WEEKS. So we decided to make use of his time at home and move Charlie and Lily from cribs to beds. Joe and his mom came up with the idea for this great Minnie wall hanging for Lily to go along with her new Minnie bed.

We saw this Thomas bed in Toys R Us and knew that Charlie needed it. My sister found a great deal on this one on Craigslist so I snapped it up.

Their first nap in the beds took place this afternoon and they did pretty well. No one got out of bed at least. My fingers are crossed for tonight!

And finally, I have to thank all of the people who contributed to Love, Annaleigh this week. The St. Peter's Foundation was in need of baby items for families who were suffering the effects of the hurricane. We put out the word through Love, Annaleigh and were overwhelmed by the amount of items donated to us - blankets, diapers, onesies, bibs, wash clothes, pack n' plays...you name it! A special thanks to our friend Betsey for organizing a collection in her area and delivering everything to St. Peter's. The kindness and generosity we see never ceases to amaze us!

Pumpkin Carving

In case you haven't heard, there's a hurricane coming :P Unfortunately, being in Central New Jersey,we're in line to receive the brunt of the storm, most likely this afternoon. We're not TOO concerned right now - we're not in a flood zone, there are no trees on our property, etc but still, we don't really know what to expect. Other than the fact that we're going to be stuck in the house for a few days! We attempted to go to a birthday party last night for my friend Daria's children, but the party was 90 minutes from us and NJ had already started closing roads so we weren't able to make the drive. (But a HUGE thank you to Daria, who so kindly requested that instead of gifts for her children party guests make donations to Love, Annaleigh. How sweet is that?!?!) So instead, we stayed home and carved our pumpkin.The kids really enjoyed the whole process, especially Lily, who was very interested in the whole thing. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with our finished product! Now, what else can we do to amuse two three-year-olds indoors for the next two days?

Our pretty ballerina

Yesterday Lily attended her very first dance class! Last week we had a play date with Charlie and Lily's friend Savannah. Savannah's mom was telling me about the dance class Savannah had just started so I asked Lily if she would be interested in taking a dance class too. She immediately jumped up and proclaimed, "Yes! I want to learn to dance!" I signed her up that very day and after nap we ran out to pick up some ballet slippers, tights and a leotard so she'd be all set for her first class on Monday. She was so excited to go and marched right into the room with no hesitation at all. When I peeked through the window during class I saw Lily laughing and happily participating with everything going on. Lily tends to be shy and a little standoffish, so this was GREAT to see. She came out of class happy and chattering away about all the things they'd done - she even demonstrated the somersaults they worked on. She can't wait to go back next week!

Fall Fun

I love when holidays roll around! There's always so many great things to see and do! We've been taking advantage of the Halloween season as best we can around here. I found some cute projects on Pinterest that I couldn't resist. Charlie and Lily got the biggest kick (pun intended, lol) out of making their footprints into ghosts, and they did a fantastic job with the candy corn counting - I didn't even need to explain it to them!

Last Saturday the kids and I joined my sister, Jill, at a local farm for their Fall Festival. It was a great time! Charlie and Lily are currently obsessed with bounce houses, so not only did they spend a lot of time in one at the farm but they also took many a ride on the giant inflatable slide.

Petting zoos are always a hit. Lily loves goats.

Of course, we took a ride to the pumpkin patch.

"Smile, Aunt Jill! You're going to be buying us a lot of pumpkins...."

We had to get a green pumpkin. Who knew they existed?

Charlie insisted on riding this enormous monster truck and got the biggest thrill out of it. Boys.

First field trip

On Tuesday, Charlie and Lily went on their first ever school field trip to the apple orchard. Charlie was beyond excited to get to ride on a school bus. He'd have been happy skipping the orchard and just riding the bus around the parking lot all day.

At the orchard, the owner gave a cute presentation to the kids about life on a farm and apple/pumpkin season.

Then it was time to pick some apples!

Once the apples were picked, the kids got to see how the apples were washed and sorted by size. This part was a big hit.

The trip ended with a stop at the pumpkin patch.

Charlie managed to get his hands on the largest pumpkin available. Lily chose a more appropriately sized pumpkin.

All in all, it was a great first field trip! (And we clearly need to do something about Charlie's "say cheese" face...)

Love, Annaleigh in the news!

We were so excited to discover this picture on the second page of our local paper's Sunday edition! We hope this helps spread the word about Love, Annaleigh so we can grow our organization even more. We're starting to plan a special Christmas-time donation collection, so we'll make sure to keep you posted!

In other news, the kids are doing well in preschool (they have their first field trip tomorrow to the apple orchard!) and Joe is starting grad school classes this week - so we've been busy! But when we're home, Lily's favorite activity is anything art related. She loves to color, play with Play-Doh and paint. Last week I pulled out the easel and let them go to town.

Since I'm at work four nights a week, we try to make dinner fun on at least one of the nights I'm home. Last Saturday we hit up Cheeburger Cheeburger, which quickly became Charlie's favorite restaurant when the kids' meals arrived in cardboard cars!

We're also getting ready for Halloween. The kids are super excited this year because they really understand what's going on. We encouraged them to choose their own costumes, and Charlie immediately declared that he wanted to be Thomas (no surprise there). But we though the Thomas costume in the stores was kind of lame, so Joe decided to make him one. It's turning out completely awesome, and Charlie LOVES seeing Thomas develop with each step. Here he is helping Joe with the painting.

 And of course, we started baking some Halloween treats. Lily always has a great time decorating cupcakes. I think I need to invest in more sprinkles...and a bigger broom.