Advent-ure

Tonight was "Advent-ure" at church with a few Advent activities for the kids and some caroling- Texas-style.

Helen coloring her craft bag
Helen with Santa

Covered wagon

Daron and the girls riding in the wagon. (This is where the Texas-style caroling comes in.) We rode it through the neighborhood looking at lights and singing.

Hand-me-downs

Let the parade of Helen's clothes on Daisy begin. I'm definitely going to document this!

From the bookshelf

Papa reads "The Three Bears"
Helen reads her school books

Grandma and Daisy naming pictures

So Grandma and Papa have landed in town and life is going to be good for mom (read: me) this week. Extra help with the dishes, the kids, etc. Hopefully we'll get a lot of the Christmas shopping knocked out and a little help with my sewing projects too. I think I may be getting a little too ambitious for a week that finds so many appointments, Turkey lunches and meetings on the calendar along with Daron being out of town a lot of the week. We'll see. But a few extra hands and laps and ears for reading are the part that really counts...

Cutie patootie

I'm not brave enough to take Daisy out of the house in her panties...
but isn't she cute (pun intended).

Also cute when they're cooperating (wish that could happen more).

And so sweetly making a card for her sister complete with not one, but two Winnie the Poohs- Daisy's favorite.

Halloween

My princess
Preschool party
Kindergarten party

Making a treat bag

Scared? Not me!

Trick or treat!

Come on Daisy!

Halloween turned out great this year. There was actually a chill in the air so it seemed just right to us East Coast natives. Daisy was a "princess" from the dress-up trunk because she really didn't care and Helen wanted to be a wooly worm again this year. It saved me having to buy or invent another costume, but no one in Texas knew what a wooly worm was this year any more than they did last year. True to form, Helen was mostly oblivious and otherwise thought everyone else had the problem- not her. She did mention that everyone thought she was a bee and her teacher told everyone she was a bug, but there was no peer-led fiasco of not-fitting in or conforming to the ubiquitous TinkerBell.

The preschool party I helped to put on although it was only 6 two year olds and I'm not sure they knew what was going on. Daisy and I attended Helen's class party of 23 five year olds who were wild with getting to wear their costumes to school and then finished off with cookies, cupcakes and a ridiculous amount of icing.

Trick or treating went well. There were actually a couple of scary houses where they were somewhat scared, but mostly just curious. Towards the end Daisy just wanted to go home and start eating her candy (of which I cannot describe how much there is). Even though we gave Daisy a tiny pumpkin to carry and Helen decided to carry her homemade paper sack from school, it did not prevent people from loading them down with 3 and 4 pieces at a time.

So another Halloween down and we are on to my favorite time of year- November, Thanksgiving and of course, my birthday. (I'm turning 26 in case anyone asks.)