At home with Holly and Ben

Ben has been making exciting progress lately.  He now rolls continuously, working his way around the living room and kitchen.  He has a fierce desire to get a hold of any toy or nearby object, and he seems especially fond of Ikea plastic bowls.  He enjoys sitting in his high chair playing with toys, and when he is there, Holly likes to her push stool next to him and sit together with him.

These videos aren't great and have a lot of focusing problems because of the lens, but I still enjoy watching them. 

                                                         Hanging out together

Little mouse

Saying "thanks" to Grammie and Grandpa for the Halloween package

Breakfast time

                                          

Halloween Night

After I planted the idea of being a bunny in Holly's mind, a friend of mine suggested that Ben could be a carrot to go with.  I knew I'd have to make the carrot costume, so I decided to buy the bunny suit so I wouldn't have to sew too much.  But when the bunny suit arrived, it was way too short for Holly and didn't come in any other sizes.  So I ended up making both of them, somehow.  It was my first experience sewing with patterns and it was a big project for me.  Luckily my friends are helpful and supportive, especially when sewing is involved.

Here was Holly's costume in the making, and I thought she could wear a bunny ear headband we already had.  So cute, right?

But when we took her trick-or-treating at Microsoft a week before Halloween, the bunny ear headband wouldn't stay on for even a few seconds, and was definitely not going to work.  So I made the bunny ear hood that was part of the pattern, which worked well, although it wasn't nearly as cute.  Here was our Bunny and Baby Carrot on Halloween:

We made pumpkin pancakes for our Halloween dinner.  Then Charlotte came by and we walked together over to Fountain Court, the assisted living home a couple blocks away, for some warm and dry indoor trick-or-treating.

After we finished there, Adam took Holly down our street for some traditional trick-or-treating.  I sat on the porch glider with Ben to give out candy.  When Holly got back to the house, she stood out at the end of the driveway watching all the kids going up and down the street.  When other trick-or-treaters would approach our house, she'd wave them in and lead them up to our porch saying, "Come on, guys!" Then she'd come take candy out of my bucket for her and the other kids. She was one enthusiastic trick-or-treating escort. 

Pumpkin Carving: A History

Adam with his creative talents introduced me to the art of fancy pumpkin carving.  When we had been dating for about 6 weeks (October 2006), we were planning to go to his Mom's house and carve pumpkins one night, but I got really sick and had to stay home.  At the end of the night, he came by to show me the jack o'lantern he'd made, which was a screaming face with its hands up at the sides of the face...think The Scream meets Kevin from Home Alone.  He had made individual strands of hair by scraping deep lines into the pumpkin shell, creating a glowing effect from the candlelight inside.  I was totally impressed, having grown up with traditional triangle-eyed jacks. 

Since then we've made it a tradition to put in the extra effort for cool carvings.  Here are the last 5 years of pumpkins: (Note how the subject matter has changed since we had kids)

2008: Haunted House and Skeleton losing his head

2009: Evil Sorcerer and Witch on Broomstick

2010: Witch at cauldron (the other two were our friends')

2011: Bigmouth and Snoopy Flying Ace

2012: Cheshire Cat and Zombie Hello Kitty

Holly was thrilled to be "the big helper" as she calls herself as we carved pumpkins this year. 

Holly and Charlotte at the Pumpkin Patch

Holly's best pal Charlotte, who lives next door to us, invited us to come with her preschool class to a pumpkin patch in October.  As always, the two girls had a ball together.  I had forgotten to put the memory card back in our camera, but between my phone and some pictures Charlotte's mom sent, we got a few decent shots.

Giant bubbles

Corn box

Holly and Charlotte

Hayride

Little pumpkins

Halloween Interview

                                Here's a little chat I had with Holly on Halloween day.