Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. 

We started out the celebrations by carving our pumpkin.  We had 2 and one rotted, so we had a family pumpkin which was totally fine thie year.  I cut the top off and Aria loved holding it.  Siena took it and starting peeling off pieces of it and eating it...yuck.  Funny though I caught her taking her first bite thinking she would spit it out and she went back for more.  That girl will eat anything put in front of her and not make a face about it.  Other then the pumpkin lid the girls didn't care much for pumpkin carving this year.  They were just bugged they were stuck in their high chairs.

Wednesday for Halloween I took the day off.  We put them in their cute little outfits and I was cracking up because I thought for sure when I put their little hoods on that they would pull them right off but they didn't.  They crawled and walked around the house all morning with them on, so funny.

We went and visited Shane's sister and brother.  And then went over to my sisters and my parents house.  For only going to a few houses they totally scored.  They each got a package of cookies from Shane's sister.  My sister Jennifer gave them a book and 2 suckers each.  They LOVED the sucker and actually they had never had a sucker before so they were in heaven.  And the books they got were so cute.  My parents had already given them a whole bag of goodies (most of which I ate) but when we went over there my dad fed them a bunch of candy that they loved.

After that we came home and had our traditional sloppy joe Halloween meal and passed out candy.  Apparently our doorbell doesn't ring very often because the first few times it rang the girls faces were hysterical looking around like what is that sound and where is it coming from.  We sat by the front door playing and then passing out candy when people would come and they enjoyed peering through the door at all our visitors that were dressed up.

Kind of low key day but next year for sure they will be geared up and ready to trick or treat.

And a few outtakes.  I wanted a cute picture of their cute Halloween shirts they wore in October but Aria was so offended I put her down to take a picture.

After I washed their costumes and was about to put them away Sunday morning they found them and started to play with them, so I put them back on them and played away.  Very appropriate that Aria is carrying the Lion King DVD around with her.

Me

What have I been up to you ask?  Well I thought I would give a quick update and actually post something besides pictures of the girls.

I'm still cancer free.  I had a scan in July...I know forever ago, I forgot to mention it.  Things are fine.  In fact things are so fine that my doctor told me I had to come back in 6 months but that I don't have to have a scan.  A year without a scan?  I know, so happy.  So I'll have a scan next July and then I'm done with scans forever.

A quick update on my mom.  She has responded soooo well to her chemo.  In fact at her last scan results appointment, her oncologist, who is my oncologist, who is not young, said to my mom "You have responded as well or better then anyone I've ever seen on this chemo regimen before."  Can you believe that?  All her tumors are gone and they actually said the R word to her (Remission).  However, she remains on chemo to keep the cancer away.  We are amazed and grateful.  Keep up the good work mom and thanks to everyone who has been praying, helping, thinking and asking about her.

So in August, I won Wicked tickets!  I'm so lucky.  They give away first 5 row tickets for $25/each in a raffle before each performance.  Jennifer went down with Kali the first week it opened and won tickets the first time they tried.  I wanted to win tickets so bad.   Then it was the olympics, then we had my sister in town and then the show only had 2 weeks left.  My neice Ashlee wanted to see it so we started trying.  Apparently everyone started trying the same time because it was crowded.  We tried 3 times and nothing.  Then we decided to gather as many people as we could and go down for the Saturday matinee.  We had Shane and I (the girls were there but you have to be 8 to enter), Jennifer, Ashlee, Cameron, his friend, Kali and Abbey (who isn't 8 either.)  I was thinking 'oh my gosh how many more times are we going to try and not win?'  The 2nd to last name called (10 people win 2 tickets each) was my name!  I won.  We were so excited.  It was sooo good and it was fun spending time with Ashlee and how much she enjoyed it since it was her first time seeing it.

What else have I been up to?  I threw a surprise 40th birthday party for Brigitte with her husband Tyler.  That was fun.  Then I helped with a baby shower for their new little boy coming soon.  Work is good and busy, nothing much to report there...it's work.

I got to babysit my nephew Max a couple of times while my brother and sister in law moved into a new home.  The first night it was just me and the 3 little ones (the girls and Max are 2 months apart.)  It was like having triplets...note to self and all others, don't have triplets.  Max was a little angel actually and was so good the whole time.  My girls however were little terrors that night.  The funniest part was when Max kept trying to steal their binkies.  Max doesn't take a binky but he decided he wanted to that night.  I was pretty sure his parents didn't want him sucking on someone else's binky, let alone a pink and purple one! The next time Shane was there and everything went fine and everyone was happy.

I think that's the update on Me, well and my mom and a few others.  Life is good and we're happy.

Pumpkin Patch

Last night we decided to go to the Pumpkin Patch and pick out some pumpkins.  We heard of this cute pumpkin patch out by my brother's house so we decided to check it out.  It looked so fun.  They have free hayrides on weekends and Mondays, cheap pumpkins, tractors to climb on, lots of photo ops and a free kids corn maze.

Apparently the girls didn't get the message.  They did NOT like the pumpkin patch.  Well I should say as long as they were being carried they liked it but did not want to touch or sit on hay, pumpkins or tractors.

The best part of the evening was when we walked through the corn make.  aka Kids corn maze, aka corn trail...as we're walking through these 2 kids pass us (apparently we were walking too slow) and as they pass all of the sudden I hear Shane's voice say 'Watch out for the man with the chain saw up ahead'  LOL...he said it so seriously, I was cracking up.  The kids ignored him though, thank goodness as I don't know what we would've done carrying 2 kids and all of the sudden have 2 more crying kids with us to console.

We went on the hayride which was fun and then picked out some pumpkins and called it good.  I'm sure in the next year or 2 my girls will think it's fun to run around the corn maze and pick out pumpkins...until then it was a nice try.

My Favorites

I just wanted to document today some funny and some cute things Siena and Aria are doing lately.

• Aria loves to play peekaboo by putting her hands over her eyes and laughs and giggles the whole time.

• Siena loves to play peekaboo by putting her hands over her ears...I don't think she quite gets the point but that's the way she plays it.

 

• Aria likes to stand on her own only when she's not thinking about it. If you try to get her to do it, she won't.  But she stands all the time while playing and even in the bathtub (much to my horror and dismay.)
• Siena is walking more and more but for some reason her left leg doesn't go as far as her right so she walks crooked and then will walk sideways trying to catch up and straighten out again.
• From time to time we barricade them in the family room with all their toys so Shane can get work done when he's home by himself or just so we don't have to chase after them every minute.  Well...
• Siena has learned to escape by crawling into the toy box and then over, while Aria laughs and cheers her on.

 

• When they aren't barricaded in Aria makes a straight shot to the stairs and up she goes.  Siena follows right after her.  When they get to the top they love to stand up against the railing that overlooks our family room and laugh at anyone downstairs that will talk to them.

• They love to be chased and both squeal the whole time.  Aria many times thinks that Siena is chasing her even if Siena is just crawling near or around her.  Aria squeals and crawls over to me to save her from Siena.
• They are understanding more words.  They know which toy is what, like if I say where is your ball, or do you want to play your piano, etc.
• In the bath tub Aria loves to poke at Siena's belly button but hasn't discovered that she has one too yet.
• Siena has started copying anyone that is coughing.  Jennifer first noticed it this week and sure enough since then she does it quite a bit.  This morning Aria choked on her bottle a little bit and without missing a beat Siena not looking over or anything, spit out her bottle, coughed back at Aria, put the bottle back in her mouth and kept drinking.
• We finally have teeth.  Aria got her 2 top teeth this week.  We celebrated by eating Creamies that night.

• They are obsessed with 2 books.  Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Noisy Nosiy Farm.  If I pick one of those books up, they both stop what they are doing and crawl over to listen.  When it's done they both start crying, every single time.  I have both books memorized.
• We've continued our Saturday Family Adventures and are feeling sad the weather is cooling off as it will be harder to find things the girls enjoy doing in the cold.

These two girls really are my favorite.  My girls are growing up....sigh.

PS. Excuse the random formatting...apparently I'm in a fight with blogger.  Ugh...

Witch Fest Gardner Village

A couple weeks ago we decided to take the girls over to Gardner Village to Witch Fest.  It was a warm, fall afternoon and even though Halloween was over a month away we decided to go anyways.  It was fun to get out and enjoy the warm weather while we could.

I was so excited they were both smiling that I didn't realize I totally cut off the witch...oops.

I love when they do cute little things like this with each other...aah.

Siena is walking

2 nights ago Siena decided to take a couple steps for me.  Well she has caught on fast and although she doesn't do it on her own yet, she is walking across our family room floor.  Thought you would want to see some video.  She's so proud of herself as you can tell!  I hope this works.

I had to remove the videos cuz I'm running out of space...agh.

 

More Birthday Celebrating

On the girls actual birthday we decided to keep it low key. We hung around in the morning playing with their new toys. It was like Christmas morning with all their toys from their party. Then Shane and I got them a little piano that plugs into the TV and teaches them colors, sounds, words, etc. And then another toy, the ballcano, that you put balls on the top of and then it lifts them up and sends them down the legs. They actually are loving both of those toys and play with them often.

After their morning nap we took them to Jungle Jims. I wasn’t sure if they would like it at all. They actually did really good. We took them on the carousel. Shane said Aria was shaking the whole time…I felt bad. The 2nd time though she warmed up and was fine. I think their favorite was the swings. Every time they would come around they would smile at us. We even took them on the roller coaster thing that goes in a circle. I was laughing hysterically because it was so fast and I had a death grip on Siena. Neither of them made a face one way or the other until it came to a stop and then they wanted off, fine by me. The worst ride was this train/cars that go around on a little track. On a lot of the rides Shane and/or I would go on it with them but this one the worker thought they would be just fine and I didn’t think I was going to fit in them anyways. So we put them together and off they went. You should’ve seen Siena’s face looking back at us very concerned about why this train was taking her away from her parents. Then they went through this little tunnel and when they came out I was standing right there and Siena was all slouched down in the chair totally crying. It was pretty sad but kind of funny at the same time. So overall I thought it was a success and I know they will like this place a lot more when they get a little bit older. But for their first time on rides on anything, they did really well. Afterwards we went to lunch and then came home and they were really ready for their afternoon nap.

That evening we went over to my parent’s house to celebrate mine and Jennifer’s birthdays. Of course we had the girls in our pictures again when they sang to us.

Last year when I was still in the hospital after giving birth, my family got together and celebrated Jennifer’s birthday. Since the girls were born on her birthday I soon got a text with this picture.

The text said that Jennifer was getting her pose for next year’s picture ready. She said she couldn’t wait until the following year to have both the girls in each arm celebrating their birthdays together. Well I remembered this year to make sure I got a picture of the 3 girls on their birthday together.

It was a very fun day and a very long weekend full of celebrations.