Trick or Treat...a little late

Halloween was more than just a day's worth of fun- we had a week's worth of fun! We started off our Halloween celebrations with a costume party at Ms. Latsamy's house.  We decorated pumpkins and made caramel apples- yummy!  For FHE, we also decorated pumpkins and made caramel apples.  One can NOT have too many caramel apples in my humble opinion.  We also carved our family Jack-O-Lantern and it's probably the best looking one we've ever done.  Piper's preschool had a parade and Halloween party.  We made tissue paper stained glass pumpkins and they turned out so cute.  On Halloween, we decided to trick or treat our cul-de-sac.  The kids didn't need a lot of candy and going house to house is really tiring.  We made out like bandits just on our street.  Brynnie loved knocking on doors and saying, "Trick or Treat!"   mostly she just grabbed the candy, but it was still pretty cute!  After we went trick or treating, we passed out candy to the other kids and inspected our own loot.  Piper loved the lollipops and NERDS.  Brynn just loved everything!  

16 MONTHS

Somewhere between being sick with the flu and celebrating birthdays, Brynnie suddenly turned 16 months.  Okay, this "growing up" thing is getting pretty ridiculous. 

16 Months:

*IS.ALL.OVER.THE.PLACE!  she discovered CLIMBING.  Oh joy!  We've caught her trying to climb out of her crib.  

*Vocabulary: added a few more words- apple, bottle, my bottle, baby, varoom (for car), more, bye, milk, banana, and happy. She understands:  in, on top, next to, "turn off the light", "time for bath" 

*Gives kisses and high fives

*Still eats just about anything she can, but is developing a nasty habit of throwing her food to Boo

*Started stacking 3 blocks to build towers, but gets very frustrated.  Also, matches the shape blocks into their correct outline on her shape toy.  Again, she gets very frustrated and just lifts the lid up and puts the blocks in there.  

*Loves to be tickled and chased.  

*Is very, very sneaky and knows it.  Bobby said that he went in to check on her one night because he could hear her talking and cooing.  When he opened the door, she quickly rolled over and "pretended" to be asleep.  What a riot!

*Teething:  we finished cutting all molars and are now working on our top incisors.  Brynn will have a full set of teeth by 18 months!  

getting ready to trick or treat for the 1st time

I can only imagine the conversation

a favorite spot for Brynnie

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

So after I ran the "Gritty Goddess", we spent an entire week sick with the flu.  Unfortunately, that week happened to be Piper and Bob's birthday.  What a bummer!  Despite being sick, we had a low-key celebration at home and rescheduled Piper's birthday party for the following weekend.  

Piper requested a smiley face pancake.
You can't tell from the picture but she was sick with the flu.

My friend, Ms. Latsamy and her daughter brought over a
cupcake for Bobby and Piper because I was too sick to leave the house. Bobby came home from work with a bouquet of balloons for his birthday girl.  

Piper's birthday wish:  To swim with the dolphins

Piper's big birthday present was a dollhouse complete with all the accessories.  She plays with it almost every single day.  She loves it.  

 
 Once we were all better, we had a belated birthday party.  Piper had so much fun with her friends.  Our theme was: "Whatever Piper wanted"  which included princess themed decor, blue and purple balloons (those are her favorite colors), hot dogs, yummy "Nothing Bundt Cakes" cupcakes, and making sock puppets. I love that she's made such wonderful friends.

Sebastian and Piper

Reagan and Piper

Abi, Belen, and Piper.  Reagan photo-bombed a few pics.

Ava and Piper

The Birthday Crew- flanked with Brynn and Skylar

Happy Birthday Piper!  You are an amazing little girl with such a big heart.  

Now that you are 4 you love:  

*Cinderella, but only because she wears a blue dress
*Blue, Purple, and sometimes pink are your favorite colors
*To SING and DANCE.  You love music.
*To practice getting dressed all by yourself.  You still have trouble getting on your shirt by yourself.
*To read non-fiction books especially books about animals
*Dolphins a whole lot.  You got one of your favorite movies for your birthday:  Dolphin Tale and you want to swim with the dolphins when you are 5 or 6.
*Your baby sister so much.  You are so kind and tender with her.
*Ice cream and chocolate milk, but not much else.
*To play on the playground, but still get super nervous about anything new.
*To go to school and learn.
*To talk and talk and talk and talk.  You are a chatterbox!
*Watching cartoons and having "family movie night"
*Collecting stuffed animals.  You would sleep with every single one of them if we let you.
*Just about everything!  You are still the happiest child I know.

The Not-So-Muddy Mud Run: Gritty Goddess 2012

I kept seeing so many advertisements for "mud" runs that I decided I wanted to see what the hoopla was all about.  So Ms. L and I signed up for an all female mud obstacle 5K: The Gritty Goddess.  I figured it'd be easy and not too military style since it's for women only, but I didn't realize that I'd be mud-less for most of the race and aching for some type of wound of honor.  BUMMER!  I am competitive- or better said, Ms. L and I are both competitive and seeing so many participants not taking it seriously really irked us.  Our decision was simple:  go hard or go home.  We were the 3rd/4th out of the gate behind these 2 little 12 yr olds sprinting through (we're old and our "training" consisted of playing on playground equipment with our kids) and we even passed people who had started the race at least 30 minutes prior to us.  We finished the entire race with all the obstacles in less than 35minutes despite the painful waits behind dainty princesses who didn't want to get muddy or behind those who got stuck in the cargo net. We both agreed that it was fun and we had a good time, but next time we're doing it military style- where bumps and bruises are earned and you're covered in mud from start to finish.

Look it's Bret Michaels and Mr. Miagi

Our #1 FANS



3rd and 4th out of the gate

Cargo Net or should I say "holding pen"  that lady in the tutu over there really cheesed me off.  She got stuck on the cargo net and I was the fool behind her.  I was literally laying on the cargo net waiting for her to roll over.

Look I'm posing and that rainbow tutu lady is still trying to get off.  Seriously?!?  And I'm trying to do the rocker hands, but it came out all jazz hands

I photobombed all these girls' pictures.  They were posing and looking all clean.  I totally sideswiped them.

probably the hardest obstacle or most awkward and potentially dangerous:  we each held a fence post and had to run a short distance.  I ran- nearly took out a few people.  That's not me, though, that's Ms. L.  I was already finished with this obstacle. 

And the dreaded wall- don't know what I was so worried about.  I flew over that thing.

The other "muddy" area.  I stayed clean.

And we finished! 

too much Lesly for this little house!

After I got all cleaned up, I spotted my friend and neighbor Ms. Jenn.  She was running in a later wave. 

"easy" Mud Run- check!
Gritty Goddess 2012