Zoo Time With Friends

An official Ella play date!  No Addy friends, no Addy, just Ella and another 2 year old.  Poor second child only gets play dates with Addy's friends and their siblings, mainly because we don't know a lot of kids her age that aren't in school on the days we have off.  But E's school was closed today, so her friends were out and about and we met with a friend for a play date at the zoo.  Granted, I'm not really sure they were close friends until today.  Our play date was with the little brother of one of Addy's good friends.  Just happen to be talking to their mom at a party this weekend and she mentioned a trip to the zoo, so we tagged along.  I know Ella and Ian see each other in the breakfast room at school, but they are in separate class rooms most of the day.  They are good buddies now though!

And randomly, as we were walking through the African forest, we ran into the parents of my friend Dan.  They had Dan's little one out for a day at the zoo.  So it was Ella and the boys hanging out in the African forest.  Here they are posing with the rhino cut out.  They were all balanced on a step behind the rhino and I think Jake is holding on to Ella to keep from falling off.  Pretty sure the step is for adults to stand on, but Ella doesn't seem to accept that theory and she always jumps up on it. 

The Circus

Here is just more proof that our house is a circus...

Addy seems to really enjoy the gym class she is taking after school on Fridays and she came home demonstrating "the tripod" the other day.  Ella wasn't quite able to do the tripod, but she apparently enjoys doing head stands, which aren't exactly headstands because her legs are flipped up on the ottoman, but it is close.

And unrelated to gymnastics, but in case you are wondering, we'd gone out for Mexican for dinner and Ella was especially messy with the queso, plus she had spilled juice from a fruit cup on the shirt at lunch.  So yeah, she was out in public looking like that, but I only had 1 dirty shirt to clean and not 2, so that is all I care about!

Halloween Festivities

 We have gotten our money's worth of Halloween costumes this year!  1st we had Addy's birthday party, then the carnival in Jean and Tom's neighborhood, Zoo Boo and then the official night.  And fortunately everyone was super excited to put on their costume each time!

Pumpkin Carving Time - Both girls were willing to put their hands in the goo this year.  Now, we did most of the cleaning out, but their hands went on the inside the pumpkin so that is pretty impressive.

Carnival Time:  I actually got double booked thanks to poor calendar management, so I didn't get to go to the carnival this time, but I hear that it was a fun time again.  No Sesame Street booth, but both girls came home with candy, so they were happy.  And we learned that Whoppers are Ella's favorite candy.  Or they were that night at least.  I'm not sure what Addy is doing in this picture, but it is a fun one of Ella and Jean!

Zoo Boo:  There were not as many booths passing out candy, so Zoo Boo was a good time, but didn't seem to be the hit it was in the past.  The focus was on finding the pumpkin patch to decorate pumpkins. 

 We ran into one of Addy's friends and they had fun pumpkin decorating together.

 Can you tell Ella is saying "cheese"??  Because she loves to say cheese and not look at the camera.  She was rockin' her bumblebee fairy though!  She left the wings on the whole time which was super impressive.

Addy has officially decided that the train is no longer scary (no clue why it was scary to begin with) and we went on a family ride. 

Halloween Night: The big night finally arrived.  We ran home from work and school and grabbed some pizza for dinner then hit the street.  We went to about 5 houses on the block and then they were done.  Addy did a much better job this year when it came to ringing the door bell and saying "trick-or-treat".  Ella wasn't completely sure about the whole gig, but got into it more at the last couple of houses.  Both girls were super excited about candy and I think that they were done  going to different houses because they just wanted to come inside and eat candy! 

 The official Halloween picture of Cherry Jam and Ms. Bumblebee Fairy

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa's