halloween craziness.

This is one of those posts that i envisioned spending lots of time recalling the details of the whirlwind of a weekend and retelling the story of all the events that took place. the reality is that if i do that, this will never get posted and i have exactly one friend left who is not on fb, that i promised i would update the blog with halloween pics, so for her sake i am going to just post the pics and get it done. the gist is that we attended a party at rory's school, hosted a party at our house for 11 kids and 30ish adults, participated in the crazy neighborhood parade, and trick or treated. the girls loved it all and did well w/ no major melt downs. we even seemed to manage the sugar intake. (well, except for this- it was lucy's first attempt at helping bake cupcakes- i had to let her)

We once again found ourselves surrounded by so many wonderful family and friends, it was a really fun day.

littlest crabs

My parents bought a boat, so this week we went on our first crabbing trip with the girls. I grew up crabbing out of Waldport, on my grandparent's boat, so it was cool for me to see my girls getting that same opportunity. It was an absolutely beautiful day to be on the water. sunny, no wind, not a lot of people. We only spent about an hour and a half on the boat, then we took the dog for a run on the beach, had some lunch and headed home. The girls loved the boat, but i think i was the one having the most fun. I love crabbing! we only caught one keeper- lots of almosts. While on the beach, the girls decided to collect shells. rory chose some really pretty ones and lucy just picked up anything in her vicinity.

grandpa faithfully collected them all and rory spent lots of that time with soap and water cleaning each one. they also loved running from the waves (who doesn't?) After such a long day of outside adventure we got to eat the crab we caught and had to deal with the 2 littlest crabs that live with me. over all super fun and worth a little evening meltdown. thanks grandma and grandpa- can't wait for more boating adventures!

Pumpkin fun with friends

We again hit the pumpkin patch with Jaime, Tate and Lexi and my mom. It was warm day with lots of sun, fun, and silly kiddos. Lucy and Rory both loved the slides, the bounce house, feeding the goats, picking out little pumpkins, and getting to try candy corn. there were 4 wk old puppies for sale that almost came home with us, and both girls loved this giant bull mastiff puppy named bulldozer. such a fun day, one of my favorite fall activities.

1st day of school- round 2.

So rory started back at school today and lucy had her first day ever. I'll start with rory. She did fantastic- she has the same teacher, but moved up to an older classroom. she is one again the youngest in the room. she didn't remember her friends from last spring, but quickly jumped in and all reports were that she did great and had a lot of fun. one distict difference between this year and last year's first day was the dressing. last year she wore (at my choosing) tights, orange boots, matching brown jumper, pig tails. all in all- total cuteness. this year she came out of her room (where she goes each morning for "privacy', shuts the door and comes out with a "ta-da!") in orange bike shorts, a white tank top w/ butterflies, a headband, 4 hair clips, and some beads. she then requested i add a bandana. needless to day, cute in an entirely different way. i insisted she add something over the bike shorts, so in the end she added a skirt and sweater and looked fairly put together. she was very proud of her "grown-up passenger bag". i think she meant messenger bag, but she loves it either way. you will also notice in the pics her new haircut. this happened while i was in vegas, but grandma swears that the lady told her that the long hair was very damaged due to chlorine and just needed to be cut off. it is pretty cute.
so lucy was very excited to get to go to school just like rory, until she realized that meant that we were all leaving her there by herself. she did great for 4 days w/o pat and i, but appearanly 3 hours of school was too much. when it was time to go home, she left happy, and blew her teacher kisses, so there is hope, but the first report was "she had a rough day' and i returned to very red and swollen eyes. we'll just have to wait and see how next week goes. My favorite part was how excited she was to wear her little backpack.

she kept turning around and showing it off. we are very lucky that they have such a wonderful place to go learn, play and grow.

rory's 1st "graduation"

Before school starts again, i thought i should catch up on how school ended for miss rory last year. she ended up having her tonsil surgery right near the end of the year, so was out for a few weeks at the end. she did recover just in time to participate in their 'graduation" celebration. really it was for the kiddos going on to kindergarten next year, but for rory's class it was an end of year celebration. it was super cute and the kids all sang a couple of songs, some in english and some in spanish. they each got to wear a hat (rory refused) and walk across the stage. they each got a certificate and a big hug from miss angie.

grandma dawni and baba were able to join us, and after the program was dinner and music for dancing/playing. we ended the evening with some special frozen yogurt treats. it was really fun and a good way to introduce rory to the concept of summer break. that being said, it is almost september and we are ramping up for lucy to start school one morning a week and for rory to start her second year with miss angie.

1st boat ride

I am so far behind on blogging, it is tempting to scrap the whole thing and just give up, but since this is the ONLY form of baby book/memory keeping i have for either child, i am determined to press on and just do what i can- even if it is out of order and very delayed. that being said, we recently got invited to take the girls out on their first boat ride. i had just ordered them new life jackets so the timing was perfect. rory was nervous at first, but agreed to just tour the boat. once aboard she was in her element and loved it. She especially loved driving. lucy wanted to touch the water the entire time and showed absolutely no nerves or fear. she'll probably be on skiis next summer! anyway, it was a fun day- a little too cool to get in the water, but a great way to spend the afternoon. looking forward to lots more boating adventures.