3 Costumes, $0

This year Aria had a hard time choosing a costume for our three Halloween costume opportunities.  I decided that the costume Aria wore wasn't really about me, so I just let her pick three different things from her dress up box and called it good.  We spent exactly $0.  We did about 5 minutes of planning the outfits.  She was happy.  I was happy.  And of course she was cute, in 3 different ways.

Exhibit A
Fall Fest at church
Cat

Look familiar?  Why yes, Aria was a cat last year, too.  She loved it that much.  :)

Exhibit B
Daddy's work trick or treat
Butterfly

Exhibit C
Halloween trick or treat
Princess

Yes, it was a tad cold so we added a few layers and ditched the crown for a sparkly winter hat.

Pony Ride

We get to do such cool stuff for preschool!

Thanks to a family from our church, our preschool had the opportunity to ride a pony today!  Aria was thrilled to ride Chip!  It was incredibly adorable watching them all go around the yard atop the little pony.  They looked so grown up and proud of themselves.  Yay for a fun experience!

And at the end, the kids got to give Chip a special treat, carrots.  For some it was easy to hold out their hand and let him eat it.  For others, like Aria, poor Chip didn't know what to think as they pulled their hands away and dropped the carrots.  :)  He was such a friendly and good natured pony.

Fun at Daddy's Work

The company Justin works for has had fun fall events each year.  This year they had a Fall Family Fun night at a rented lodge building at a park.  There was food, games, face painting, balloons, s'mores, and crafts.  The night started off with a lovely reminder that our child inherited her parents' competitive gene.  They had a sack race.  Aria was probably the second youngest kid in the race.  The other kids were mostly in the 6-10 range, so it really wasn't even close.  And neither was the race.  That didn't sit well with Aria.  She got over it pretty quick and tried the egg on a spoon race. 

 

She decided she didn't want to do the three-legged race.  Although, I don't blame her.  I wouldn't want my leg tied to a stranger, either.  Instead she opted for face painting.

 

 

Surprisingly, most of it stayed on until the next day.  Finally, she got a lovely balloon hat.

 

 

Everything was all hunky dory until the red balloon popped.  She hasn't been much into balloons since.  I don't mean to make the evening sound like a downer.  We did have a great time and I think it is wonderful that Justin's company holds family events and supports their employees spending time with their families.

 

The other event in October is a trick or treat.  It is as simple as a bunch of small people in costumes strolling around the building and picking up candy from the employees.  They also have a few games, crafts and food.  More fun times at Daddy's work!

 

 







Pegump Pumpkins Year 4

Every October of Aria's life we've had a great time decorating pumpkins.  This year was a first in that Aria designed and helped carved her pumpkin herself.  She was super excited about it and poked plenty of holes in her pumpkin with the little carving tools.  This was also the first time she touched the guts of the pumpkin and enjoyed it. 

Aria wanted to make a face in hers.  Justin and I tried out free handing our own designs.  You can definitely tell his is a G for Green Bay.  The St. Louis was challenging and I cut out a chunk I didn't mean to, but we weren't going for perfection.  Most of all we had a blast and spent time together as a family! 

October Snow!!

This morning we did this...

I should say Aria did that.  I did not roll around in the snow on our deck in my pajamas, however I was that excited about it.  When Aria saw the snow this morning, she said, "It's not Fall anymore!"  I had to gently let her down, but it was okay because we let her go out right away to play.  She was a bit disappointed that it wasn't sticking and there wasn't enough to build a snowman.  However we did get all the snow clothes on and head outside for a bit.  I'm so glad this winter loving mom has a winter loving kid!  And the older she gets, the more fun it is to go out and play!     

Moses in the Basket

Following our God's Little Explorers curriculum, this week we have reached Moses.  The suggestion for today was to act out the story of Moses as a baby and how he was left in a basket in the river.  I thought Aria could get into that, especially since it involves a baby and a princess.  She does plenty of acting stories out or retelling stories on her own, but often gets shy when I want her to do it for me.  She was a little timid at first and didn't want to speak to tell the story.  It didn't help that I tried to record our little "show" right away.  However, after one very hesitant retelling, without much smiling, she said, "I want to do it again."  And we were off.  We told the story of Moses in the basket at least 7 or 8 times with all the characters changing roles.  I started off as the Mommy.  Moses was one of her dolls.  The mean king was a large stuffed penguin.  Moses' sister Miriam was another doll.  Aria, of course, was the princess and we had another doll for the servant girl of the princess.  We found costumes for everyone and marked out places in our living room for the river and where Miriam would hide.  In our retellings I got to be the mom, the princess, and the mean king.  When Justin got home, he got to be the mean king and I even saw him as the mommy after I went off to make supper.  Over and over again we told the story and Aria got more comfortable as we went.  It was a truly great time.  I already knew Aria was familiar with the story.  I've heard her "read" it to herself.  But I really saw her brain go to a new level by acting it out.  I guess we will have to do this kind of thing more often!

Cardinals-Dodgers

Tonight is game 6 of the NLCS Cardinals vs. Dodgers, the perfect series for our house!  We are guaranteed a team to root for in the World Series.  We are mostly girls against boy on this one.  I started early...

We've heard "Go Cardinals" and "Go Dodgers" in the middle of the night as Aria dreams about baseball. 

This is the only sport where we disagree, so it is fun to share a little banter back and forth.  #housedivided

PS: Aria's shirt is circa 1980s from my closet.

PPS: The good team is winning!

This is Post #500!

And what should it be about?  Aria of course!  About three and a half years ago, inspired by my very good friend's blog that I loved to read, I decided to start my own.  Initially, I wanted to write about our experience with infertility and in vitro.  It took me a long time to be able to talk about any of that stuff and this was really my stepping block to being completely open about it all.  After I got all that out of my system, I was hooked on blogging.  It took me a little bit to decide what would be my next purpose in writing, but I discovered it was already happening.  This is my virtual scrapbook.  It's even more than a scrapbook.  It's a baby book that goes well past babyhood.  It's a list of firsts, a collection of photos, a journal of funny quotes.  It's a timeline, a growth chart, and record of all we'll both forget.  Occasionally I use this to speak from my heart on a subject that doesn't necessarily relate to Aria, but most of the time you can trace it back to her.  This parenting journey has been awesome, scary, excellent, challenging, beautiful, messy, indescribable.  I've done my best to capture it on here.  I hope, someday, Aria will enjoy reading all that was her.

Take a look at how we started...

And how we've grown...

How did we get to just a few months short of 4?