Halloween

We were excited to live in a neighbor that goes trick or treating now.  There are lots of kids and they even have a neighborhood party, which it great.  Sarah decided to be Cleopatra and David was an M&M.  However, he decided he didn't want to be one after a 10 minutes and carried it around for trick or treating instead.  People still gave him candy anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.

In addition, we went to the fall annual festival at David's daycare.  Sarah went as well since she went there for so long.  A long tradition there, is that she gets her fortune told to her by one of her old teachers, Ms. Pope.  This time, she went in with some old friends and they learned their fortune for the year.  Sadly, I already forget what it was.  

Sarah gets her fortune read with Ms. Pope and her other friends Sarah and Caroline

David in his M&M costume.  He didn't want to pose and it only stayed on a few minutes.

New House Pictures

Gardiner House

Halloween

Halloween was fun this year. I think Sara was really into it and was excited to be a princess. We recycled a dalmation outfit from two years ago and put it on David. He seemed somewhat ok with it except for the hat. It was a nice evening and Sarah went trick or treating with 5 kids! That's big for our "neighborhood" which really isn't much of one because we live on a main road and there aren't as many kids in it (since we live in the city, parents flee to suburbs when it comes time for their kids to go to school) but we like our location and heard the city school near us is really good.

With all the activities that happen around Halloween, it seems that the kids always get several opportunities to use their costumes. First the daycare has a harvest festival one evening for the kids with all sorts of activities. Then they have trick or treating in the classrooms the day of Halloween and then their is neighborhood trick or treating. By the end of this, we have more candy than we need and it seems it hangs around until Easter but the kids have fun.

David dressed up. Woof Woof

Sarah and "the girls" at the Halloween festival (Nina, Madison, Sarah and her friend Sarah Kitchen--yes their are two Sarah's with the initials SK)

Goodnight Lovies

I feel I need to post this because one day I'll show this to Sarah and she'll see how cute it is. On many nights, Sarah likes to put her stuffed animals to bed. She's not much of a sleeper, so after I say goodnight, I'll often hear footsteps moving about. Sarah will go around her room and collect blankets (even getting some from David's room) and stuffed animals to tuck in. She'll do this during the day as well. Sometimes we'll find stuffed animals tucked in our beds, in the chair in David's room, or on the couch or chairs downstairs. These photos here are just from one night's effort of putting many stuffed animals to be in her room. They are just small reminders of how sweet (at least we think) our little girl is.

Here's some on the main carpet (the photo above are the one's at the end of the bed)

...and since we ran out of room, we put one near the wall.

New Camera Lens

I finally got a new camera lens in June. My old one broke for my SLR and I didn't realize how expensive it was to replace one. After hours of shopping and reading reviews, I figured out the right one to fit our needs. I am extremely happy with my purchase. These were just a few of my first shots of the kids with them. I love how well it does close ups.

One thing I was glad to capture is David sucking his two fingers. Just like his sister, at around 3-4 months he started sucking his two front fingers. He did this continuously until about 9 months. He rarely sucks them now, which is good and similar to what Sarah did. They both never wanted a pacifier. One day at daycare he kept trying to steal another child's pacifier and finally got it. He didn't know what to do with it and started trying to eat the backside of it.

David loves to watch Sarah and smile.

Sarah watching David.

David crawling towards Sarah


How do I look?

A Very Hot August

This August and summer were hot. Some of the hottest temperatures on record. We had many days in the 90s and 100s, which were miserable. It was too hot to do anything and Sarah just wanted to be inside to avoid getting too hot and sweaty. I couldn't blame her. We tried to manage by going to the Children's museum, visiting the playground at the mall or playing in our inflatable pool on the back porch. We definitely are going to look into a pool membership for next year now that David is more independent. Hopefully we'll get Sarah more comfortable with the water by then.

Sarah's Birthday July

This year Sarah had her first birthday party. We were in Massachusetts visiting family in July but we had plenty of children come to play with her. We had a great week on the beach visiting with my parents and my friend Elina and her family (they rented a house down the road). The week started off with Sarah's party and then we had fun at the beach most days. The weather was nice and Sarah got to play with her niece, Abigail; her second cousins, Vrinda, Rohan, and Nihar; and my friend Elina's kids, Zak, Nathan and Hugh.

The Brown Family gathers for Sarah's birthday

Eating mom's watch at the beach.


Fun at the beach

Reading books with dad.

Playing in the sand

Having fun with dad at the birthday party