Rose and Sunflower

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I just love October and all the Halloween fun. (I inherited this from my mother, who got it from her grandma). Here are a few pictures of our celebrations.

Carving Pumpkins on Friday Night

Eden and Zia had a hard time deciding what to be this year and possibilities ranged from an ogre or the stinky cheese man to a gorilla or a mother fish (?!). Finally, they settled on being a
ROSE...

and a SUNFLOWER.
They had "dirt shoes," green stems, and flower tops. (I dressed up on Halloween as a "flower gardener" with a seed on my belly, and in his black fleece Dane told me he was the fertilizer.)After a yummy pumpkin pancake breakfast (Zia called them "pum-cakes"), we went to the Urban Harvest Fall Festival. They had some great activities for the kids (an insect zoo, a corn sandbox, and lots of crafts), and Zia won 2nd place in the costume contest!

Eden Holding Leaf Bug

Eden Holding Tarantula

Zia in the Corn

Cheese!

That night, we went Trick-or-Treating around our neighborhood.

This guy (actually the brother of one of Dane's students who lives on our street) freaked the girls out--he was still like a dummy with the bowl of candy until they came close...Yikes! Afterward, when we walked away, Zia said, "Stay!"

In front of our house. It was fun to have Trick-or-Treaters come to the door. :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Half-Way to Number Three!

If you haven't heard or didn't figure it out, we're expecting our third baby the end of February. YAY! :) The pregnancy has gone really well so far. We're planning another homebirth, and found a good midwife here in Houston. We decided to wait to find out the gender of the baby, but we're working on names. If you have any suggestions, send 'em our way. So far, Eden has been the most prolific with ideas and they are such random conglomerations of sounds I can hardly remember any to write down (I do remember "Io" for a boy and "Cademy" for a girl--probably because they actually sound like names). This is a picture of my belly at 23 weeks~about a week ago.

Pictures from Grandparents' Visit

In Chinatown

I never posted these fun pictures from when Ron and Jan visited us--they were here for Zia's B-day and doctors' appointments.

In the Yard (Dane and Ron replaced our tire-swing)

At "Story Time"

At Church

Thanks for the great visit, Mom and Dad--so grateful for the good news from the doctors!

Zia is 2!

September 23rd was a happy, happy day!! Zia had been anticipating this special day all month. (And for months she has been telling people she is two.) She woke up so excited "Me birthday, me birthday!" I had decorted the family room with balloons, and she must have appreciated it because she said the breakfast prayer: "Grateful for balloons, Amen."

She loved all of the phone calls and cards she received throughout the day. We had a special "Birthday" themed library story time in the morning, came home for lunch and nap, had to do her 2 year check-up at the doctor's in the afternoon--shots and all :(--and then! So fun! Grandma and Grandpa Roberts came in time for the birthday dinner.

Zia had requested a Lizard Birthday Cake, so lizards became the theme for the evening. We played Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Lizard, opened gifts, and finished off with the song and cake routine.


It was a happy day, and Zia enjoyed every minute. When Dane asked her at bedtime what her favorite time was she answered, "Me lizard cake, Grandma and Grandpa, happy birthday to me!"

Zia is a joy to our family--happy, full of love, playful, smart, so dang sweet! We love you, our 2-year-old Lizard!

Henry

Practically all of my photos of our Labor Day weekend houseguest are like this because he is so hyper and happy around people that I couldn't get a decent shot. :) Some friends of ours went out of town last weekend and let us take care of their very fun pug, Henry. The girls LOVED having him around and wanted to be with him every second. In fact, Eden would wake up extra early asking, "Is Henry awake yet?" before they would go outside for an early morning romp in the backyard. We loved taking him for walks (Eden couldn't get over the "marking his territory" practice, and Zia kept trying to walk like Henry when he was tugging on the leash with his legs all stretched out), and we even made it to the beach with Henry and some friends on Monday. Growing up, my family had a pair of pugs, so it was a fun nostalgia trip for me, too. It was so interesting how similar Henry's looks and personality matched my dog, Ping's.

Walking the Dog

Labor Day at the Beach

We miss you, Henry! But we're glad you are home with your family! :)

Did I Mention I Love Our Neighborhood?

The more we explore the stuff around here, the more we love where we are.
A mile from our house is a delicious Ethiopian Restaurant. Dane and I had gone there together, but last week we took the girls knowing they would love the fact that you don't use utensils to eat. The food was divine, and as we were the only ones there so early, our sweet waitress put Eden and Zia up on the woven basket tables for a photo.

One mile from our house in the opposite direction is THE MOST DELICIOUS MEXICAN BAKERY IN THE WORLD. I mean, I lived in Mexico and everything. Usually Mexican pastries look so much better than they actually taste. But not at Aranda's--the most fresh, soft, delightful cookies and conchas and breads you could imagine.

Lizards and Ogres

I forgot two -isms...

One more Zia-ism:

• She likes to pretend to be a lizard. One morning she was squirming around on our bed and told us "Me lizard." And I totally set her up for this one, but the other day I asked her, "Zia, how do you spell 'lizard'?" She responded, "Z-I-A."

One more Eden-ism:

• She really loves the bad guys in any story. Lately, she's been really into fairy tales because they have such great antagonists: big bad wolves, wicked stepmothers, ogres. I think she is just fascinated by it somehow. A real favorite has been "Jack and the Beanstock" by Stephen Kellog. The art is pretty detailed, and in this version it is an incredibly grotesque Ogre that Jack tricks. Eden eats it up, and she especially loves the Ogre and his Big Tall Woman of a wife.

And just because posts without pictures are not nearly as fun: