Our colorful Halloween

We had a lot of fun today! We took advantage of a break in the almost-daily October rains to do some leaf-raking and outside play this afternoon. Nathan let his sister give him a ride on Scoots McGoo--usually he insists on pushing it around the yard himself.


AND THEN...it was time for trick-or-treating! Rachel and Nathan got all gussied up in their (thankfully, warm!) costumes and headed out to collect some loot. First they let us take a few pictures. Rachel was a pink crayon...


Nathan was a green crayon...

And they looked darling together!


(I plan to stretch out this sticking-felt-on-clothes-and-calling-it-a-costume gig as long as they'll let me. Think it will work in middle school?)

Rachel did a great job of climbing up and down lots of steps to all the neighborhood porches and ended up with a fair bit of loot. She spent the rest of the evening playing with her candy--sorting it, counting it, making towers with it, and putting it in all manner of boxes, bags, mittens, etc. (There is currently candy everywhere. She may be part squirrel.) Nathan played with candy, too--he put his new emptying skills to work on our bowl of treats by the front door. The kid has a good arm--some of the candy flew several feet!



All told, we had a very nice Halloween. We hope you did, too!

Rachel is 3!

We had quite a big day yesterday--we woke up and found a three-year-old in our house! It's been fun to celebrate with Rachel--this is the first year that she really gets what we're excited about, and she's excited, too. In fact, she spent most of the day excited, I think. There was a lot of giddy laughter around here. Rachel has been asking to hear the story of when she was born a lot lately, so she seems really to understand the connection between birthdays and birth days, which is cool. It's good to know that the magical thinking persists, though--she was pretty sure that the pile of birthday cards and new magazine at her place at breakfast had been placed there directly by the mail carrier. She wondered if the mail carrier had also brought the balloon.

Rachel has recently decided that she really likes pigs. (I think it's because they're pink, but we haven't discussed her attraction too much, so I can't say for certain.) And so we celebrated with a pig cake. (If I dare say so myself, it turned out pretty cute--and it tasted good, too!)

Rachel had loads and loads of ideas about how she'd celebrate her birthday. If we'd done everything she had planned, we'd be partying hard until Thursday, so we had to edit the agenda a bit. But a Dora pinata came up again and again and again, so that dream became reality. Quite a sweet reality, if you ask Rachel. We pulled the ribbons instead of bashing Dora's head in, since we were in the house. Rachel has been seen hugging and talking to the pinata ever since, so it's probably a good thing we went that route.


Here are the two birthday girls and the one new birthday doll. Hard to believe this amazing little girl who has changed our lives has only been around for three years--and yet, it's like yesterday that she came wailing into our lives. We love you, Rachel Baby!

Glamour girl

Rachel, who has long been interested in clothes (newer readers may want to look back at the tale of the BPC, from her early days of fashion sense), has recently developed a fascination with makeup. I'm honestly not sure where this came from. I mean, I know that she's just interested in exploring the concept and wondering what she might look like and all that. What I wonder is where she even figured out what makeup is, since it's not like her mother puts on lipstick for playgroup--or for anything else, for that matter. Rachel herself has been getting a lot of practice. We had to "disappear" her markers after one too many bathtimes spent scrubbing washable marker off her every inch. (Weirdest thing: these washable markers wash off everything--except people!) Then, when we went to the children's museum one day a few weeks ago, I spent a couple of minutes watching Nathan crawl around on some pillows while Rachel painted a mirror--and, apparently, herself, to stunning effect. She looks quite pleased with the result:


With her "lipstick" only in the center of her lips, she reminds me of Janis from The Muppet Show.


And, just because it's such a neat photo, here's Nathan's turn in the giant kaleidoscope:

Nathan eats

Nathan has made good use of his incisors this summer--they arrived just in time for the midwest's bounty of sweet corn, which Nathan has thoroughly enjoyed! It took him a little while to figure out how to eat the corn off the middle of the cob--for a few weeks, he'd just eat a centimeter from each end, so I'd cut off the ends and give him back the rest of the ear at the next meal. But now he's got it:


He also got some help from Papa when we went apple picking a few weeks ago, so now he can't watch anyone eat an apple without wanting in on the action!

And just today, as we were unloading groceries and left the pantry open, he found the good stuff:

Then at lunch today, he fed me some of his alphabet soup--shoved letters and carrots into my mouth. What a sweet boy. He must have learned sharing from his ever-gracious big sister. Either that, or he's figured out her trick of "sharing" to help her plate look empty enough to get dessert!

Whose daughter is she?

Rachel no longer naps every afternoon, but she does spend a little "quiet time" in her room--usually sitting in her bed with a big pile of books. Oddly enough, she has fallen asleep for a good long nap on each of the last four Wednesdays. When I went in to check on her this Wednesday, here's what I found:


There's nothing like curling up with a good book!

She also likes to spend as much time as possible upside-down. Headstands on the floor, on the couch, on her bed, walking her feet up the wall. She says she wants to be a ballerina when she grows up, but gymnastics apparently holds quite a bit of allure, too!