The latest craze(s)...

Still Dora for Bonnie. Oh, and also not walking. Although her new favorite thing to do is to hold onto the gate at the bottom of the stairs and trick me into thinking she is going to let go and take a step. She's gotten pretty confident and she'll even hold on with one hand and say "walk" every time she takes a shuffle to the side. She can also stand unassisted in the middle of the room, but every time I get excited and give her a little encouragement she just flashes a big smile and sits down.

Of course I realize that she will eventually walk. I just want her to do it soon so I can put her down at church or ballet and not have to cringe at what rankness she's crawling all over on the floor. I'm starting to think that the little stinker is just playing games with me...

Grace is definitely still into Spider Man and apparently Iron Man now, too. While we were perusing the shelves at Costco this morning, the buggy may have made a little turn down the toy aisle. Out of nowhere she exclaimed, "{gasp} There's Iron Man! Look, mom! There he is!"

And there he was indeed. I have no idea how she learned about Iron Man or why she is even remotely interested in him. My only guess is that it is because she is only 1 of 3 girls in her preschool class. Perhaps the 9 boys that comprise the rest of the class have something to do with it?

Now that I think about it, that's probably why she likes Spider Man, too. Hmmm...

Whoopsie daisy!

So, Grace found one of her Christmas presents today. Terrific.

It is a quite large Ariel vanity that I bought yesterday, and I had temporarily hidden it in the downstairs closet to get it out of my car so that she wouldn't see it. What a brilliant idea it was to put it in the same place where I keep all of our movies. Well, I completely forgot that it was there and when Grace opened the closet door to pick out a movie for quiet time this afternoon, she was met with a giant surprise.

I frantically shooed her away and made up some lame story about how it is a gift for Emma's friend for her birthday and what a coincidence it is that she had asked for the same exact thing for Christmas. Stacy, if you're reading this, just go along with it if Grace ever mentions it to you!

My plan is to act as shocked and surprised as Grace when we discover on Christmas morning that Santa has delivered the same Ariel vanity that Emma's friend is getting for her birthday this weekend.

Before my major snafu, however, we went over to Mackenzie's house for a fun election day play date. After playing in the basement, aka, Toys "R" Us for a while, we hit Chick-fil-a for a quick lunch. And I mean quick. Bonnie is not a happy camper when she misses a nap.

In lieu of taking a nap myself, I decided that after I put the kids to bed tonight I would make myself a giant mug of peppermint tea, put on a Christmas movie, and relax. I guess Grace overheard me telling Ceylese this because she got her "softer" pillow and blankets and made herself a little theater seat on the staircase. She told me that the blankie hanging on the gate was her movie screen, and that she was drinking hot chocolate and eating popcorn.

She certainly knows how to relax after a long day.

Happy Hallowbirthday

Halloween could not get here fast enough for Grace. She has been waiting for sooo long to wear her Spider Girl costume that she could hardly stand it any longer.

We've been talking for weeks about how we would fix her hair for the big night. I really wanted to put it up in lots of little ponytails and curl the ends to make them look like spider legs, but she would have none of that. She insisted on "one little ponytail and a red bow on top just like we do for school."

I guess you just can't take the girly out of the girly girl.

Corey took Grace down to the tennis courts for our neighborhood's annual Halloween party while Bonnie and I stayed home and got the house ready for the trick-or-treaters. Apparently, there were all kinds of villains that needed capturing and Grace knew just the trick to get the job done: spraying webs on all of them.

It's a good thing she had her partner to help out...

"Quick, Spider Girl! I saw the bad guys on top of this giant retaining wall! After them!"

After the party, it was time to trick-or-treat. I had every intention of making Bonnie a cute spider baby outfit to go with Grace's Spider Girl costume, but unfortunately it never happened.

I think she looked just as cute in Grace's piggy costume from 2 years ago, though!

We had a great time walking around the neighborhood collecting candy from everyone. Grace made sure to announce at every single house, "the porch lights are on...that means they're home!"

This little piggy had fun, too, and lasted for about 10 houses before she was ready to call it quits. Way to go, Bon!

The best part of the night...sorting candy. Who knew Grace's favorites were Whoppers (gross!) and Blow Pops!

Another reason in our house to celebrate Halloween is that it happens to also be Corey's birthday. This year was a very monumental day for ol' Corey...he turned the big 3-0 (finally)!

Welcome to the club!!

Remember our little trip to Glazy Dazy a few weeks ago? Surprise, Daddy!

Daytime with the kids; date night for the grown-ups

Grace and Corey finally got around to assembling the "Spooky Haunted House" that's been sitting in a box on the counter for the last 2 weeks. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

She's clearly been sampling the merchandise...

Whose hand is that?

For some reason, I was under the impression that our neighborhood Halloween party was tonight, but after checking my e-mail bulletin just make sure, I found out that I was wrong.

Glad I checked.

Corey and I decided to have a little date night to celebrate his 30th birthday a night early while the girls had a sleepover at Mimi's and Gramps's house...

Not Burt's

As much as I love making the 1 1/2 hour trip north in the fall to visit Burt's Pumpkin Farm, it's probably best that those plans got thwarted this year.

We had actually planned on going on a weekday to avoid the crowd and Corey was even going to take a day off work to join us. Unfortunately, some things came up and work got even more hectic for him so we ended up postponing our plans. As it turned out, the weekends were no less hectic than the weekdays.

So here it is 2 days before Halloween and still no pumpkin patch visit. We really didn't want to go the day before Halloween, so Corey agreed to let me take the girls to a nearby church so I could get my coveted pumpkin patch pictures. So, we swung by and picked up Mimi and headed over to Mt. Zion Methodist Church. For 15 minutes. Thanks to this week's monsoon, the patch was a mud hole. Of course, Bonnie wanted nothing to do with being held and instead opted to crawl around and get as dirty as she possibly could. All Grace wanted was the candy at the checkout counter.

I'll just say that skipping this year's trip to the beautiful North Georgia Mountains was the right thing to do.

But at least I got my pictures. And if you didn't know any better you'd think we had the time of our lives...

The Big Halloween Par-tay

Today was Grace's Halloween party at preschool, and she has been talking about it all week long. The kids got to go trick-or-treating, have a pizza party, and work on some really fun art projects.

I was a little bummed when I found out that only the 2 moms who volunteered to help with the party were allowed to stay, but I still managed to get a couple of pictures of Grace in her cute party dress afterward. And one of Bonnie trying to break into Mimi's house!

I don't know if I can wait until Valentine's Day when it's my turn to volunteer. I think for the Thanksgiving party Bonnie and I might have to sneak in at the end and join in on the fun...

Drowned rats!

I won't even mention how much rain we have gotten today except to say that it's a LOT.

As a result, the girls and I spent the morning doing laundry and watching plenty of television. Oh, and I helped Grace write her name a couple of times, too.

The highlight of our day was that it was "dress up and bring a friend day" at ballet this afternoon. Grace's friend, Handley, joined us and boy did those two girls have fun...Grace in her Snow White dress and Handley in her Aurora gown.

The real fun started, however, when class ended and it was time to put everyone in the car during the monsoon. To say that I looked like a drowned rat would be putting it mildly!