Anna Grows

It was a fun-filled Halloween weekend for Anna. We say weekend because somehow Halloween has expanded from a one night event in which kids go trick-or-treating from house to house. Now it is an entire week holiday extravaganza complete with decorations & lights, multiple parties, trick-or-treating at malls and other venues, and countless pounds of candy. Anna's costume of choice this year was a fairy and she commissioned Grandma to make her attire. Grandma was up to the challenge and made a beautiful blue fairy costume with lots of sparkle - just what every 5 year old girl wants. The fairy and princess attire were the costume of choice for the 5 year old girl crowd this year (at least judging from Anna's friends). Anna kicked off the party weekend with a Halloween party at Ms. Be's on October 28. Since she was out of school for the day, she got to hang out with her friends and do a little trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. That night was "Trunk or Trea...

Today was the first day of full fledged kitchen demolition and the last day with a working sink/counter space. We spent the weekend clearing out cabinets, packing boxes, and figuring out how to convert the laundry room to a temporary kitchen of sorts. There are several things to consider when you are without a kitchen. Here are the lessons so far. First, it is very challenging to get Anna to wear her shoes when she is at home. Thanks to the construction, barefoot is not an option. Shoes are a must. Second, it is important to make the Halloween cookies while you still have counter space. That mission was accomplished tonight when the frosting/decorating was completed. Third, you should really think about the layout of your satellite kitchen. We spent a large portion of the evening running between the laundry room, the basement, and the kitchen trying to make simple things like a sandwich (the lettuce was upstairs, the bread was in the basement, and the meat was in the laundry room...

At last the rain took a break so that we were able to enjoy a spectacular Columbus Day weekend with sunny skies and temperatures hovering around 80 degrees! It was a perfect weekend to pick pumpkins and Pauletta & Wil organized a pumpkin picking outing at Belvadere Plantation near Fredricksburg, VA (http://www.belvedereplantation.com). Anna and her parents were a bit too ambitious in their efforts to take advantage of the nice weather and decided to pack up the car with the camping gear to take Anna on her first camp out at a local park following the pumpkin picking. First, the family got stuck in traffic in Fairfax City, VA thanks to the local fall festival (EVERYONE in the Washington area was out to enjoy the gorgeous weather). Then there was the traffic on I-95 south. Why - no one ever really knows. Finally we arrived at the pumpkin patch 2 hours late. The pumpkin patch was not just any pumpkin patch. There were go carts, pig races, zip lines, slides, a rope swing in the ba...