Trick or treat

We took our mermaid, pirate, and octopus to the neighborhood where our house is being built. They had a wonderful time trick-or-treating and Sam and I enjoyed meeting our new neighbors. It was fun to watch the girls' personalities come out as they looked over their loot at the end of the night. Grace didn't want to eat too much sugar, so she started to choose which pieces of her pile that she was going to give to her teacher's family the next day. Madeline spent so much time organizing and counting, that she didn't get to eat all the candy that we allowed for the night. Charlotte, we found out, holds the world record for speed lollipop eating. After we shut her off, we caught her slyly cracking the wrappers open and licking them. When she saw us watching her, she smiled, shrugged her shoulders and waved at us.

Halloween

We really missed being in our house and having our Halloween decorations this year (especially Madeline, who daily asked about them), but we did little thing to make the apartment more festive. Unfortunately, after discovering that someone had thrown the pumpkin the girls had chosen for our front door down from the 3rd floor, there were some tears and we had to have a talk about how some people don't treat others the way they want to be treated themselves....and kept the rest of our little pumpkins inside. Instead of carving their pumpkins, they drew on them (and called it carving) before they got ready to trick-or-treat. It doesn't take much to make them happy!

Tink you, Mom

Grace and Madeline are both extremely grateful girls, but Charlotte says thank you for things that a 2 year-old should expect in life, and not be grateful for. Telling me a happy, "Tink you, Mom!" for refilling her cup, getting her a snack, or finding her a particular coloring book is sweet, but it makes my heart ache when she thanks me for letting her try to buckle herself in her car seat, putting on her shoes, or changing her wet diaper! Charlotte's sentences have gotten longer and her pronunciation better, and her "Tink you" has changed over the past few weeks to "Sank you." After I gave her more cough medicine and covered her up in the middle of last night, I heard a tired and snotty, "Sank you, Mom." What 2 year-old DOES that!?!

Harvest Festival

We took the girls to a local harvest festival over the weekend, and we were reminded how deep in the south we live now. The tone was set as we came in and several men were picking their banjos. There was the usual caramel and candied apples that we expected, but we had chicken and dumplings with either butter beans or greens for lunch...all served with a corn cake. Grace and Madeline had a couple pony rides, but Charlotte changed her mind after getting on her pony. Then Grace and Madeline took a turn on a bungee jumper and both loved it. Charlotte and Madeline spent a lot of time by the chicken coop listening to a goose and some turkeys, and Grace had a run-in with a Yankee soldier then explored a Confederate tent camp. As we were leaving we watched some teenagers tap dancing to "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy." It seemed par for the course.

3rd Trimester