Halloween

Happy Halloween :) It's November 3rd, but oh well!

Galina wanted to be a black, black, black cat this year. I think she would've been happy with ears and a tail, but the over-acheiver in me wanted to make her a CATS The Musical cat. So I spent several days (as did Brian and my Mom and Em while they were here) making her cat hair. She was happy in it, so that's all that counts! We tried several different face painting ideas, and this one wasn't my favorite. Who knew it was so hard to get a little girls face completely black, with a white mouth and white eyes?! I had no idea. I do now.

The only shot I got of Johnny's tail. This was at our Trunk-or-Treat, but it was at 3:30 in the afternoon. My camera has been acting up lately. I don't think it liked being dropped by Johnny. Great. But his little  tail was adorable. Galina had a tail too! Her black jump suit was last minute. She was just going to wear a turtleneck and some leggings, but I had a black fleece blanket from several years ago (around 5 or 6, I think) that wasn't ever used because I have blonde dogs, so I used it to make her outfit - which made me happy.

Johnny was a perfect, pouting puppy. He has absolutely no idea how unbelievably cute he is - let's hope it stays that way, or we're in trouble.

 Not going to wait for help!

Brian just remarked to me the other day, "Why do both of our children prefer me over you?" Which, is completely not true, but half true. And my response, "I did something right." It sure does make life easy when he walks in the door and the kids absolutely CLING to him. I guess what makes it easy is that he drops everything and plays with them for about 30 minutes. Just. Plays. They love that. I love that. I'm sure, somewhere subconsciously, he loves that!

This is a strange picture, I know. But, at the Trunk-or-Treat, there were four different rainbows (I know, we're talking about light) but they were all going different directions. I had never seen anything like it. Had to document.

Galina with her big brothers. Bing loves to snuggle. And Galina loves apples. 

We went to a pumpkin patch in Acton, MA. I can't remember the name (I can't remember a lot of things these days...swimming lessons, p.e. class, making dinner...)

Galina chose several, but in the end we went with smaller choices.

Johnny had been napping when we got there, so he wasn't super in the mood to choose a pumpkin. Galina is always in the mood for an adventure.

Checking out the pumpkins.

Johnny, determined to pick up something.

Tried to get a picture of both smiling, but the combination of me being unable to kneel (sore knees!) and Johnny thinking it's more fun to roll his pumpkin down the little "hill" in front of him, meant only Galina smiled :) 

 We did eventually carve them into a "mysterious" face (a regular jack'o'lantern that Galina was less than amused with) and a - can anybody guess?? - Yep, a cat. 

This girl will ride a pony any day/time. 

She'd be a great friend for Auntie Erin. I'm not a fan of horses. I prefer cows. And goats.

 
Johnny has recently discovered "helping" me in the kitchen. He has to wear the apron too - I promise, I'm not even suggesting it - HE has to wear it.

Galina has been taking swimming lessons here on the base. She enjoys it. It's 30 minutes and I like to think that she's learning to swim. We missed two of the six, but we've signed her up for the next level, so we'll try again. 

Granny made these jammies while she was here, for Galina, and while Galina loves them - we underestimated the warmth factor of the top and bottom combined. Brian calls them Galina's snow suit. She wears them when I jog on cold mornings. They're perfect for that! And she wears the pants to bed with a t-shirt. This girl loves cats.

Galina and I gathered some of the beautiful fall leaves the other day and made some crafts. Of course, I didn't realize that the next day that beautiful leaf would be a very crumpled wreath! :)

Galina made a "leaf house" - not sure what was going on there, but she was determined. And she loves having her artwork on display around the house.

I spend a lot of time with the kids, alone. A lot. Brian leaves before we are up and is home either right at dinner, or after. And dinner isn't until about 5:30/6 p.m. here. A few nights a week he's home after 9 p.m. I don't know. I have no idea why he has so much work here, but he does. So, anywho, the kids and I go to a lot of little functions on the base, by ourselves. And we spend a lot of time in the stroller. Sometimes they want out, but I want to go home. So we compromise. They push. Johnny has to have a job or he will wander...away. Doesn't matter how many times you call him, how sweetly you call him, how much candy you try to bribe him with. When he's out - he's going wherever it is he wants to go. Fun times.

 Above was us walking home from a little even the fire fighters put on. It was fun. I got a nice ink pen. Galina got to pretend call a 911 operator. We then scared the living daylights out of her that evening by trying to practice a fire-drill. She was not happy about that. But she does know her address now and that she's supposed to call 911 in an emergency. Below is a Fall Festival that the housing company put on. It wasn't spectacular. The term 'festival' is very misleading. But, kids can have fun anywhere. We got balloon things (airplane/dog) and caramel apples, hot chocolate and Galina got to jump in a bouncy house. Very fun! Galina is such a sweet girl. Nice to everyone - she's really opening up and will talk to people. Not sure what we did because neither of us talk to people, but she's gaining ground as a social butterfly!

On the way home from the festival, we heard a bunch of chopping sounds in the woods and out runs a very large, very antlered deer :) He was really dark brown and fat. He ran out and then back into the woods, then apparently behind a bunch of houses and across the street. He ran up and down the fence,  that separates the base from the rest of the world, several times before finally heading out of sight. It was neat, and sad, to see. Always love when the kids get to see nature first hand!

These are from Halloween night - we trick-or-treated in the neighborhood and had fun! This was the best face paint (a picture off of google)!

Johnny wasn't having any fun, so we went home and got the stroller, but he would NOT let go of his pumpkin bucket with it's four pieces of candy in it. And he would NOT wait for us to open the candy - he just went for the wrappers and all! Not such a great idea.

The first house :) Galina did awesome, knocking on doors, saying, "Thank you!" to complete strangers handing her candy. We went around for an hour, and then went home for a late dinner. 

All in all, it was a nice October. We were hoping to go home for Thanksgiving, but that's not going to happen because I'm having a pretty big nasal polyp removed on November 14th. Gaga is gracious enough to drop everything in her life and come spend two weeks with us (including Thanksgiving!!)! We're grateful for that, but will miss seeing the rest of our families.