The longest Halloween ever

In Lily's world, Halloween calls for more wardrobe changes than a Chinese wedding:

• Wednesday: party at school (no costume, thank goodness)
• Thursday: parade at school (costume: red Belle/dancer)
• Friday: school closed, parade at Amalia's daycare (costume: Cinderella)
• Halloween: red Belle at morning dance class; butterfly at home; Cinderella to neighborhood parade; ballerina for trick-or-treating, but then that outfit was itchy, so came home and changed into yellow Belle)

Thursday

School parade

Friday

Saturday

On our way to neighborhood parade

Ready for trick or treating (I didn't capture the last wardrobe change of the evening).

As you can see, Amalia, who has no choice in the matter, was a constant as Elmo.

Separation anxiety

Amy's here!

My best friend, Amy, is in town this week. You can see from the pic below that she already brought out some sisterly love between the girls.

Amalia in Lily's old cherry hat. It's only still on because she doesn't know it's there.

It's hard to tell from a still photo, but Lily is now able to successfully pump her legs to build swing momentum on her own. My arms are grateful.

Cherry girl on the seesaw.

You can take a girl out of California...

Seat of content

There's a stool in our room that Amalia is smitten with, saying "seat" every time she sits down on it. Here are a few pictures of the girls having fun this afternoon -- until Amalia decided she was done (last picture).

Does Bob Dole eat popsicles?

So, the other morning in the car, Amalia kept repeating what sounded to Andy and me like, "Bob Dole." Being born and raised inside the Beltway may make a child a bit more aware of retired Senators and former presidential candidates than the Average Joe, but c'mon.

Tonight the mystery was solved.



As I listen to it now, it really sounds nothing like "Bob Dole," but without context, that was the only thing we could come up with. The worst part is that I now have Norm MacDonald's SNL impression stuck in my head.

Guess which girl

Defining moments for each of the girls this week:

Amalia
At the Toddler Room meeting this week, the teachers played a game where they described each child to see if the parents could guess who they were talking about. Examples: This child is the first one to dance when music comes on. This child is very quiet, but when she's loud, she's very loud. Guess who's description was: This child will eat anything, even things like zucchini--and will get upset if she doesn't get more.

Lily
Last spring, Lily received a two-piece swimsuit from her maternal grandparents. Although adorable in pink and green plaid, it was rather skimpy so I immediately classified it as dress-up clothes that would never see the light of day. So naturally when I asked Lily yesterday what she wanted to be for Halloween, she said "Belle! No wait, I want to dress up in that bathing suit you never let me wear to the beach." (Never mind that we live three hours from the beach and haven't seen the ocean since we moved from San Francisco.)