Happy Halloween!!

We had our ward Halloween Party last night and boy was it A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. We dressed up as the cast from Cinderella. Sarah stole the show with her fancy OnceUponACostume Cinderella dress. She loved having her own Prince Charming to dote on her.


Cinderella loved the fish pond. She did it twice and wanted to do it again and again.


William pretty much wandered around for the whole two hours. Well, half of the two hours. The other half was spent in the nursery room downstairs. He did participate in the costume parade and loved being on stage.


Speaking of the parade ...



This pumpkin was inspired by our niece. Roger took over on this one. Sarah colored for him, but this was all Roger.


I can't forget to mention that we had the coolest spook alley AKA Dracula's Lair at our party. I was super impressed Laura and Brandon! I would have taken pictures of it, but Sarah was clinging to my neck the entire time. But no worries, she wanted to do it again after we were done.

And last but not least, Prince Charming with Cinderella's Fairy Godmother.


All in all a super fun night had by all. Great job activities committee and primary! In the words of our Cinderella, "That was a ffffuuuuunnnn party!"

Sarah's Cinderella Photo Shoot

After we visited Daddy at work we headed to Sears to get the kids photos. I wanted Sarah in her Cinderella dress. The camera was loving Sarah and Sarah loved taking princess photos. Watch out Disneyland!





Since I was already doing photos I thought, why not do a two-for-one. I brought along Sarah and William's Christmas outfits for their wall portraits. Unfortunately, by that time it was dinner time and William was done. Sarah was cooperating a little, but she wanted food too. After much tribulation this is the best we got:



We didn't get a good one of them together. Oh well. I knew I was pushing it. I really should have just quit after the Cinderella pics. I guess it's a live and learn experience! The good news is that we missed most of the traffic on the way to Walnut Creek. If you're really interested in the whole shoot, go here. The session number is 107128 and password is THXPY.

Trick or Treat at Daddy's office

Daddy invited us to his work today to go trick-or-treating. Sarah and William LOVED all the attention and all of the candy. They were definitely more than spoiled. Everyone oohed and awed at our little princess Cinderella and our adorable Gus-Gus. Will & Sarah made quite the duo. It was great to meet all of the people I've heard about from Roger. It's such a fun, friendly and positive environment. I feel so blessed that Roger gets to work there!

Preschool Halloween

Sarah LOVES preschool and today she was super excited to dress up as a fairy for her class. I would have sent her in her Cinderella costume, but I was worried it would get in her way of sitting as well as playing. So the shorter, super cute fairy costume was a good alternative. Not all of the kids dressed up, but she felt like a little fairy princess. All of her teachers oohhed and awed to make her feel special. They asked if she was de hadas (fairy) or de mariposa (butterfly). Definitely de hadas.

They decorated masks and made construction paper pumpkins in class. So, so fun. Here's Sarah with her classmate friend Mia. Oh how Sarah loves her preschool friends.

Back to the Patch

We LOVE October in our house. The orange, black and purple decorations, the yummy treats, and the costumes. A child's dreamland for sure. Today, Sarah, Will and I made our annual trek to our favorite pumpkin patch - Lemos Farm - in Half Moon Bay. (You can see our 2009 Trip Here and our 2008 Trip Here. Incidentally, William is wearing the same sweater this year as last year, just in a smaller size. And Sarah, although you can't tell because she's wearing her jacket, is wearing the same pumpkin shirt. I didn't plan that. It just happened.) The morning was a little foggy, but by the time we left the sun was shining through. It was a perfect day! We met up with our friends, Angela, Sam, Audrey & JJ and boy did we have a blast.

First things first. Cinderella took a moment to pose for us. Sarah CAN'T WAIT for Halloween to come so she can wear her Cinderella costume all.day.long. Do I let her wear it to church? We will mostly be celebrating Halloween on Wednesday for playgroup and Saturday at our ward Halloween party, but is it going a little far to have her wear her beautiful OnceUponACostume (specially made by Aunt Valinda) gown to church on Sunday?


We rode ponies - Sarah couldn't wait!


Took pictures on the hay



Rode the train



Jumped in the playhouse - how did I not take a photo? - Rode the ponies


Fed the goats






Pretended to be cowgirls & cowboys


Rode the rocking horses - Yee-Haw!






Walked through the "scary" haunted house & met the grimm reaper (or scary man as Sarah referred to him)


Rode the ponies





Took pictures on the farm equipment


Took more pictures with the pumpkins




William made his own pumpkin maze



Fed the goats - this time we got to pet the goats in their pen. William LOVED LOVED LOVED it.







On our way out, Sarah made some new scarecrow-friends.


Bye Bye Lemos Farm. We just may have to make the extra effort to come from the East Bay next year!

Little Pony & Big Pony

Sarah was coloring in her My Little Pony coloring book today and decided she wanted pony hair. She picked the pony that had two high pony tails. I obliged and also put in two curly clips. She was in HEAVEN and insisted that I call her "Little Pony" and that she call me "Big Pony." In case you were wondering, William is a dog.


PS We had a blast at the Academy of Sciences during member's only hour. It was so much fun! We really need to go EVERY week until our pass expires in January. Call us if you want to come too. Our plan is to go on Tuesdays between 8:30 and 9 am and stay for a couple of hours. Our pass gets in a guest and all kids under 6!

Pink Pink Pink

Sarah and Will are excited to have a baby sister in March! We can't wait to have her join our little family. Now, what to name her ...

William is 23 months

And a few days ... We love our William. He is such a fun kid to be around. This morning he woke up and started pointed at each person in our family and said something like this.

"Woah. Who's Dat? Dat's Mommy. Yup" (Big cheesy smile)
"Woah. Who's Dat? Dat's Rah-Rah. Yup" (Big cheesy smile)
"Woah. Who's Dat? Dat's Daddy. Yup" (Big cheesy smile )

And when I pointed to him and asked him, "Who's that?" He responded. "Dat's Wii-um" Oh how we love our sweet boy. I think today was the the first day he said his name as Wii-um. In the past couple of weeks he has started to say, "Wull" when he referred to himself.

So what's new this month? I'm not sure. Things have been just running together with everything going on. I can say that Will and Sarah are best friends. They love to hug and wrestle. It's adorable. They play well together most of the time. I sometimes have to remind Sarah to share, but mostly I just enjoy them playing together. It's a great age.

William is also starting to recognize letters. (Thank you Letter Factory!) We've put up different letters in our house and he will look at them and start sounding them out. He is really good at his "A" and "O" and "S" recognition. His favorite is "A" hands down.

His favorite book is "Moo, Baa, La La La!" by Sandra Boynton. If he's ever sad when I put him in his crib, I just open the book and start saying, "A cow says, Moo. A sheep says Baa. Three singing pigs say ..." and Will will chime in "Na Na Na" with a smile. He's getting better about saying all the animal sounds in the book. His "neigh" sounds more like a laugh (heheheheeee) and I love it.

William is so generous with giving us smiles, hugs and kisses. He loves to give high five, knuckles and noggin (Thanks Katie). He would wrestle with Daddy All.Day.Long if he could. He loves to run outside and explore.

We sure love you William. Thanks for being such a bright light in our family.

A change of plans

We have a tradition on every first Wednesday of the month to go to the zoo. It's free day for all San Francisco residents so I pack up the kids and make the 25-30 minute drive. Since it's so far away I've never been inclined to get a zoo pass. Once a month is generally good for us. We've had many, many great times at the zoo. We love seeing all the animals, petting the sheep and goats in the family zoo, playing on the playground, and of course riding the Little Puffer and carousel.







So you can imagine my children's dismay when we arrived last Wednesday to the zoo without my wallet! You need photo id and a sf resident address to get in free. We were only planning to stay an hour since we had to rush up to Walnut Creek to sign the papers for our home so going home to get the said wallet wasn't an option. The worst part was that I didn't realize I forgot my wallet until after the kids were already in the stroller ready to go to the gates. (Well, it could have been worse - we could have realized it AFTER we got to the gate.) So with weeping and wailing from my kids I apologized profusely about forgetting our "ticket" to get in and we headed to the beach. For those of you not familiar with the SF Zoo, it is located right next to Ocean Beach along the coastline. Sarah wasn't happy about the change. She wanted to see Jack and Max and Kenzie (even though I had told her that those friends wouldn't be joining us at the zoo because they had moved far, far away).

However, once I pulled up to the beach and we got out to play and run on the beach things were good. I'm glad children are so flexible! We had a great half-hour at the beach before heading back home to get my wallet - I needed it not only for driving, but for our house signing. Now that would have made ME cry if I forgot my drivers license for that significant event! (Oh, by the way, my wallet usually stays in my diaper bag, but the night before I had moved it to my purse for a meeting and didn't transfer it back - unfortunately.)

Here's how much fun we had!! Sarah and I built a sand castle while William kicked a ball all around us. We only had to reign him in a couple of times and luckily he didn't want to get too close to the water. We had a blast and I was forgiven for forgetting our "zoo ticket."



Oh and we get our keys TODAY for our new home. Can't wait!