10 on Tuesday - Halloween Edition

Saturday was a pretty enjoyable Halloween. Aside from the fact that my husband waited until the last minute to buy our pumpkin and candy, it was a relatively smooth day. I will also never understand why on days that are "busy" here at the house, my husband always insists on going to the barber shop for a haircut. Anyway, on to the good stuff:

1. Ava and I started our day with a viewing of "Hocus Pocus." It has been a long time favorite of mine, and Ava actually likes it. She is not scared by the witches. She tried to convince me to try "The Nightmare Before Christmas" again, but since it didn't last 5 minutes the first time, I doubted she had gotten used to the idea in a week's time.
2. While waiting for Daddy to get back home we watched little Halloween cartoons and specials and cleaned up around the house.
3. When Daddy finally got home (with our little pumpkin), we headed outside to do a few family pictures. Why is it that what I envision for my family, never turns out?
4. Daddy and Ava carved a plain, ole Jack O'Lantern and once again, Ava refused to touch the guts of it.
5. JT and Stacy dropped by to bring Ava a little gift. While they were here, we had a visit from "The Great Pumpkin" who Ava wrote a letter to last week.
6. JT helped Ava decorate her pumpkin from The Great Pumpkin and then they had fun playing together.
7. Got Ava dressed up as Dorothy and let her pass out candy for a few minutes before leaving to go Trick-or-Treating.
8. She loved going to the different houses, but there were two house she refused to go to. The first one had a scary sounds tape playing and some tombstones and witches, and the second had a guy in a Scream mask opening the door. She refused both of those houses.
9. At about 9:00 and after 150-something trick-or-treaters we loaded up and went to Nana and Pop's house. Nana and Pop had special treats for Ava and Aunt Bethany had sent some gifts.
10. After a nice little case of Ava Dramatics, we headed home and stuck her little tail in bed.
    
    

Eating her giant candy bar from JT.

Ava and JT

One of my new favorites. Love the colors, love them playing, just love it!

Waiting for Trick-or-Treaters

Ole Jack

Checking out her goodies with Nana.

With the monkey puppet from Aunt Bethany.

Loving the curled ponytails.

Putting on a monkey tail

Pop is the one who wanted to make silly faces...

The Grit in Action

One way that Ava shows frustration (aside from screaming, spitting, licking, hitting, etc...) is this thing that she calls a "Grit." When she gets very angry, she will put her hands up into fists and make the most awful looking face. She knows how bad we hate it, so it is a way for her to press our buttons. Sometimes she will just come up to me and say, "Mommy, can I give you a grit hug." That is a hug in which she does a grit at the same time. She knows that you want a hug, but wants to see if she can push buttons and get by with it. What a little devil! I hope she grows out of this stage soon!

(And this photo doesn't even do "The Grit" justice!

Visit from Grammy and Gramps - Part 2

These pictures are from some of the little crafts and activities we did during Grammy, Gramps, and Trayton's visit last weekend. Ava is all about crafts, so any suggestion of making something and she is totally on board. Trayton on the other hand was more interested in playing kitchen.

They made monkey masks, which Ava colored both of because Trayton was too busy. She was very particular about which was hers and which was Trayton's. Trayton's had more yellow. But once they were made, Trayton and Ava had a blast playing with them.

We made bats out of handprints and a head drawn by Bradley.

And then Trayton and Ava just played side by side on the couch. He played with Mr. Potato Head and Ava read him "stories" from a Barbie picture book. She really just made little things up, but it was so incredibly cute!

It was a great visit and I am so glad that my mom and dad got to come visit once more before the new baby, and that Ava got a chance to play with Trayton.

A Visit from Grammy, Gramps, and Trayton - Part 1

Ava was over the moon to find out last week that Grammy and Gramps were coming to spend the day Saturday with us. She talked about it all week and then on Friday we found out that Trayton was getting to come too and Ava was beside herself with glee. She kept asking all morning if they were here and when they finally did arrive, she was so excited! This was the first visit since August at Ava's birthday, so she was over the moon to get to see them all.

We enjoyed a nice lunch at Neil's BBQ and then bought Baby Boy a few things at a consignment shop in town. I was excited to get to take the kids to the Pumpkin Patch here in town (really just a church yard full of pumpkins). Needless to say, the two wreaked havoc there with Ava the ringleader. Between Ava throwing fits and touching every pumpkin, and Trayton pulling the stems off of a pumpkin, I was dying laughing even though they were awful. (Well, I say 'they' but it was really just Ava.)

After the pumpkin patch we played outside for a few minutes, but Trayton was more interested in going inside to play with Ava's kitchen. He loves that thing! Ava and I worked on some crafts and Trayton joined in a little bit. I will post those in the next post.

Here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch. I was disappointed that I didn't get a really good one of the two of them together.

When I took this picture, Ava said, "Will this make me crazy?" What?????