And for my next trick....

One afternoon Jane, Harry, and I are sitting down to lunch and I see that Harry needs some water.  I fill a cup with a little water and set it on his highchair tray.  He looks at it, takes a sip, and then starts looking around for something.  He slips his hand to his side, feels around a little, and pulls out another cup from his seat.  It reminds me of the scene from "Elf" when Buddy pulls out a small bottle of maple syrup from inside his sleeve. Anyway, Harry then uses the second cup to pour water between the two.  It was just so funny how he found the second cup and knew exactly what he wanted to do with it that I did my best to capture a few pictures of his cute little trick.

Harry produces his second cup.

Harry enjoys the sport of water pouring.

Harry cleans up afterward.

Halloween!

This year for Halloween I wanted to make it extra fun.  I decided to make up little witches that would leave things behind for Jane, either little treats, games, or activities.  But the witches were scared away by children who were not nice or screamed too much.  You had to be gentle and kind if you wanted the witches to visit.  Kind of different from what Halloween usually is, but we had a lot of fun.

We also got to host this year's children's Halloween party!  Local friends came and I created stations around the house for kids to go through some obstacle or do some activity.  Then we played a few games and read stories.  I really enjoyed putting it all together and appreciated the contributions and help from the other moms.

As for our costumes this year..... a big "thanks!" goes to Aunt Sharole and Uncle Toby!  They passed on some of the costumes their children wore and that's exactly what we used.  Harry dressed up as a pumpkin and Jane was a witch.  Spooktacular if you ask me, especially since I didn't have to buy or make anything (except for Jane's witch-hat barrette)!

In addition to the Halloween party we hosted, the embassy put on a Halloween party as well.  I volunteered as a face painter and got to do a range of fun things like dragons, skeletons, an airplane, and butterflies.

Here are a few picture highlights from our Halloween holiday!

In our costumes for Halloween.

Jane plays the cake walk at the embassy Halloween party

Jane is so silly whenever I try to get her to pose for a picture.

Jane and Harry before our little Halloween party.  They are standing in front of the Haunted Pumpkin Patch station.

The kids playing a game - "don't-let-the-balloons-touch-the-floor". It seemed to keep them busy for a while!  I need to come up with a better name though....

My sign to the Spider's Lair.

Kids inside the lair, trying to find the black widow spider in the upper right-hand corner.  Make sure you don't touch the randomly placed little spiders or black spiderwebs!

The Witch's Cauldron station, bean bag toss, where kids got to add "ingredients" to three cauldrons.  I had little pots of  bean bags labelled as items like bat wings, frog eyes, and worms. 

The Haunted Pumpkin Patch where kids decorate a ghost, put on a blindfold and place their ghost somewhere in the pumpkin patch.

Decoration hightlights