Trick or Treat!

Oh my gosh, Halloween was so much fun this year!

Esme wanted to be a Watermelon Fairy.  We got a catalog in the mail that had a bunch of costumes in it and she chose this.  It was a bit lot too expensive, so we improvised with a strawberry watermelon costume from Old Navy and accessories from JoAnn's Fabrics.

This is the first year that I think Esme really "got it".  Last year she sure had fun but this year she had no fear.  She ran from house to house with the neighbor boys and didn't stop until her feet hurt too bad to walk.  I had to carry her home the last little bit because she was limping.

This year the boy's costumes were a little more scary than last year.  They had gloves with blinky, glow-y fingers that I didn't get a picture of but they were very cool.

My funniest memory of this year is how she reacted to the other kids at one of the houses we stopped at.  She went up to the door with Nathan and Zac and said her "trick or treat" and "thank you".  Then she turned around and there were all these other kids in line to come up to the house.  She got this great big smile on her face because she thought that they were there to see her!  She said "Hi, my name's Esme and I'm a watermelon fairy.  What's your name?".  She had no concept that they wanted her to get the heck out of the way so that they could get some candy.  Obliviously sweet - that's my girl.

Happy Halloween Watermelon Fairy!

Carving Pumpkins

I've never been a big pumpkin carver, so I didn't really expect to do them this year.  But Aaron came home and said - Let's carve pumpkins!  So we did.

And the results?

Not too bad!!!

Found

I was just going through a pile of papers today when I found this envelope.  It was from my birthday and I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.  So I decided to take a picture of it and put in on the blog so I will always remember it. :)

Cinder

Meet Cinder the cat.  She's 9 years old and came from an animal shelter in Burnsville.  I got her after my cat Patterson died and poor Tschida was all by herself and lonely as heck.

Cinder is a super duper sweet cat who doesn't get nearly the attention she deserves.  Unfortunately, she's at the bottom of the totem pole in the hierarchy of animals.  She's the least demanding of human attention so she tends to be pushed out by the Tshcida and the dogs.

When everyone goes to bed though, it's not uncommon to find her sleeping on Esme's bed.  A nice quiet place, away from the other animals.  I'm hopeful that as Esme gets older and more predictable (from the cat's perspective), they will become good friends.

We love you Cinder!

Byerly's Boo Fest

Today Barb and I took Esme, Annika and Laurel to Byerly's for their Halloween Party.  Everyone had a great time.

Here are a few picture at Grandma Barb's house before we left.

 Once we got to Byerly's there were a bunch of activities that Esme loved.  She got a balloon tiger.

 And a pink pony painted on her cheek.

There was also dancing and fun displays.

 We will definitely go again next year but a little earlier.  Esme could have danced all night!

Fun in the leaves

Today was raking leaves and getting them into the compost bin.  Esme helped.

Field Trip!

Esme's been sick, but today was her first preschool field trip.  It was to the Albertville Fire Station.  We decided to go because she had been looking forward to it for a long time.  To be honest, I think she was more excited to ride the yellow school bus for the first time than anything.

Once we got to the Fire Station all the kids sat around on the floor and one of the firemen gave a talk about calling 911; stop, drop and roll; and what to do when the firemen got there.  Something I hadn't thought about was that because the fireman may look scary, kids may hide.  So the fireman made sure to tell the kids that they are supposed to yell "I'm here, I'm here!" if a fireman is looking for them and under no circumstances are they supposed to hide.  Then the other fireman got geared up and came through the crowd.  The goal was to show the kids that even though he looked scary, he was still the friendly fireman they had just seen in regular clothes.  

Most of the kids did great, but Esme was having no part of it.  She didn't want him to come near her or even talk to her.  Even later when he got out of his gear, she didn't want to talk to him!

Then came the tour of the fire trucks.

And a group picture.  There were a bunch taken.  Just try to get 20 3 year olds to all look the same direction at the same time.  :)

 And finally they got to go outside and see the ladder in action.

It was also a great opportunity to see her friends.  Grant and his mom Erica.  

But she also really had a great time with Jacey, another girl in her class.  The were holding hands and sitting next to each other and just had fun.  Sorry to Jacey's mom for any cold germs passed on to her...

 On the way home I asked Esme - "what will you do if there's a fire and the fireman comes looking for you to save you?".  Her answer - "Hide under the bed!".  Clearly, we have some work to do...

Cold weather riding

Now that she feels more comfortable riding her bike, she wants to go and go!  

Who cares if it's kind of cold out!

Pumpkin Pickin'

Today we went to get a few pumpkins.  Esme had been to this patch before with Mamoo and Papa so she knew just where to go and which pumpkins she wanted.

When we got home, we opened the back of the truck up to take the pumpkins out.  We were parked on our driveway which has a little slant to it and one of the pumpkins rolled out and down into the street!  I thought for sure it was going to be smashed, but it survived.  The only damage was that the stem came off and that's easy enough to glue back on!

She's on the bike!!!

As you may remember, Esme has not been loving her bike lately.  She much prefers to trike.  So imagine my surprise when Aaron comes in from the garage this afternoon and says "guess who wants to ride her bike?".  My answer - No way!!!

But yes indeed, she did ask to ride her bike.

She rode it all the way to the mailboxes and back.  Then she wanted to ride around the driveway with the neighbor boys, so she did that for a few minutes.

I'm excited that she's finally excited about her bike.  Hopefully we can get one or two rides in before the snow starts flying!

Student Driver

One last mowing of the lawn before the snow comes means one last time for Esme to "drive".