Last weekend, we went to a Renaissance Festival. It was just okay – it was a bit too hot and dusty, and I kept thinking how uncomfortable the people in costume must be. In the evening, we went to a Diwali party. Calie loved Indian food … every once in awhile, she’ll get a spicy bite and spit it out, but she can’t resist going back for more. I also kept going back for seconds and thirds … Bhavana is an excellent chef! 

Zachary had fun playing with the sparklers, and there were lots of kids his age to run around with. Happy Diwali everyone!

On Sunday, I wanted to go out for Chinese food. James wanted to stay home to eat. Zachary decided the dilemma was best solved with a round of ‘einey-meeny-miney-mo.’ We ended up going to Red Robin, Zachary’s favorite restaurant.

This Friday, Zachary’s school hosted a Fall Festival event. We had a barbecue picnic lunch, and Zachary played carnival games, went on rides, and walked through a haunted house. He had a lot of fun and we didn’t leave until past bedtime.

I thought Calie was a pretty cute cheerleader, waking on the astroturf under the flood flights (of course I’m a biased mother!)

This weekend, we hosted our annual Halloween party. In addition to inviting our friends, we had a few guests from Zachary’s class. We kept the food very simple – grilled hotdogs and sausages. I also put out cupcakes and crackers, and a few guests also brought snacks. The most awesome part of the party, of course, is all the kids (and Paul) in costume. Without further ado … here are the pictures!

(Note: Zachary said he wanted to be a bat this year … I had a devils’ costume from Pottery Barn Kids. I bought it for $9.99 last year. So I told him it was a red bat. In case any of you see him … it’s a BAT costume.)

It was a sunny day, and kids played both outside and in. I met some parents from Zach’s class, so hopefully that means new friends for me too. One of the moms also works at Intel and proposed we get together for lunch.

The last few years, it was too chaotic (and most kids were too young) to attempt a real craft – we’ve never done anything more than decorating cupcakes or putting stickers on mini pumpkins. This year though - most of the kids were 5-years-old, and with helpful parents, we were able to pull off a picture frame painting (and decorating) art project.

I was pleased to hear a few of the parents say they were going to keep the frames around for decoration in the kids’ room, and even in the office! SUCCESS!  The only downside to the party was that Calie was very fussy – she had a terrible runny nose, and the party was right on top of her normal naptime. (In the party planner’s defense, her naptime is usually pretty flexible.)

On Sunday – we carved Zach’s pumpkin! James did most of the work, but the kids were cuter in pictures. Ta-da!

It’s October already – Happy 14th month to Calie and 5.5 years to Zachary! I usually try to post every 2 weeks, but this past month our home has been plagued by viruses. We’ve had the stomach flu, fever, cough, runny nose, and coxsackie virus. The bright side is that we’re almost 100% now … I still have a lingering cough (like I always do) but we are healthy otherwise. Anyway, enough excuses and on with the posting!

Mid September, I took Zachary to Color Me Mine for storytime and pottery painting. That weekend, we also took the kids out for Persian food (Shahrzad) – it was really good and definately a restaurant I’d go to again. (As a bonus picture, I’ve included a picture of Zachary’s homework below … he made a mess of it and I was hoping the teacher would write him up … instead he just got a star … missed lesson on sloppiness!)

The last week of September, I took Zachary to the dentist … the good news is that he was well behaved during the whole exam. The bad news is that he has a cavity between his fused tooth. The dentist said we did what we could – it’s impossible to floss that area so it was just a matter of time – and most kids with a fused tooth similar to his had a cavity by 3-years-old. So poor Zachary will be back end of October to get a filling.

That weekend was a good one though – no one was sick and we had lots of activities planned. Saturday, my friend Dana set up a picnic potluck at Lake Natomas. I took Zachary out kayaking and enjoyed a yummy lunch. It was a nice hot day – I’m glad we got out there before the weather changed.

In the evening, we went to Alex’s birthday party. It was at his house, and we had a delicious spaghetti dinner with cake (of course!) for dessert. Happy 5th Birthday Alex!

Sunday, we drove to the Bay Area and celebrated cousin Hayden’s birthday. It was a Ben 10 backyard barbecue party – the kids had a great time. Happy 4th Birthday Hayden!

The first week of October, Zachary went on his first (and now last) fieldtrip without me or James chaperoning. We decided to let him go with his class and ride the school bus. They went to Apple Hill. He tried climbing a fence and kept taking off his seatbelt on the bus. We are now required to attend future fieldtrips with him – or alternatively, he can skip the activity and just stay back with another class. UGH!

That weekend, James and Zachary went to see the ‘Dolphins and Whales’ 3-D IMAX movie since we had free tickets. (Coworker got them for donating blood, but wasn’t interested in seeing the show, so he gave them to me) I took Calie to the mall to pick up my Tiffany charm bracelet (great customer service by the way) … I swear the girl loves that store – she was super excited/happy and no less than 4 salespeople came over to talk to her. They must have sensed a future customer! 

On Sunday we went to Bishop’s Farm. It was a full day event – I think we were there for 5 hours. Zachary saw the pig races, jumped on hay, rode the train, went through a corn maze … and a sunflower maze, panned for marbles, and went down a very tall slide (a few times).

We met up with Alex and Nicole for lunch and then headed out to the pumpkin patch via hayride. Zachary walked through the patch saying,”Not ready, too dirty” … he had an excuse for rejecting every single pumpkin until he reached the end of the patch. And there he found the perfect one. Our rule is that he has to be able to carry the pumpkin to buy it – in this case, we modified it to ‘somehow get it to the hayride tractor.’ He rolled the pumpkin for 45 minutes in the dusty road, dragging it to the side every time the tractor rumbled by. It was a pretty heavy/large pumpkin, so we had no idea how much it would cost. I was guessing $20-30. James said that after all the effort, we’d have to buy it even if it was $100. Lo and behold … $6! What a deal!

This past weekend, we just wanted to recover so we kept our weekend open with no commitments. We were exhausted from being sick and Calie not sleeping well at night. I did a lot of shopping. Calie actually likes going … she will come over to me and wave goodbye to the boys at the cue word “shopping.” She reaps in the benefit via lots of matching Gymboree outfits (awesome deals recently) and copious food samples at Trader Joes. James did take Zachary on their first ever Geo-caching adventure. I think James might have enjoyed it more than Zachary. Saturday evening, we went to Yagers (bar) for dinner … the original restaurant we wanted to go to was closed (seems to be happening alot lately ) so somehow we thought it was a good idea to take kids to a bar. Greasy, slow, and did not honor our Entertainment coupon due to change in management (even though we gave them the coupon up front and the server didn’t say anything) … we’ll be crossing that one off our list!

Sunday morning, we went on a short trip to Zittel’s Farm to pick up a pumpkin for Calie. With all the hoopla surrounding Zach’s pumpkin at Bishop’s farm, we forgot about getting one for our 2nd child. In an attempt to make it up to her, we offered to buy her a pony … ride. She refused with a vengence (aka. screech and back arch combo), but Zachary was totally fine, if a bit bored, with it. One thing about the kids being almost 5 years apart in age … I find that Zachary is outgrowing activities before Calie gets into them.

As for Calie milestones, she can take a few steps but still prefers crawling. She loves holding on to someone’s hand and walking though. She continues to be a good eater (knock on wood) – comments on her daycare daily report have included “A lot!”, “Very hungry!” and today’s “Ate 3 bowls of spaghetti!” She picked up the signs for more and all-done from daycare … a bit late since she says the word with the sign. She says “nah-na!” when she wants something, and when that something is a banana, she fools people into thinking she knows that word. Zachary is doing well academically, but is working on impulse control and making good decisions. I’m trying to teach him accountability, as he has a never ending supply of excuses. It makes being at work and at home very similar sometimes.