October - Falling in Love

Fall is so beautiful here.  It is the best time of the year for Seattle and a good reminder for us when the rainy season comes in.  October was beautiful and sunny, a little cold at night so the leaves decided to change colors and it was glorious, still is, just more rain now.  I had a chance to map out a few locations for my photography clients and went around with my camera and took some pictures.  Here are a few favorites. 

 We started the month off with a Lego Convention that happens once a year in Seattle.  Our kids love Legos so why not give Legos some more money :).  There were so many cool Lego models. We all had a great time and the kids even got to take some Legos home.   What more could a kid want? 

 Hogwart, just in case you can't make out what it is.  We missed it the first time we saw it and we are big Harry Potter fan.  I would've chosen darker colors for the castle.

 You can't tell here but this one is robotic and can move.  The pieces inside also move.

 Amazing art work using Legos

Tutankhamun Exhibit
Our kids love the Seattle Science Museum.  Who doesn't?  Where ever we go we like to go to museums and have a fun and educational experience.  We heard great things from the web about this new King Tut exhibit.  The first time it graced Seattle was in 1978 and it attracted 1.3 million visitors to Seattle Center. Sponsored by Seattle Art Museum, the event was such a success it spurred SAM's expansion to its current downtown location.  So we spent a pot load of money to get in and thankfully I made a friend in line who worked for Microsoft and he was able to get us in for a discounted price.  It's always good to make friends and make friends fast, like right in line.  Dan laughs at me often at how not shy I am to ask people about stuff but it's true.  Why be shy?

 There were a bunch of neat things inside but we weren't allowed to take pictures.  These pics are from the end of the tour.  The scariest and yet coolest thing is this mummy.  Everything else was more for us and not really for the kids.  Good thing we got our tickets for a discounted price otherwise it wouldn't have been worth it to take the kids. 

 They had more fun with the other parts of the museum

 These are other parts of the Science museum that get changed every so often.

 Preschool Field Trip - Trinity Farm
   This is my Tootle Tot School.  It's got a lot of potential to grow but my sanity is also important so I have a limit of how many kids get enrolled.  When we go on field trips I have to ask the moms to come because I would go insane.  I have 2 moms volunteer on a regular basis and they do a great job.  We had a really fun farm trip after studying about the farm.

 Every kid gets to pick out 2 pumpkins to bring home.

 Halloween

   This year our family's theme is Vikings and Dragons.  I finished the costumes on time!! Looks complicated to make but pretty easy. It took me 4 days to design and make, made without patterns so very cost effective. Total hours: 12 hours. Cost: $30 total for all 4 costumes.  I think I spent less on fabric this year than any other years.  It makes it that much more worth it to make than buy.  Reena really wanted to be Toothless from the movie How to Train Your Dragon, which they've watched about 50 times and Debrie just wanted to be a pink, green, and yellow dragon so there she is, our little Mexican Fiesta dragon.  AKA, Fearless.

 Our ward had a Halloween party the day before Halloween so we got two uses out of our costumes.

 Halloween means a birthday party also.  Around here we celebrate birthdays and we celebrate it big no matter how big you are.  I made cookie monsters and spider cupcakes, cookies, eyeballs (meatballs) hotdogs and hot chocolate Thuan's style for everyone.  People come and go but Dan's 2 best friends stayed the whole time and chatted with him.  They hung out and gave candies out to trick-r-treaters while I took the kids trick-r-treating and to the haunted house.   Our neighbors at the end of our street spends yearly about 5k to turn his front yard into a haunted house.  There were a lot of cryings and screaming from both kids and adults, two of which were mine.  One went in and the other clung at my feet and cried. 

 Dan's favorite dessert is the peanut butter chocolate truffle I made for him when we were first married.  It was this dessert that made him put on 20 lbs in 9 months.  I stopped making it because it's evil.  Cream cheese, peanut butter, whipped toppings, oreos (I used green oreos this time to create a goulish look), pudding, and confectioner sugar.  It is delicious but very rich and it is best served frozen.  He requested this again for his birthday and after his crumb rum pirate cake last year I thought he deserves this treat.   He is so cute.  Still a kid at heart.  I love my husband.

 Good choice of candies Reena!!!  She knows what mommy likes.

Debrie gave everyone a good giggle by how she chose to hold her candies.  She didn't want anything but her pouch.  When I sew their pouches I intentionally left it open so they could use it to hold their candies.  That way it looks like they're eating the candies and their stomach grows bigger.  She got a lot of compliments on that when she leans in closer and opens her pouch for people to put candies in.  

She's also a naughty little dragon.  She took scissors to her hair.  Stayed tuned for more about this.  Reena is doing very well in soccer, ballet, swimming and school.  Brie is starting to be able to swim like her big sister without any floatation device.  We are all happy and doing well.  We adopted another pet.  Stay tuned for more.