Halloween

Halloween is pretty well covered over at the Chez Neumansky blog, but it's missing this shot of Natasha helping Daddy setup the decorations.

We had a bit of a heat wave in the days leading up to Halloween, and that bee costume was the best compromise I could come up with to get Natasha out of the pirate ensemble without a meltdown.. in about another week, she won't be able to squeeze into it anymore!

Speaking of the pirate costume!

Natasha would have worn this every single day of the month, but most of the time she had to settle for pirate t-shirts and anything we could convince her a pirate princess might wear. Good thing October is a great month for stocking up on the skull & crossbone wear

She also spent most of the month with that skeleton, now named "Mr. Skeleton"

He's come in handy on a number of occasions to illustrate words Natasha asks about like spine, knee and elbow!

Halloween weekend we went to a party at the Harvey's, and Grandma and Grandpa escorted the little pirate.

The night before Halloween we had everything up and running, and the kids couldn't get enough of Peter Pumpkin telling jokes. The jokes were just their speed, and the haybales were just their size

And on Halloween evening proper, Natasha practiced her trick-or-treat skills on Grandma. As you can see, she's a natural! Grandma gave her her first sucker of the night (and, incidentally, ever ;) )

The perfect color match wasn't planned, but it made her costume that much cuter!

When we came back from the early bird toddler trick or treat hour Natasha made sure all our evening scare talent was primed for the onslaught

And it looks like she charmed either Daddy or Grandpa into letting her have another sucker

Looks like it was Daddy!

Natasha rewarded him well

And here we all are looking much fresher than the end of the night. Natasha really seemed to enjoy the whole season. She had only 2 moments I recall of being scared (of Victoria and the thrashing lawn zombie), and she came to love and gush to everyone that would listen about those new friends.

At about 7 o'clock Halloween night she was done done. We got her cleaned up and in bed, which is directly over the Bob, the giant floating head of doom, and she somehow fell right asleep

the wonder of the season

Although there were a gazillion reasons we were looking forward to Halloween this year, one of my favorite things this month was completely unexpected. Each evening after dinner, we lit up the pumpkins and fired up the fun stuff, and the 3 of us headed out to the yard. And there we would sit, in our own private cemetery.. talking and enjoying evening.

 

And then Natasha would say goodnight to the pumpkins, and goodnight to Victoria, and the skeletons, and spiders, and Peter, and we'd head back inside. I'll miss these family evenings!

chopsticks

Natasha plays with chopsticks when she's pretending to be a pirate, or when she needs to cut some playdough, but tonight at dinner she decided she wanted to try to eat with them.

And the most amazing thing?! She actually got a bite of food!!

It's funny watching the varying levels of parental OCD.. For some, the sandbox is more than they can handle. For others, it's the poopy diapers. For me, interestingly enough it turns out to be playdough!

Not the little bits that break off and get everywhere, and not even Natasha eating some (she bit off a little bit of course, but it's so salty she made a face and hasn't done that since.. not like the sand which she re-tastes periodically).. nope, for me it's all the colors of the playdough getting mixed together!

She got a 10-pack for her birthday (thanks Violet!) and we just recently broke it out. As you can see in this very early picture, there's not a chance all that dough isn't getting kneaded into a homogeneous lump. That didn't stop mommy from trying. For awhile.
I'm happy to say, I've given up and let go. But it's a constant battle!

<-- This lovely shade of purple is what all our playdough looks like now!

Given the season, it's not a surprise that one of the first things Natasha wanted to make was a Jack 'o lantern (well, jack 'o lantren.. those mixed consonants are hard. Girl is still grill also).

I don't know who's been sneaking her MTV videos, but her pumpkin is a perfect likeness of Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force!!

the season begins!

Can you tell Daddy went out shopping today?!

I have to say, the invention of super-warm fleece Halloween costumes is pure genius.. I remember as a kid getting all ready with some well planned, painstakingly implemented costume and hearing the dreaded words while attempting to get out the door: "you're not going anywhere without a jacket"
With these, the costume IS the jacket. Brilliant!

The only problem is that it's currently 80 degrees in Alameda and she won't take this costume off.

bye bye bees

One of the ways I've been getting Natasha to head up to her room at bedtime is to tell her we can go watch the bees come home to go to their beds.

We stand in her bathtub and look out the window, and on the very last night before bee moving out day, I got a little of it on video:



I've had mixed emotions about the bees going away.. I thought it would be really cool to put in a piece of plexiglass in Natasha's room so she could watch the hive, but putting my ear up to the wall the night before they went away the hive was sooo loud it was obvious they had to go. And living through a few days of hell with the bees more inside the house than out, I can definitely say (almost as enthusiastically as Dan) that I'm glad they're almost gone

first picture!

The first picture Natasha TOOK, that is!

She can work our phones pretty well to move around in the apps, but today she figured out how to work the camera too!