Trick or Treat!

Kate dressed up as Olivia the Pig for this Halloween 2011. We practiced early on with trying on the outfit, which she LOVED. We also practiced saying, "trick or treat" and of course "thank you" after she gets her candy and "Happy Halloween!" We went to my mom's house and she was so excited...I kept going over the routine so she wouldn't freak out such as telling her first bath, then costume, then candy. This settled her for a while until she had the costume on and we hadn't eaten dinner yet, damnit...so then I had to throw in "dinner then candy". Life with a 2-year old...I'm telling you! So then after dinner we told Kate she had to wait until it was dark to go trick or treating. She was pretty patient and kept saying, "wait dark..." So then we were off to trick or treat...I think the build up must have been a let down because as you can see from the pictures she was pretty somber. I think, Nana, Mimi and I were more excited. Well, she looked so cute how could we not be! Things pretty much went downhill as we walked out the door. Kate did not want to get out of her wagon or say "trick or treat" like we had been practicing. When she did get out of the wagon she wanted to pull it, in the street of course. Then when we finally got her to walk hand in hand with one of us, she still would not say trick or treat and she wanted me to hold her most of the time. Oh well, we have many more years to practice and get it right!



Happy Halloween!

Halloween Pictures

For those of you who really know Kate, know that she does not like taking pictures. I have tried to train her to sit (sorry it sounds like I am talking about a dog) by telling her to look at the camera and say "cheese". However, Kate is very curious about herself...she always says, "I see Kate" or "I want more Kate". So by the time the camera is clicking she is running towards the camera to see herself...so vain. But with a cute face and LONG lashes such as hers who can blame the girl?

Anyhow, I talked myself into taking her to JC Penney's to take pictures. I had a coupon that waived the sitting fee and thought I could get one or two good pictures to send off for Halloween. I bought her a cute tutu and really wanted some festive pictures of her. So on the big day I prepped her. We practiced taking pictures at home. I got her excited about her outfit. We get to the studio and the girl taking the pictures is really nice and good with kids. Kate seemed to warm up to her. We lasted about 5 minutes and these are the pictures we got.




The photographer told Kate to hold the apple and look at the camera; she also told her not to eat the apple because it is not real. When we showed Kate the pictures she said, "don't eat apple, not real...".




This one, well...Kate was told to stand on the red dot and look at the camera. She did, literally. Relax Kate!



The photographer told Kate to put her hands on her hips and shake her booty. She kind of did and then ended with a "tah-dah".



This is the end result!

I go see pumpkins!

Chris, Kate and I went to visit family in Prescott this weekend. For those of you following along I mentioned that I had connected with my biological father. He has a sister in Prescott, which means Kate and I have an aunt. Aunt Raquel along with her husband Steve and two kids, Maria and Daniel, live in Prescott. We were lucky enough to escape the Yuma heat this past Columbus Day weekend. Can you believe I still have to say get away from the heat when it is October in Yuma? Anyhow, we made a little getaway and enjoyed cool weather and visit with our new members of the family! I should mention that poor Kate got carsick ten minutes before we got to Aunt Raquel's. We took the back way and the road was a bit too winding for Kate's poor stomach. So we opted to take the way through Phoenix on the way home.

We took Kate to Freeman Farms where they have a pumpkin patch. They also had "kid shit" to do as one of our friends put it. Kate seemed to enjoy the day with her cousins, which she loved saying over and over again...I go see cousins? I play with cousins? They rode the merry-go-round, rode a mini-train, went on a hay ride, sat on a tractor, visited the petting zoo and walked through a corn maze. And of course sat in a pumpkin patch to take pictures! It was great fun and hope to do it again next year!








Kate did so well traveling in the car for a long period of time, each way. Chris would argue otherwise, but she only had one fit! It was so bad we had to pull over while in Phoenix to settle her down. What happened? Who knows? All I know is that we gave her the donut that fell on the floor and some juice and put on Dora on the iPad and she was good to go.



She also got along so well with her cousins. Kate was so cute always asking for her cousins and looking for them all over the house. I am glad we made the trip and hope Kate grows up close to her cousins just as I did with mine.