mustache party!

My sister had a work event last night, so Dylan came over to our house for a while. We aren't going to see him for Halloween tomorrow, so we gave him his special Halloween present early: temporary tattoo mustaches!



He was really excited about them, and we had to put one on him right away before his mom get to our house. She was really surprised to see her little boy with a mustache!

Weekend projects

We had a fun, crafty weekend this weekend!

It's almost Halloween, so I decided that we needed a jack o' lantern. On Saturday morning Maisie and I hit the farmer's market while Aaron slept in, and we picked out a couple of pumpkins. (Maisie also requested, and I got her, a cookie. What kind? "Giant!")

We brought it home and carved it open. Maisie was fascinated by the insides, and enjoyed playing with them!

She thought it needed a silly face, so that's what it got. I think she's pretty happy with the way it turned out!

We also roasted the seeds, which she tried and did not care for. Aaron and I enjoyed them, though. And it turns out the squirrels are enjoying the jack o'lantern, so it's a good thing we got a second pumpkin. We'll carve that one up later this week!

On Sunday, we had planned on going trick-or-treating at the Como Zoo. Unfortunately, it was really cold out - a high of 40 degrees, with high wind gusts, and even snow flurries! So the outside event was off, and we made cookies instead.

As you know, Maisie really enjoys playing 'cooking,' and I figured she's big enough to start helping me actually cook! I put the dry ingredients in a big bowl and gave her a spoon to mix them all up. Then she used the measuring cup to put them into my bowl, which had the eggs, butter, vanilla, and sugar! There was a fair amount of flour that got everywhere, but she got most of it into the bowl. I mixed it up, and then we spooned it onto the pan together.

The cookies turned out great, and she was so proud that we made them together! It was a very fun chilly day activity.

Yard Work Sunday

Last year, you may remember, I wrote that we hoped that Maisie would be able to help us rake this fall.


Well, not only did Maisie help us with yard work this weekend - Dylan did too!

Many hands make light work, even when some of the hands are pretty little! We were able to finish up most of the raking pretty quickly, so we could just to play outside and enjoy one of the last beautiful fall days. (Since then, it's getting down to freezing overnight... brr!)

We played with Dylan's cool frisbee, until it went into the neighbor's yard. Oops!

Then we kicked a ball around the yard, dug in the dirt, and of course, colored with our sidewalk chalk.

Dylan was a great helper, and we all had a lot of fun!

Haircut

Hey, sorry again for the delay between posts! I do try to keep the blog updated twice weekly but last week was crazy at work... I'll try to keep up this week!

Maisie's hair has been getting out of control. We've been trying to keep up with her bangs, but have been doing only a fair to middling job of it. Plus, the rest of her hair was just crazy. So yesterday, she had her first Real Salon Haircut! I was going to take pictures, but the process kind of freaked her out so she sat in my lap for the cut. But, here are some pictures of the end result.

Our stylist, Brianna (I took Maisie to the same person I see), really cleaned up Maisie's bangs. They're a lot more even now, a little higher above her eyebrows, and go a little further past her eyes than I had been cutting them. I was concerned about giving her Jim Carrey-Dumb and Dumber hair! But as you can see, Brianna really avoided that.

She kept the length on Maisie's hair, but gave it some more layers so the ends curl up more than they had been

Brianna also gave Maisie her first sucker. It was butterscotch, and Maisie really enjoyed it.

Big picture of the final result. Aaron doesn't love the bangs, but at this point her hair is still so baby-fine that it doesn't really have a part. Brianna thinks her hair will start to develop a more adult texture in the next 6-12 months, and then we'll be able to lose the bangs and find the part. But until then, Maisie will be rocking the bangs.

By the way, it took a while to get such good pictures of her hair! Here's a sample of the outtakes of our session, just so you know what I was up against, trying to document this first haircut for posterity.

In the absence of Maisie pictures...

It's been crazy busy at work (me) and school (Aaron), so we haven't had much time to take cute new pictures of Maisie. So instead, I'll show you my brand new CAR!


(Brand new is actually inaccurate - it's a 2006 Scion xB that's new to me, as of two weeks ago.)

Now that Aaron's in school, we've been struggling with just having a single car. It worked really well when we worked the same hours and our offices were within a mile of each other. But now he's running between work and school, and has classes late at night and early in the morning. So, we decided to bite the bullet and get a new car.

I was originally planning on something sensible like a Corolla or a Camry, but once I got behind the wheel of the X Box, I was in love!

Not so neat

Yesterday Maisie and I did some pumpkin painting at home.

We picked up some mini pumpkins and went to town! It was a lot of fun.

I'm especially posting this to quiet those crazy rumors that Maisie is somehow a neater than average child! She loves to paint, but not just the act of painting. She squishes it in her fingers, mixes the colors together to see what happens, and even tries to taste it. (usually she's unsuccessful, but I couldn't swear that she's never eaten paint. Which is why nontoxic is so important!!)

So as I'm sure you can imagine, the little amount of paint on her shirt here is only the beginning. Later, she hugged her pumpkin!