Saturday, October 27, 2012

Let the festivities begin...


The family kicked off Friday with Blackboard's annual Halloween party in the DC office. Evie and Ellie donned their costumes - Evie as a princess with a sparkly headband, Ellie as a little pumpkin - to join the festivities. The first stop was Megan's office where she and mommy had put together a "Pop a Pumpkin" for a surprise - delicious candy for the kids.  


Ellie was eager to give the popping a try - no hesitating with the thumbtack here!  


Then the girls continued to trick o' treat through scary offices. Funny enough, neither of them seem too scared by the  giant gargoyle from Ghostbusters.  


Evie pauses for a moment while sister Ellie snacks in the background - which will soon be a consistent theme throughout the rest of the afternoon.  


Ba tries to lead Ellie out of Hogwarts Castle.  

Our little pumpkin finds some chairs she enjoys climbing on - our little girl knows where the party's at! 

When daddy arrives later, the girls have to demonstrate the pumpkin, of course.  Evie playfully pokes daddy in the nose. 

Then they put their forces together for a big pop!


Then, on Saturday we checked out Maury Elementary's Fall Festival, which had plenty of bouncy toys for Evie to enjoy.  She conquered the giant inflatable slide first thing, with joy on her face the whole way down (actually, she got a little scared when it got really fast), but had a big smile at the end.  


Then she headed over to the jungle gym, which was like a giant obstacle course, or "Wipe Out Zone," as one of her favorite shows.  She got right into the action, climbing, sliding and squeezing through. 

At the end of the big slide, she had a huge smile! 

Meanwhile, Ellie prepares to go down the slide like the big girl she is. 


Whee!!!!!!!!!!!!

She and mommy enjoy the beautiful afternoon before heading over to Dairy Godmother for pumpkin frozen custard.  Fall is great!  

Sunday, October 21, 2012

It's beginning to look a lot like... Halloween!


 It was off to the pumpkin patch to pick some wonderful prospects for our 2012 jack o'lanterns.  The experience made for some wonderful series of photo opps for us to capture.  Ellie jumped in, right into the pumpkins.


Wait a second, I'm going in for a closer look... gotta do a little bit of pumpkin climbing to find the perfect candidate... 



Isn't this the cutest picture ever? 



Two sisters, testing out potential candidates. Unfortunately, Ellie threw down this pumpkin shortly after this photo was taken, breaking it's impressive stem. Whoops. 


So she got demoted to a smaller pumpkin.  But she still was looking at Evie's pumpkin longingly.  



This is her "Them the breaks, I guess" impression.  

Well, you gotta work with what you've given... 

Whee!  Look at it go! 

Soon after, it was time to explore the tunnels. 

Our little explorer, always up for the next adventure. 

Meanwhile, Evie went in for a closer look at the resident rooster - this is her actually preparing to do her rooster imitation. Cock a doodle do! 
 

The next day we were able to take some costumes out for a trial run at Ava's birthday party at the park.  Evie donned her "Parisian Princess" costume and took it for a spin around the playground.  

Whee!  Up on the seesaw, it's almost like riding a horse to my prince.  "Let them eat cake!" says our mini-Marie Antoinette.   



Meanwhile, our little duckie enjoys running around the park. Quack, Quack! 


Little Quack enjoys some delicious cupcake. 


Thursday, October 18, 2012

A Birthday for Ba!


It was an exciting celebration for Ba last night!  All the girls got dressed in their finest.  


Ellie in particular was excited to bring Ba her presents... 

and help unwrap them so she can play with the tissue paper.  
 

We had a special facetime session with Uncle Karl, Aunt Amy, and little Dia.  Ellie loved saying hi to her little cousin down in Florida. 


Opa had organized a special delivery - a beautiful painting for Ba, hand-delivered by the artist!  Evie also liked showing off her own artist gallery.  But the best part was playing with the bubble wrap and paper the painting came in!  Evie wrapped herself up like a present and Ellie had a great time jumping on her. 
 

The girls sing and get ready to help blow out the candles of the beautiful cake!  Happy Birthday Ba! 

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Off to the orchard...



The family headed out to Germantown, MD to Butler's Orchard for a fun afternoon in the wonderful fall weather. First stop was the slides - after taking a look at the two, Evie opted for the "Little Jack" slide.

Then Ellie went down with Daddy - but I think she was not too impressed at the speed of the slide.  On to bigger slopes, Daddy! 

Evie enjoyed the hayloft and jumping into the piles of hay, although she did end up having straw everywhere.  


Mommy and Ellie watch Evie play in the hay, which wasn't quite Ellie's thing.  

Wahoo!  


Ellie does some crawling through the wooden train. 
 

Evie concentrates on pumping the water for the rubber ducky derby. 

Where is Ellie taking a break? 

A giant tractor wheel of course! 

Our beautiful girl, reflecting on the meaning behind it all. 

while Evie runs through the haybale maze... 

Hey, who let the pigeon.. I mean Evie... drive the bus?!?  Ellie and Mom hold on tight and buckle our seatbelts. 

Farmers Ellie and Marc on the John Deere. 

Two sisters walking hand in hand. 

On the way out, Evie graduates to the Pumpkin Falls slide.  Hey, in all the excitement, we forgot to go pumpkin hunting!  Oh, well, something to look forward to next week.