Dia de los Muertos

On Sunday we traveled down to the Museum of the American Indian for their Dia de los Muertos celebration. The girls enjoyed doing crafts like paper flowers and paper cards before we headed upstairs to hear Native American legends and try to find some totem poles for Evie's art project she is working on. 

There is a great kids section on the third floor where the girls explored elements of Native American culture, like living in a teepee, basket weaving, building an igloo... and in this instance, practicing our skateboarding skills. 

Ellie also took Brown Bear on a kayak ride...

...and later practiced her balancing skills for a real kayak with the initial help of Dad.

We ended the day with some coloring before checking out the ofrenda (altar) on the way out.  It was a fun day! 

Halloween Traditions

One of our favorite traditions is going to Mommy's work for the annual Halloween party.  The girls enjoyed trick o' treating down the spooky hallways before sitting down to enjoy the magician make balls disappear and turn red handkerchiefs to blue.  Above, Ellie is amazed while Evie looks a little skeptical. Evie would later impress Megan with her own magic tricks.

On Halloween, we stopped by Nall's pumpkin patch to pick out a new beauty as the one that was sitting on our porch for the last couple of weeks got a little moldy and had started to be scratched at by cats or raccoons (?).  

The girls become tamers of these never-seen-before snake gourds - spooky!

Ellie is hosting "Brown Bear" from her preschool so we also had to take him on an adventure in the playground.  Ellie and Brown Bear say hi to a couple of raccoons at the park.

Once we got home, Evie was happy to help with the gross task of taking out the "guts" so Dad could complete the carving of the pumpkin. 

This year we dressed our headless man in Dad's varsity sweater from Dartmouth. Even Brown Bear got in the spirit by dressing up as a cool snowboarder.

Evie likes looking inside the pumpkin head.

Finally costumed up, the girls show off their "Brittany the Chipette" and dragonfly costumes (homemade by Mommy, of course).  After a night of trick o' treating around the neighborhood, Ellie said, "Everyone kept calling me soooo cute."  [head slap] Evie felt like a "famous person" because her costume got raves.

We had a great time at Gina, Eric and Cole's house where we enjoyed pumpkin decorating before a delicious dinner and hitting the streets.  It was another successful Halloween! 

October Birthday Celebrations

The girls were all smiles to celebrate Dad's birthday earlier this month. 

They had put together some wonderful homemade cards that they couldn't wait to show him. 

When Mom and Dad returned from Italy, we then celebrated Ba's birthday with delight! 

Evie and Ellie proudly display their latest masterpieces they created for Ba.

We enjoy a delicious dinner and then the girls help blow out the candles on Ba's coffee cake. 

Apple picking with Ba and Opa

While Mom and Dad were in Italy, the girls had a great couple of days with Ba, Opa, and Bebe. On one day, Opa and Ba took them apple picking in the orchard. 

a delightful birthday for mom

It was another wonderful year where we celebrated Mom's birthday with crabs at our crabhouse by Annapolis. Evie and Ellie really got into cracking the crab legs this year, slamming their hammers with gusto!

We had a couple of minutes in the sun on an otherwise cloudy day.  

The girls love the hammocks on the beach. Despite the clouds, they splashed in the water and collected rocks and beach glass. 

  

School is Cool!

Who's all smiles for her first day of school? 

Evie's excited thinking of her special surprise in her lunch box...

 ...but she's getting a little nervous as the start time gets closer.  It was a great first day (even though a mix up with the bus resulted in getting home a little later than expected...)

A week later and Ellie started her last year at MHCP.

Evie's Birthday week ends with a splash!

Our little munchkin is seven!  Mommy took off a day to spend with her lovely girls.  We headed over to another great couple of hours at the Watermine where the girls went down numerous water slides, over and over. We all got thoroughly soaked but luckily the sun kept us nice and toasty.  Then, mommy and Evie had a little 1-on-1 time stopping by our favorite haunts in Old Town - froyo and painting pottery - followed by a trip to the chocolatier, before heading home to celebrate with Evie's requested meal - spaghetti and garlic bread, of course! 

Evie (and Ellie) are excited to rip into the gifts after dinner!  Ba and Opa were our honored guests. 

She was thrilled to get this 80's book by Aliki, one of her favorites from Mrs. Bates first grade library. 

The girls proudly display Ba's latest creations - new art to display in their rooms! 

Evie picked out her ice cream cake at Baskin Robbins - amazingly enough, she found one with mint chocolate chip and chocolate ice cream - without any cake! 

The next day we checked out the mini golf course at Upton Hill Regional Park to partake in one of Evie's favorite activities.  Upton has one of the longest putts down a big hill which was a lot of fun!  Ellie was a good sport about sitting out the game with her book - golf is not her game, it would seem. 

Ellie is very comfortable lying down wherever she finds a shady spot. 

It was getting a little steamy, but Evie followed this picture with THREE hole-in-ones! 

Finally, after some ice cream it was off to the spray park to cool down, easy to do despite standing on "Mercury".  I guess you could say Evie's 7th birthday was out of this world!