Monday, November 9, 2009

Halloween! and more ...

Halloween in Scotts Valley
We spent the weekend of Halloween at Mike & Heather's, with them, Tom, and the Robinsons. Of course we rocked out -- in costume -- but the biggest highlight was taking Annika out trick-or-treating. We went with the Aalgaards & their boys to a neighborhood in town known for its close-together houses, good sidewalks, decorations and candy, and she seemed to really dig it! Her costume was a big hit -- she went as "Sam I Am," from Green Eggs and Ham, and it was ADORABLE! R. sewed her a yellow fleece tunic (no pattern ...) and a red hat (which I finished with hand-sewing). I cut from foamcore and painted a sign that said I am Sam on one side, and Sam I am on the other, and also made a platter of green eggs and ham (small plastic artist's palette covered with foil; foamcore egg whites; cut/shaped styrofoam balls painted green for the ham and the egg yolks; all glued together). So in this getup, she went to house after house, saying "trick or treat!" and "thank you!", and keeping the hat on for about half of it (which was better than we'd hoped). She wasn't scared at all -- and she kept wanting to go to more houses, even when she was so tired she was staggering. Heh. The only drawback was, she now knows about candy. Ugh. (Quick story: I had the early shift Sunday morning. She and I went to the local Starbucks; she insisted on taking her "blue fish blue fish bag", aka the Seuss-themed bag she was using to collect candy. On the way back, I realized she'd been suspiciously quiet, so I turned to look at her. She had a big red sucker out of its paper and in her mouth, and when she caught my eye, she held it up and said with serious enthusiasm, "This is YUMMY!" I had to stop the car, I was laughing so hard.) So anyway ... we got lots of pics and also video of the first couple of houses, all of which R. will post asap.

Toys, books lately: Fave raves of the moment
--The Melissa & Doug easel, a bday present from Mamalah. OH how she loves this thing. The chalk side is getting most of the attention right now, but her loyalties shift back and forth from that to the paper side. Awesome gift -- thank you!
--The Charlie & Lola book from Grandma & Grandpa. We read it every night. Thanks for the new material!
--Richard Scarry's entire bibliography. Not only are these great for us to read, but also they're a really useful tool (e.g., "Lowly Worm says to always eat with your fork." "Uh-oh, you're being an Interrupting Pest."). Heh.
--Mercer Mayer books. I never read them as a kid, but R. did -- they're great, and just the right length for bedtime reading.
--The tricycle, a hand-me-down from Cousins Sonic & A. She can't work it AS a tricycle yet, but she gets a huge kick out of sitting in it and walking it around the patio. She calls it her bicycle.
--Mr. Potatohead. Mostly she just messes around with the (four million) pieces, but she loves to play with "Misser Tayto."
--Play-Doh. She loved the pink and blue eggs full of play-doh that she got for Easter, so I bought her some more (a package of 10 small pots of it). She loves to roll it around, mash it, make "eyeballs" out of it, etc. (There were a couple dozen loose plastic eyeballs as part of the Halloween decor at the Aalgaards', and she spent a good amount of time "playing eyeballs" over the weekend, thus the Play-Doh version.)

Special mention: new word
As I said before, there's no use trying to keep up with the frantic pace of the vocab additions, but I have to make a special mention of this one: The other night, she took out the musical instrument she got for her birthday, opened it up, and said with a flourish of a mallet, "Glockenspiel!" I thought we both might die laughing right there.