trunk-or-treat

these 3 photos chronicle a normal schmormal day in the life of us. yesterday began where isabel left off the previous night. this time she was scantily clad, shirt on her head turban style. 

the spiders attacked our car for the trunk-or-treat. look at us...we managed a family snapshot! we're the coolest!

amalea = o.c.d.

she arranged the spiders just so. mom positioned amalea so that the spiders could march right into her open mouth single file.

our younger stranger child

(is that even possible? see photo below for further details. and yes, those are amalea's panties, of which isabel placed on her head, managed to say "cheese" for a single photo, and then streaked away.)

can i help you?

amalea sidled on over to mom, who was in the laundry room, and in her best southern belle voice amalea spoke, "mom...can i help you?". the following photo shoot ensued:

the evening, which was yesterday, concluded with a transformation of pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns (and of little girls into cackling kooks). note - amalea directed the carving efforts of which isabel didn't take much interest other than extending her pointer finger and prodding some pumpkin pulp and a seed on two different occasions.

night of the dance

friday, october 24, the night of the dance, began with a halloween ghostbusters (i ain't afraid of no ghost!) dance performed by amalea at her dance class. we all had fun watching her dance about in a choreographed manner!

the real dance surprise came when mom took amalea to see high school musical 3 senior year (more dance, more choreography). the most fun for amalea occurred pre-show as she handed out the little glow in the dark spider rings and candy (minus the candy she managed to pack into her cheeks - just look at those puffsters in the photo with mom) to kids young and old in the rows surrounding us. 

more fun eating after the show. that tub of popcorn is bigger around than amalea is!

and a shot in front of the poster outside the theatre to mark the event.

the night ended with an exhausted amalea falling asleep almost instantly in her car seat on the drive home.

it all begins with a little country style chinese

actually, last week ended with jason capturing an artistic rendition of amalea's name done by the artist herself on glass and condensation using fingertip.

then the week continued to end with the busting of isabel's lip and the assembling of chinese spring rolls all performed while johnny cash sang in the background (thus, the country style chinese).

the busting of the lip: isabel has bumped the bony parts of her noggin before, but never busted soft tissue open to cause blood to issue forth. she smacked her face good on the floor, and since she's quite toothy now, split her bottom lip open and out gushed the blood. she recovered quickly enough to manage to "incubate" a pumpkin (her new move in honor of the coming of autumn) as well as to strike a pose to point out her new wound.

the assembling of the spring roll: as modeled here by amalea...

   first you must soak the rice paper

 then fill,  then roll, and last hold the roll up in celebration

 (and admire the thing from afar by definitely NOT eating it - according to amalea).

camels, and ponies, and pigs, oh my!

the fall rite of passage - a trip to goebbert's pumpkin patch.

we must reflect on a few prior events first. 

to set the mood, it was "ditch" dark last evening according to amalea. amalea fooled mom, a true dupe. the two were eating a snack which included pepperoni (note, none were consumed by amalea). amalea pointed off to the distance quickly and exclaimed, "look! a green pepperoni!" mom fell for it and jerked her head to follow amalea's lead. mom had to ask "were you tricking me?" then the giggling began! so it was blue, yellow, and all other colors of pepperoni all over the place for a good hour later. hey, if you've got something good, just keep working it!

this morning amalea made her bed all by herself. we commended her on her accomplishment. she said it had a big lump in it though. when asked why she did this, she just said that "i didn't want you (mom) to make it", why, "i don't know."

also this morning isabel performed some of her eating on the edge stunts...

now for the pumpkin patch. we saw pigs race. amalea asked, "why do they make pigs race?" good question. amalea raced over to the pumpkin eating dinosaur everytime it's mealtimes arrived (until it squished amalea's arm against the fence - don't worry, just a tiny cut and slivers). isabel said "no" when asked if she wanted to get near it. but she did cheer it on with delight and clapped for it whenever it crushed and then chomped on a pumpkin. feeding the piglets corn was highly adorable. there was a lot of squealing, mostly from isabel. amalea demanded to ride on the camel. and both girls rode on the ponies.  

one week later...

many feats are accomplished in the matter of one week.

isabel learned how to say "no". and the next day she learned how to say "yes". she highly prefers "no" though. here's a sample of one her "no" conversations: will you share your milk with amalea? "no". will you share your milk with mommy? "no". will you share your milk with daddy? "no". will you share your milk with goliath? "no". (all of isabel's responses are intermingled with big swigs of her milk)

the other night, when we were listening to "boom-boom" (bed, bed, bed by they might be giants) and isabel was supposed to be getting drowsy and ready for bed, she decided to discover finger and toe nails instead. she thought it was hilarious that the ends of her and mom's fingers and toes were covered by these clear, hard, shell-like things. isabel giggled as she went over both those on fingers and toes of both parties involved.

isabel now alerts you to the fact that she has wet her diaper by saying "bee-bee" (that's her clean version of the "p" word) and points to the diaper region. isabel will go pee-pee in the potty once or twice a day. once this week she said "bee-bee", was asked if she had to go pee-pee on the potty, and she shook her head yes in response and zoomed off to the potty. isabel sat and promptly went both pee-pee and poo-poo. utterly amazing!

isabel likes "dum-dees" (red dye 40, high fructose corn syrup, hyrdogenated oil laden gummies - really dumdees, as she has stated). she does NOT like the organic fake gummies that daddy bought.

amalea and isabel just walked by, hand-in-hand, isabel in tow, with amalea asking "do you want to come with me?" "no".

everything that refers to a near future event is referred to as "the next day" for amalea. for example: "what do we do the next day?" or "we get to go see the pumpkin eating dinosaur the next day." (you'll hear all about that adventure soon)

amalea and isabel both like to swim like mermaids in the tub (photo above of amalea's luxurious hair, and isabel's fuzzy floaties). amalea is a lot more cautious as she approaches the water. isabel nearly floods herself just sliding in and under almost every time. it comes with the 4 years of practice! 

this is our first post

hey... it's jason and monica, we're finally - yes finally - entering the world of blogging.  .mac was way too expensive, hope you enjoy. this is a picture of the family, just before isabel's first christmas. december 2007.