while mr. grinch is away . . .

the girls and i will play:

last friday we dropped grant off at the airport. he left us for this: 

he went to this conference two years ago. it's kind of shocking how much changes in two years. anyway. grant presented his paper saturday morning and it went well, so i hear. i'm excited to say that in about an hour, we'll be heading to the airport to pick him up. it wasn't too bad for me. i kept the girls from pining for daddy by telling them it was our girls' party weekend. we rented gnomeo & juliet and ate at panda express the first night. saturday night was our babysitting co-op, so i was able to go to a friendsgiving without the kids (awesome). sunday, the girls and i decided to put up the christmas tree to surprise grant.

he's not really a grinch but every year i end up nagging him to put the tree up and i usually find that he doesn't do it soon enough after thanksgiving for me. so to save us that drama, i dug the tree out, tried to keep oliver from electrocuting himself, gave up the tradition of paper ornaments and entered the brave, new world of glass ornaments with kids (and a naughty cat).

a couple of years ago, i picked up these colorful ornaments on clearance for the purpose of making one of these wreaths. well the wreath never happened and the ornaments were just gathering dust. i hit up hobby lobby and since all of their christmas stuff was 50% off, i snagged some sparkly snowflakes, a snowflake topper and hooks to supplement my ornaments:

the "snow" block-thing hazel spotted and liked. i told her if she could sound out what it said i'd get it for her and she did. she's gotten very good a sounding out words, the little smartypants.

here the tree is in all it's glory:

still no tree skirt. i used leftover gray fabric from lucy's costume. the kids are learning boundries. the cat has somehow figured out how to get the small balls off their hooks so he can chase them around. today i had the couch pillows lined up around the tree as a fence to keep him off. we'll see how long it keeps him fooled...

before grant left, hazel berated us for forgetting to celebrate oliver's birthday. hazel and lucy colored pictures to decorate his "playground". they both drew mice: 

oliver liked them:

then, because i pull out all the stops for any pet of mine, i made him cupcakes:

ha! just kidding. this was a leftover from what i made for a friend's baby shower. lucy helped oliver with the candle:  

and then both girls helped him eat it:

they were the tasty cookies 'n cream cupcakes my sis-in-law made for her daughter back in july. try them! try them! and you may [like them]. try them and you may, i say.

kitty corner

just over a year ago, we added this furry little guy to our family:

oliver no longer hides from us but bolts anytime there's a knock on the door. not many people have seen him in person. 

he's finally stopped scratching on our door at night and his meows have gotten quieter.

he delights in trapping lucy in the bathroom. she won't come out if he's nearby so he prowls back and forth in front of the door, occasionally raising a threatening paw.  

he likes having hazel scratch his ears and she takes that job seriously. hazel has begun picking him up and trying to cuddle him. he tolerates that for about half a second. 

we've banished him from the kitchen. he was getting too comfortable in there:

this picture also shows off his awesome lion's mane

he still thinks he owns our room.

he's not big on cat toys, probably because he never gets a chance to play with them:

he's a not-so-little sweetheart and i love him. still.

in other news, remember lucy's batmangirl costume?:

how could you forget it, amiright? well it won our apartment complex costume contest and she recieved a backpack:

we're all proud as peacocks.

our wiggity-wiggity-wiggity weekend

friday was a blustery, cold day. so we spent it outside at the:

for zoo boo. it has become our yearly halloween tradition (well, i thought we had gone every year but either we didn't go last year or i didn't blog about it...). hazel found her wings:

and used the map to herd us in the right direction for the scavenger hunt:

lucy ran around like the crazy kid she is and took a spill:

check out that lower-lip action. once we ascertained her injuries were non-life threatening, we checked out the new elephant enclosure:

it's big. we found more booths, furthering our goal of scavenger hunt completion. i took this great picture of grant:

he took this great picture of the kids and me:

we bumped into the guy on a buffalo:

the girls posed by a web-y tree:

and finished up the hunt, earning themselves spider rings:

hazel felt a little jipped that this was the "big surprise" for completing. lucy was upset for another reason:

having to leave. we let them dig into their candy in the car, effectively cheering them up:

saturday was field trip day:

if you'll remember, last month's field trip did not work out quite as planned. there was a slight hiccup on saturday as well but we recovered quickly and ended up at the nature discovery center:

we wandered around looking at the flowers and grasses. lucy found a stick to carry:

we watched a beautiful monarch butterfly flit around:

and then, while playing in a sandbox, hazel and cameron found a dead one:

it was in pristine condition (and hopefully just died of old age) so we examined it closely:

and then layed it to rest in some nice soft leaves:

finally, we made like a tree:

and got outta there.

finally, halloween came and with it the scorned trunk-or-treat:

notice an addition?? grant spent all of his free time on saturday and sunday making lucy a "mean helmet" to go with her batmangirl costume. lucy whipped out her patented mean face to go with it:

we chatted with weird people:

played games:

had our faces painted:

(hazel still likes cats, even though she has asked several times to "return oliver and trade him for a dog.")

played with friends:

gave hugs:

and went home to sleep off the sugar.