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.

falling into autumn

houston decided to end summer this week . . . at least for a couple of days. to celebrate the onset of chilly weather, the girls and i decorated our front window (i even cleaned it for the first time in the two years we've lived here):

we put leaves blowing in the wind:

i thought it was pretty clever. hazel and lucy decorated their window (free from my ocd directions) with the extra leaves:

the best part of this 60 degree weather? it coincided with the girls' final swim lesson:

they still had some fun:

and even learned life jacket safety:

once again i'll point out what a thoughtful mommy i am: i brought along two towels for each of them. a hooded one for during the lesson and one for after: 

eventually, despite the towels, the kids were turning purple so the teacher had them hang onto the wall in the water (thank goodness for heated pools, right?). hazel was sneaky and didn't hold on to the wall: 

good thing she's tall. for the final event (jumping in), the teacher carted the kids in the water to a different spot on the wall: 

she was such a fantastic teacher (i wish i had learned her name) and presented the girls with their certificates saying they had passed the first level. to celebrate, we had a dinner of noodle soup and hot chocolate:

they were a lot happier about it than this picture shows. i promise.

the cooler weather also reminded me that halloween is around the corner. hazel decided to be a butterfly ages ago. i had a great idea for her wings. i bent two wire hangers into the basic shape of wings and wrapped them in tulle. it was pretty much a disaster. they were passable as fairy wings but nothing close to butterfly wings. grant and i brainstormed that night and i came up with another idea that grant executed to perfection: foam board cut into wings with fabric glued to it. bingo. i had several yards of ikea fabric that i'd bought with the intention of making more pillows for the couch but the oranges clashed. are you ready to see it?????? 'cause it's awesome:

grant cut four slits into the middle and we threaded some ribbon though to make a harness. lucy's was a little more involved. she wanted to be batman first. then a ladybug. then a bee. then batman again. once i'd told her to make up her mind already, she settled for batmangirl. not batgirl. again i had a vision. it seemed easy enough. i figured the hardest part would be re-learning to use my sewing machine. ha. ha. heh. *sigh* summary: wrong fabric, @#%&^! sleeves, small hems, velcro malfunction, etc. in the end, the easiest part was the insignia which makes the costume:

don't look too closely and definitely don't look at the back. i'll probably try to fix it later but i was in a hurry to finish so we could go to the gym's trunk-or-treat:

here's the back of hazel's wings:

that fabric worked so well for this costume. lucy's cape fell off so i used the safety pin that was holding the back closed (don't ask) and a hair clip to keep it attached. anyway, as soon as we arrived we ran into our friends. rebekah and her baby sister (who's not in the picture) were beautiful peacocks:

what followed next?

candy:

cow attacks:

crafts (put on by the lovely ladies that run the child care at the ymca. love them):

camel riding (no pictures since the girls didn't want to do that one). crowds:

and hula hooping: