Halloween

Inspiration for the costumes (we have to go look at this everytime we go outside and of course frequently the bee is missing which causes great concern!):

Here are the girls in their Halloween costumes...

Halloweek

So I have totally gone overboard dressing the kids up in Halloween paraphernalia...I can't seem to help myself cause they look so cute!

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

We had a playgroup Halloween party on Thursday. Here are the girls with some of their friends: Ellie, Haley, and Lorelei. Then a final shot of Brooke who was being BEE-witching!

More Marathon

Riding the Metro...it was the girls' first time on public transport. They thought it was quite fun.

Cheering on the runners at mile 10....the girls were still excited and in good humor at this point.

The only picture of D actually running the race - he's the one in red turned around - this was at mile 16.

Walking to the finish line - the girls were exhausted!


Post race festivities - massage and photo ops

Best Week Ever...

for D. This Sunday he ran in the Marine Corps Marathon here in DC. The first 8 miles are pretty hilly and then for some twisted reason the finish line is also straight up a hill...to be honest, I was tired just walking to our various viewing locations. But I am digressing. This post is about D's best week ever.

D finished the marathon with a time of 3 hours 11 minutes and 48 seconds....so he reached his goal and qualified for Boston (for his age group you have to run it under 3:15)! So it looks like there will only be a tiny break in training as the Boston is in April (Stacy we will HAVE to see you then!!) He finished 399 out of 21,000 finishers. Crazy Good!

Here is D posing by his sad little Camry with his finisher medal (yes I made him do the photo shoot and poses!)



But wait....


Here is D posing by his shiny new Accord. That's right. The Camry is finally retired (seriously I would not even ride in it cause I didn't think it was safe - it had to go to 3 different stations, even after making repairs, just to pass inspection this year!!) Goodbye sweet gold trim!

Bathroom Remodel: Part 2

So time has passed and our bathroom is "finished." I use quotes cause it really isn't finished as the glass for the shower is on order and will not be in and installed until around Nov. 1. However, our contractor keeps talking about how they did a great job finishing on time. He is clearly insane as it is still not finished.

However, I am pleased to say that we are at least finished with the contractor. The atmosphere around here got a little hostile. With that said, the "finished" result is super nice. We moved the potty (clearly I have kids), got a larger vanity, moved the door, and took down the wall for the shower. The shower is supposed to be a frameless glass shower so the look will be pretty much the same as it is supposed to create an open feel.

Here are the pics:

Looking into the bathroom from the bottom of the stairs (outside our bedroom)Looking into the shower from above the potty

A close up of the vanity - there is a light fixture above the vanity that apparently did not make it into any of the pictures.

Bathroom Remodel: Part 1

As mentioned before, D and I live in our basement. As a result our bathroom was quite small and in need of a remodel. However, were that all it was I am sure that we would have just lived with it. But there was some moisture (I call it a leak) coming from the shower and onto the landing. And this created, well a gross mess. So we hired a contractor and started the remodeling experience. Here are some before and during pictures:

Cox Farms

For the second year in a row, we took that girls to Cox Farms...though we missed going with Crystal and Eric this year. Basically Cox Farms is like a country version of an amusement park. Last year we thought it seemed crazy that they had just a ton of variations of slides. However, as the girls are obsessed with sliding (though Brooke is by FAR the more adventurous of the two) we understood it much better this year. Not pictured is the big slide where you sit on the burlap mat - the girls rode that one on our laps and it was super fun. Brought back memories of growing up and going to the state fair.

Riding on their first hayride - I was pleased to see that it seemed like they were using some synthetic hay as I am allergic to real hay!

Slide 1: Brooke (on left) does much better than Audrey - who likes to flip over to her tummy midway down the slide, which frequently leads to less than graceful landings.

Slide 2: Brooke was doing this one solo - she was so cute as she sat so perfectly still. Audrey admired the hay while Brooke was sliding.

Pony Rides: These were extra. D and I laughed at the rules as the last one stated that you may exchange your ticket for a full refund if your child did not ride. You will note that only Brooke rode and we did need the exchange policy as Audrey adamantly declared NO!

Slide 3 is not pictured cause it was the big one. Slide 4: we let Brooke go down by herself (with only moderate success as she took a header going around the first curve) and D took Audrey. Ironically, Audrey was the one crying at the end of the ride.

There are free apples to munch on as you wander around. For some reason I really thought the girls were adorable walking around with their apples (Audrey was especially into it and probably ate one and a half apple total, though we went through many more due to droppage issues)

Frying Pan Park

We had another playgroup at Frying Pan Park. The girls like to play on the playground but really like to see all of the animals. We saw a mommy pig and a bunch of piglets (though the girls did not really seem excited by this and I think that it is because they were in the barn and it smelled), some goats, sheep, cows, horses, bunnies, ducks, turkeys, a peacock, and some chickens. Here are a few pictures from our day:

Brooke touching some of the animals...she is so proud of herself when she does this!

The girls checking out the rooster. And how cute is Brooke walking around holding her friend Elisa's hand! (and yes I know her pants look ridiculous, but they were dragging on the ground and getting all messed up.)

Audrey riding on the tractor with some assistance from her friend Lorelei (who the girls are obsessed with!)

Fall Festival

Last weekend, we took the girls to a local fall festival. They had a blast! There was a really good kids zone with lots of things for them to do. They made a little book with stamps and colorings. They had a snack and listened to a band (for the record, I originally thought it was just some people doing karaoke and was moderately surprised to find out that they were in fact a band). They did the inflatable slide -which was a fairly steep climb that D and I had to assist with and therefore got to slide down it as well! I thought that it was very fun! no pictures cause we were involved. And then the best part of the festival was the jumping castle. This was the girls first time in a bouncy thing and they LOVED it! It was just for kids 5 and under and they only let in 10 kids at a time and they got to jump for 5 minutes. Audrey is on the ground in most of the pictures cause she loves to jump, jump, jump and then PLOP full out onto the ground. She does this every day in her bed. Here are some pictures of our adventures: