The Weekend in Pictures

This (long) weekend was intense. Lucy's school gets around the whole Halloween-450-kids-hyped-up-on-sugar-and-fun mayhem by cancelling school on the 29th and 30th and scheduling parent-teacher conferences instead.

Elaine's pre-school, however, had a Halloween parade on Thursday morning, which we all attended. (I don't have pictures of that because I took video instead.) It was somewhat surprising to me to discover that Elaine is very shy and low-key at school. She seems to fade in the background and not get noticed very much.

After that, I went over to church to meet Sarah and set up for the Family Fun Fair, which we do together every year.

Then on Friday morning, I went to Lucy's parent-teacher conference. She had just brought home a great report card, so I knew there wasn't any bad news coming. We did talk about how we could work together to get her more organized. Her teacher said that instead of pulling her stuff together at the beginning and end of the day, she tends to just "wander." Imagine that. I told her that I fully expect to have "Make your bed/brush your teeth/fasten your seatbelt/do you have your lunchbox?" engraved on my tombstone (either that or, "She was tired.")

On Friday night, we all headed to the family fun fair (oh, and I have no pictures of that either--begging the question of why I entitled this post "the weekend in pictures.") We all had a great time at the ring toss, duck pond, face-painting booth, cookie-decorating table, cakewalk, etc. etc. Lucy won best costume, which I was happy about, since Elaine won last year. Since they usually dress alike, I'm glad they've both won something. They also scored bags of candy and at least two plates of cakes each from the cakewalk.

Darren rushed them home, showered them, and got them into bed because early on Saturday morning the girls and I, Sarah and Isabella, and Isabella's abuelita headed to Chicago to the American Girl store for Isabella's birthday.

Lucy has been to the store once, but it was a couple of years ago and she had forgotten it. Elaine has never even been to Chicago, so she was pretty pumped about everything. We entered the store by the Bitty Baby department, and she was absolutely overwhelmed. She could have stayed in there all day.

We went into the historical displays (Lucy's and my favorite) and then headed upstairs to the Just Like Me department. Isabella's doll is one of those, and she had birthday money to buy some outfits. She and Lucy had a great time running around and choosing things. Elaine got a little bored during that part so I took her over to some benches. She started to roll around, but I stopped her and said, "That's behaving like a rowdy boy, when in fact, you are a nice lady." She replied, "I'm not really a nice lady. I'm a naughty cat!"

Then we went to the cafe for lunch--pardon the pink overcast of this next picture...I think it's because there was no natural light, and the walls are red.

When we got inside the cafe, the waiter gave each girl a highchair plus a birthday tiara for their dolls...



Here are the three friends (Lucy is excited about the napkin because the napkin ring is a hair scrunchie that they also got to keep)...



First, they brought us little cinnamon rolls and an appetizer platter of cheese rolls, strawberries and cheese, and vegetables and dip. Then all the girls ordered the American Girl picnic lunch, which was a mini-hotdog, mini-hamburger, and little cup of mac-n-cheese, plus a fruit skewer. The moms and grandma ordered adult food (which was delicious).

Here is the sweet birthday girl, blowing out her candles...



Two best friends...



After Isabella blew out her candles, they took the cake away to slice it and brought it back like this (that's peppermint stick ice cream in a little flowerpot w/ a silk daisy):



Then came the gift bags with little notes, a book, stickers, and a necklace for each...



Here's a naughty cat (who was actually very good), enjoying her ice cream...



Before leaving, we said goodbye to the Bitty Babies.



Here's the birthday girl with her mama and abuelita:



...and mama/auntie Alice with all the girls and dolls...



After getting home, I quickly changed the girls into their costumes in order to head over to my parents' for dinner. We checked our messages first though, and one of our neighbors said to be sure that the girls stopped by to trick-or-treat because their little cat Emily had just had kittens. So we went over there first (also no pictures!) to see the tiniest little kitties imaginable. They had just been born on Thursday, so they can't hear and their eyes are still closed. Emily wasn't too sure about two costumed girls reaching for her babies, so she jumped in the box with them. She soon realized no one was going to harm them though, and she let them each gently pet a kitten.

After that, we went to Mom and Dad's so they could see their girls. This last picture pretty much sums up three days of late bedtimes and unbridled sugar consumption:



And that is it! Tomorrow is back to school and the ordinary world where we don't wear costumes or party with our dolls or get a mini-Twix every few minutes. And we have to be organized. How sad.