October

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. 

- Lucy Maud Montgomery

October was a month of adventure for us. We welcomed friends whenever possible, and we flew across the country to see another dear friend marry her beloved. Our trip to New Jersey was filled with, well, lots of praying Daniel would make it on flights (he was flying standby), entertaining our darling third wheel, and soaking in time with my college roommates. We are so lucky to get time with almost all of them (one of our honorary roommates lives many countries away). We've all changed, but stayed the same even more.

Then came our first snow of the year! It was heavy and wet, and Mlada refuses to wear gloves. We had 95% of the necessary snow gear... so really not too bad! 

In the proper Colorado way, the weather almost immediately became lovely again... at least lovely enough to go wandering out in the almost-melted snow in jammies.

Our reading and snuggling time has also ramped up in a perfectly wonderful way. Emílie's quilt gets pulled off the back of the couch a hundred times a day, and I love it. 

 Oh, and of course: dance parties. Mlada has been breaking out the moves. The time change and lack of light in our day puts us all in a mood at least a few times a day, so books and music are our go-to mood lifters. If all else fails, it's naptime or an episode of Little Bear.

We also said good-bye, or rather, see you as soon as physically possible, to one of our favorite families. As hard as it always is to see friends move away, they are going somewhere so wonderful that makes it a bit easier. 

We attempted the traditional pumpkin patch visit, but oh my, it was cold! We waited a bit too late in the month, our early freeze had destroyed most of the poor pumpkins, and the wind went right through these little sweeties. We came home with one lovely misshapen guy and a little one for each kiddo.

Anni had a two day "autumn intermission", so Daniel took the same days off to give us some extra family time. We made it to the zoo and it was really the best time I've had there in a long time! We explored some areas we hadn't been to, and with Mlada's newfound recognition of animals, it was just all joy. 

And finally, the month closed out with Halloween. Anni gets to dress up for school as anything they had studied, so she was autumn. The tattoos were probably a poor choice since we are still trying to scrub them off a week later, but it was such fun at the time!

Miss Mlada spent the day dressed up as her Aunt Tinie in one of  her namesake's shirts from her own toddlerhood, which was just fun.

The crowning jewel! Our little Moana (dressed for a chilly evening in Colorado rather than a tropical climate), a wee little elephant, and our very own Space Cadette Colette. 

And that. is that. Here's to the next month of adventure!

Road Trip Survival Kit

As you may have noticed... things have been a little quiet over here, except for when I squeak my 365 weekly post in a week or so late.  We've been on the road: planes, trains, and automobiles.  (Not cool trains, just the ones at our airport).  The last big trip of the marathon of traveling was the one I was dreading the most.  11.5 hours each way. In the car.  With a 15 month old who often can't last an hour in the car.  Luckily, with the multiple trips before that under our belts, we were primed, planned, and ready.  We had several plans of attack.  Here we have our "toy box".  All kinds of random things I could grab and hand out to buy us a little time. It was actually supposed to have a few more things in it, but they didn't come in time, so I figured I would stick to what actually got us through the drive (and in-between times during the four days of wedding craziness while living out of a hotel).

Despite my fears, this trip went much, much, smoother than I thought it would.

To start, Monica recommended these Water Wow toys.  These were a HUGE hit with Anni.  She rotated them and could spend hours of the drive coloring the pages.  Probably the only issue we had was trying to refill the little water brushes in a moving car.  Even Colette tried it a couple of times, and while it didn't last as long with her (nothing did) it was still something.
 

Then, of course, were the old stand-bys: coloring and stickers.  We brought colored pencils (crayons can melt in a hot car... not a mess we wanted to deal with) in a tupperware box, a few notepads, sketchpads and coloring books, and a pile of stickers, and life was pretty good.  Again, both girls got some use out of this.  Colette was so excited she was allowed to use a writing utensil that she would spend quite awhile flipping through a book and putting her mark on it here or there.

We also got some lacing cards.  This was definitely an Anni only activity, but she really enjoyed it.  It wasn't super helpful to my car sickness to turn around every few seconds when she wanted to show me her progress, but it was definitely worth it.

Other than that, we had a big pile of books (you can see them tucked into the box in the first photo).  A little bit of everything, but especially some sturdy ones that Colette could flip through without destroying (also helpful to have good night books on hand).  We also had an entire box of car-friendly snacks (Annie's brand goodies probably took up over half of that box, in fact they probably could have sponsored that snack box), as well as a cooler with some cut up fruit, cheese sticks and trail mix (the chocolate got all melty if it wasn't in the cooler). 

We also did have the ipad.  We knew Anni could make it an 8 hour trip without any videos, but with it being a longer trip than we had attempted before, we wanted back up for both girls.  Colette watched some Baby Einstein videos on it a few times to get her through the last little bit before we made it to a destination, and Anni had it at random times either to help with the cranky factor or the "fairness" factor of sister getting screen time. 

Finally, we did try to time things so that we fit in as many naps in the car as possible.  We would leave after a meal/nursing/fresh diaper (or potty break) and a little running around and cross our fingers for some sleep.  There were definitely a few rounds of more than frantic singing of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" as we tried to calm the restless ones, but, overall, it really was probably the most successful road trip we had thus far this summer.  It also helped that no one got sick (until we got home), which definitely raises everything a few notches. 

Hopefully, I'll remember to grab a few photos of our distraction bag o' tricks for our flight to California later in July, because *that's* going to get interesting.