Carving and Cora's Party

We spent our Sunday evening watching our Dodgers battle the Houston Astros in the World Series, while the girls carved their pumpkins. Never have we watched our baseball team this late in October - they haven't made it to the World Series since 1988, 29 years ago.

Cora's class had a Halloween party on Monday, and I was able to help out with the planning and execution as one of Ms. Packer's room moms.

Here, Ms. Packer is helping Cora with her silhouette pumpkin craft.

The kids also watched the Peanuts Halloween special while eating their snack.

Then, the kids split into two groups to play a game similar to pin the tail to the donkey, but Halloween-ified into Pin the Bone to the Skeleton. The skeleton the children were forming, by pinning bones to the black paper.

Dinorah worked her face paint magic again.

Here, Cora shows off both her spooky face paint, and her spooky Halloween pastel artwork. I love this piece, and look forward to framing it as an October home decoration for years to come.

More Halloween Fun

Beyond the school Fall Festival, we had fun at the Valencia Methodist Trunk or Treat, where Stace and Cora ran the game with our MG.

My friend Kelly, who has been coming to Mom2Mom with Noah and Ethan, brought them to Trunk or Treat.

While Cora was busy working our car game, Violet had fun with the crafts and the cookie-decorating.

Earlier in the week, Violet and I went with Grandma and Grandpa to the Magic Mountain employee Halloween trick-or-treating party. (Cora and Stace went to a GATE night put on by the school district.)

Violet enjoyed riding the rides and collecting candy.

Also this week, Stace celebrated with his buddy Keith as Keith retired from Woodward. It will be a sad thing for Stace, but they will continue their tradition of Friday lunches together.

This is a group of the English contingent from Woodward; several are now retired.

Fall Festival Fun

 The school's Fall Festival was Friday night, and we were very involved - Cora and I both ran games, the girls took part in the costume parade, and we also had our MG in the trunk-or-treat event.

 Vivian was Harley Quinn, while Cora was an old-fashioned paper boy.

Violet got to unveil her dragon costume, which she put a lot of time into.

Cora worked on the milk jug game...

...while I helped at the tic-tac-toe ball toss game.

Most of these awesome photos were taken by my friends Jill and Elaine.

 Here was our car setup - Stace fashioned a shark/monster, and also a squishy toy toss game.

 I ran our game and passed out candy for a while, and then Cora took over.

 The fall festival was a ton of fun for us all!

School Zoo Trip

One of the benefits of Violet being in a second/third grade split class is that she and the other second-graders got to go on Wednesday's third-grade field trip to the Los Angeles Zoo.

Violet loves the zoo, and she was so excited for this day! She could hardly sleep the night before.

A few other moms and I were chaperoning all 11 girls in the class - six second-graders and five third-graders.

They were a stellar group of girls, all very respectful and smart. The docent said they were the smartest group she's had all year.

Here, the girls are looking at the gorillas.

We were lucky enough to see a pair of snow leopard babies! This guy was very active and entertaining.

We also watched the bird show; it was the first time I've seen this show, and clearly Violet enjoyed it.

We saw some beautiful, large and unusual birds.

We then walked back to the playground for lunch and a bit of playtime before the drive home.

Violet wanted to pose by the wingspan sign before we left.

It was a long, hot walk back to the bus - we were in the midst of a crazy fall heat wave, with temperatures reaching triple digits. Luckily, much of the zoo is shady, and most of our trip was before the height of the afternoon heat.

Week in Review

The girls' school held its annual Barnes and Noble Night on Thursday, when some of the teachers dress up and read stories at the mega bookstore. Additionally, the school gets a percentage of profits from the sales that night.

It's always fun, and the girls enjoyed picking out books. Violet chose an Animal Jam book, from the National Geographic online kids' game she and Cora like playing. Cora picked a couple of Warriors books, buying one with her own money.

On Friday, we went to Juliana and Daryl's house for Natalia's 7th birthday celebration. The kids made crafts, played and generally made merry.

Cora and Maya really enjoyed spending time together again; it's been since May or earlier, sadly. With how much the girls are growing up, it's a great thing that they still love playing together.

On Saturday, after Cora's football game, big sister helped little sister to climb high up in one of the pine trees at Central Park.

On Sunday, we made a quick trip to Lombardi Ranch for some autumn fun. Lombardi's isn't open regularly, as water problems have forced them to stop growing the corn and sunflowers and everything else that made them into a Fall Wonderland for decades.

But, knowing how much they are beloved, the family opened its doors to part of the property for one weekend, for photo opps with some of their iconic props.

Violet thought posing in the jail was a bad idea... but she didn't mind taking the photo of us.

The pumpkin selection was way smaller than normal years, but we still bought a couple of small ones to show our support.

Here's the girls in their babyhood at Lombardi Ranch:

Fright Fest, with CORA!

Our girls have never been into scary things, and Cora wasn't champing at the bit to make her first trip to Fright Fest.

But with Grandma starring as the Witch again, we all were pulling for Cora to summon the courage to make a visit.

Friday night, after her football practice, we agreed to have Stace and Violet drop us off and then pick us up a little bit later. This would save us the long walk to and from the parking lot.

Cora was quite nervous, holding my hand tightly as we walked past the first scare zone.

But, we made it up the hill unscathed, and she was so happy and excited to finally "meet" the Witch in person!

We watched as Lurane Lorraine went through all her best lines, while a crowd gathered around. It was amazing to see how many people sought her out, called her name, and asked for photos.

The Witch introduced us to her friends, and Cora was in awe of them all. She was excited to meet them and chat with them.

We then rode on Viper for the first time, one of those big thrill rides with lots of loops. Cora's now 54 inches tall, so a lot of rides have opened up to her.

She had so much fun Friday night, she and I went back on our own Saturday night. We had thought of riding a few more rides, but Saturday was much more crowded than Friday, and we didn't want to wait in long lines.

Still, we had a great mommy-daughter time together.

Fun with Violet

 Violet jammed through her second-grade sight word list - no surprise since she knew them all a year ago - and earned the moniker "Brainy Bubble."

She and her other Brainy Bubble classmates were given a bottle of bubble solution. Watching her have fun blowing her bubbles over the next few afternoons was a joy.

 Violet also finished up her six-week Kidz Love Soccer session this week. Thanks to Grandpa for getting these fun action (and inaction) shots of Violet Mae.

Violet had fun with the soccer, and definitely participated well. She also would walk around with her shirt pulled halfway over her head, and goof off. Silly girl!

Weekend Games and Parties

Cora's friend Violet came over Friday afternoon, and the girls and Andre had some fun adventuring.

Then, Cora went to Violet's house, while I took our Violet to Grandpa's house. I then took Cora to a birthday party for a classmate at the trampoline place, and then to football practice.

Finally, Stace and I went on to meet up with Colleen and Rigo at Fright Fest.

On Saturday morning, Cora played her best game of football yet. She was able to pull six flags off her opponents, meaning she stopped their offense from driving forward six times.

It was a lot of fun to watch and cheer for her, and to hear all the other parents and coaches cheering her name, too.

Cora's Chiefs won, 28-0, so it was an overall excellent team performance.

After lunch, Violet came over again to play. The girls had all sorts of fun, and acted out their favorite parts of the Warriors book series about warrior cats.

On Sunday afternoon, Cora went to Lucas's 12th birthday party at Laser Blast, and she did very well on the games!

Also over the weekend, Stacey put together our new queen-sized bed. Yes, we have upgraded to a bigger bed.