Fall Festival Fun

Our school's Fall Festival was Friday evening, and Cora channeled her inner creepy girl as she helped with the 6th grade trick-or-treating booth.

This year, each grade level had a decorated booth for kids to collect candy from. Here's Zach, Cora and Sebastian; the boys put the booth together while Cora was at Sophia's Stickman party.

The third-grade booth used our monster bean bag toss game, and Violet helped out for a bit.

Violet was happy to find her friend Caitlyn.

And she enjoyed painting a pumpkin. Other activities included a giant bouncy slide, game booths and the Dodgers World Series game streamed on a big screen.

Cora got to say hello to Mrs. Hawthorne; again, hard to believe this is her seventh and last year here!

Cora and Jake worked together at the 6th grade booth much of the evening.

Violet took part in the costume contest.

Here's Violet, with Charlie behind her.

After the contest, the kids were allowed on stage to dance. Violet enjoyed this part of the evening.

Cora met up with Vivian, Sophi and Sophia.

And here's Cora with her teacher this year, Miss Lotito. (Violet's teachers didn't attend the festival.)

More dancing fun! It was a fabulous evening all around.

Fun with Friends

Cora and I have Magic Mountain passes, and we had special "get a friend in free" tickets loaded to them on certain weekdays.

Because our Fright Fest trip with Kelly and Yass was on such a busy Saturday, we weren't able to go on many rides, and Charlie was very disappointed.

So since we could get friends in free, we went with Jake and Charlie (and my mom and Kelly) on Thursday after school. Char was super excited to try out X2, a rather crazy coaster. He and Cora went on it together...

...and they loved it.

Kelly and I went on Full Throttle with Cora and Char (Jake doesn't like big rides), while all the kids enjoyed Wonder Woman, among other rides. It was a very fun afternoon.

My mom enjoyed seeing her Fright Fest domain in the daylight.

On Friday after school, Sophia had a Halloween-themed Stick Man Party at her house; she formed the Stick Man Club last year.

She had several activities planned, and asked to borrow our corn hole game.

Sophia also had a Halloween quiz, with the kids divided into teams, a raffle for a Menchie's gift card (which Violet won!), and a fun costume game.

Bags of costume items were passed around while music played. When the music stopped, the person holding the bag had to pull out an item to put on. What fun!

Trunk or Treat!

We returned to Dr. Lavin's office Monday, and received the welcome news that Violet is *almost* 48 inches! Like, she is an eighth of an inch away, officially. That means that in 11 months since starting the treatment, she's grown over four inches!

We're so very pleased, and though Violet won't jump and down with excitement, she's pleased, too.

It's World Series time! And our Dodgers are in it! Since we've watched all the playoff games at home, I wanted to see Game 1 out among a barful of fellow fans. And since it was Tuesday, we headed to Bunker Hill to take advantage of their Taco Tuesday specials, with the dollar tacos and the $2 margaritas (when you wear Hawaiian).

Stace met us girls there, and later took Cora to her football practice. The Dodgers lost the game, but it was still fun seeing it with lots of other eager fans.

On Wednesday, we went to Pioneer Clubs' Trunk or Treat at Valencia Methodist, where Stace again brought the MG, this time disguised as a vampire.

Cora came dressed in her blue morph outfit, because her real costume is a bit scary for the church/young child crowd. But Violet was able to try out her costume for the first time - she is a Cuddle Team Leader, a character from the popular video game Fortnite.

Stace created, with the girls' help, this monster bean bag toss game.

Jake and Charlie came out, and Sophia (the banana) and Cami also hung out with Cora. Violet spent much of her evening with Liana, at their truck.

Another World Series game was going on - we followed along as best as we could. Toward the end of the night, Sophia streamed the game on her phone from inside the MG.

Would you look at that, streaming a game on a phone, inside a 50-year-old car (that lacks an AM/FM radio!)?

Week in Review

With the Dodgers in the playoffs, it's been exciting around here. I was happily surprised to receive this lovely anonymous gift from a "Dodger Fairy" on my doorstep earlier this week! So sweet!

My sister sang at a fundraiser this week with old friends from her Canyon Theatre Guild days. She is so very talented; it was wonderful hearing her sing on stage again!

Cora and I grabbed a free Thursday afternoon and went to Magic Mountain for an hour to ride a few rides. After waiting nearly two hours to ride Tatsu on a recent Saturday, we walked right up to the front of the line on a Thursday! Poor Cora, what will she do in her boredom? 

Meanwhile, Grandma and Grandpa took Violet to Gilchrist Farms for a bit of pumpkin and baby animal fun. Here, she's holding a teeny, tiny bunny!

I was happy to be in the school hallway this week and see that of the 12 ecosystem projects on the wall from Cora's class, both hers and Jake's were displayed. Nice job, smarty-pants kids!

Here's a closer look at Cora's. (Yes, she has a misspelled headline - she said her teacher spelled it wrong, too. Not sure about this; Jake got it spelled right.)

Another bulletin board had up the names of the kids who have reached their AR reading goals - both Cora and Violet met their goals nice and early. My girls are great readers!

Jake and Charlie came over Friday afternoon, and Char had a great idea for a two-ingredient chocolate cake that he'd seen online. It turned out well!

Frighteningly Fun Time

We had fun at Magic Mountain on Saturday, starting with Stace's work's company picnic in the special picnic area on the side of the park.

After eating lunch and NOT winning any raffle prizes - we're on a roll with that, year after year - the girls played the games. Here they're showing off the candy they picked up off the lawn in a version of an Easter Egg hunt.

And, the sack race was exhausting!

Stace played a bit of an underhanded game.

With the picnic on an October weekend, we were able to stick around for Fright Fest. Well, Violet went off to spend time with Grandpa, but the rest of us had a frightful evening.

Before that, though, Violet finally got to ride Gold Rusher, because she's hit that all-important 48-inch mark.

We would have tried some more "big" rides, but with Fright Fest on, it was very crowded and the lines were all long. We'll have to go back on a weekday after school so Violet can ride some big rides.

Later, Kelly, Yass, Jake and Charlie joined us. They'd never attended Fright Fest, and we all had a fabulous time together.

Everyone's favorite witch!

Lorraine Lurane entertained Kelly and Yass with her greatest lines, and some fun new material.

We made it around to most of the scare zones, and we did a couple of rides. It was so much fun!

Tidbits

I love coming upon sweet scenes like this!

On Saturday afternoon, Cora went with Jake and his family to see Venom, a superhero movie about Spiderman's nemesis. So Stace and I went to a yummy Greek restaurant, where Violet had a kids' breakfast for dinner.

Surely this sweet lil' pumpkin is worth way more than $2.99!

Cora and I grabbed an ice cream after her football practice in the week. Check out this single scoop! What a generous portion.

Our Dodgers are in the National League Championship Series!

If they beat the Milwaukee Brewers four games out of seven, they'll return to the World Series. We were all ready for Game 1 Friday night (which, unfortunately, they lost... but they won the next game to even the series!).

Week in Review

Stace and I had a fancy date Thursday night, at the wedding of his co-worker and friend, Phil and his fiancee Vina

The wedding was at a beautiful outdoor venue, nearly 90 miles away from home. We had a lovely time.

On Friday afternoon, Cora met up with other GATE students to take part in an escape room. They didn't quite escape, but they had a great time. Cora wants to do another one sometime soon.

After the escape room, we picked up Jake and Charlie for some Friday afternoon fun. We went to the mall for Menchie's, playtime at the playground, and then a turn each at a new virtual reality video gaming place.

Charlie was super excited about this, and all the kids enjoyed the racing game.

Though Charlie and Violet were happy to watch their siblings race, Cora and Jake went outside to hang out.

The kiddos were fascinated by the turtles. Thankfully, no one joined them in the pond, though I was sure Char was going to end up soaking wet.

Violet took this photo - she loves animals!

We went home and the kids played, and I watched the Dodgers playoff game. This game involved Team A breaking into Team B's playroom fortress to recover a pokemon ball.

Home Again

 And just that quick, the adventure was over and we were picking up the girls again from the airport!

Their trips home were smooth and happy, too. Violet wasn't feeling the whole "take an arrival photo with Mom" idea, so I had to grab her and make her laugh.

 Naturally, Cora wasn't feeling the whole "take a nice photo with the sister you haven't seen in four days" idea, either. This is so typical of my girls and their relationship.

 Not bad. I'll take it.

 Thankful for my dad being able to come with me - the girls flights came in within 10 minutes of each other, in different terminals, so he was Cora's guardian-at-the-gate.

 Cora, I'll force you to take a smiling photo with me!

 Seeing the cats was probably the highlight of the girls' homecoming.

When Stace got home from work, we went out to the place in the mall with the great Taco Tuesday deals, and then had frozen yogurt at Menchie's and some run-around time at the mall's outdoor play area.