Paternity Leave + Randi Visit = ONE GOOD WEEK

Last week was a good one for lots of reasons (you'll see just how many). Scott took his second week of paid paternity leave from work. It was a good week to take. Zach is awake a little more, so Scott was able to help around here A LOT, let me sleep more and watched kids while I went shopping for a whole afternoon. It was so nice to have him here taking care of things. The highlights of paternity leave were:

* Visiting Scott's parents. Papa Fred sat and sang songs to little Zach and Rama made us a delicious meal.* We got some things done around the house. Scott cleaned bathrooms and even painted Zach's room. Yeah! It was a light pink beautiful baby girl's nursery and now it is a real live Red Sox boy's room. * The girls and Scott got to play in the snow. A cold snow storm came through for one day and they had a great time in it. I just supply the snow man goods and the hot chocolate afterward. Oh, and get hit by snowballs. (The snowman melted quick and it is now 70 degrees.)
*Friends, friends and more friends. Lucky for us that very same week we had a few friends visiting from far off places. Tommy was here for the week before heading off to Iraq in the army. Rick and Arielle and kids were here from PA. So, of course, Scott called EVERYONE and they all came over. It was a fun and very spontaneous party. This group of Scott's friends now has spouses and so many kids! We had 12 kids here under the age of 5. CRAZY!
* Then the blessed moment arrived. We have long awaited a visit from one Randi Johansen. She flew here to visit on Wednesday and stayed until Sunday. Five amazing days with one of our favorite people in this world. Seriously. We LOVE us some Randi. We took her Gardner Village for Halloween fun.*The only thing Randi asked to do while in Utah was to have her National Parks pass stamped at The Golden Spike. We made her dreams come true. We drove ourselves out into the middle of NO WHERE and visited the site where the east met the west. Very cool.This one's for you Dad.*When in Brigham City you must visit Maddox (from what we hear). We did and it was well worth the visit. Delicious rolls and an amazing fillet Mignon.
* Scott and Randi got to join us at a 5 year old birthday party too. Scott took the girls on all the rides until Ava got too scared and held tight to my leg while Brie rode the rides. I think Scott should always take time off work to attend birthday parties. He makes it a lot more fun.* On Halloween Randi and I ditched the husband and kids to go see "Thriller" at Kingsbury Hall. It is was so good! It's a dance performance of scary, spooky, halloweeny type dances and music. Awesome.* We introduced Randi to the great Iceberg shake. Hey, don't judge. They were buy one, get one free. So, of course, we got 4 to continue the quest of determining the very best Iceberg shake. Randi was used as an expert judge. Almond Joy is a close contender to my favorite, chocolate with peanut butter. *Randi came trick or treating with me and the girls. We laughed the whole way at one CRAZY, running through the streets, wild with excitement Brielle. She flew out of our door running in her red, ruby slippers and did not stop for the full two hours of trick or treating. Poor Ava couldn't keep up. Brie was slowed down by her bucket of candy so Randi became her bucket caddy. Randi had to carry that bucket around and then pass it off to Brie when she came to a door. Then Brie would hand it back to her saying, "Here ya go Bubba." Randi is a good woman for putting up with this.
*And, as a grand finale, Randi made us her coconut chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast the morning she was leaving. They were just as good as we remembered them being. And then we said good-bye to our Randi. So sad, but it sure was good while it lasted.Oh and they played a bunch of games too.

And so it begins . . .

I remember dressing my little brothers up in my prom dresses, applying make up, painting nails, etc. My dad was ticked. Well, Zach is 5 weeks old and has already been accessorized by his sister. She even chose just the right hair bow to match. Surprisingly enough it was Ava who did this to him. Heaven help him for when Brie has a go at dressing him up. So cute.

Halloween - A Week of Dress Up

I don't remember Halloween being a week long celebration when I was a kid. It was just the night of trick or treating and that was it. Well, things have certainly changed. We dressed up at least 5 times. You can just guess who was in dress up heaven. The 5 was the "official" dress up and go out count. I can not say how many actual costume changes were made at our house in the past week. A LOT! (Speaking of, you should see Brie now. She is wearing a green size 12 month swim suit, green tinkerbell hat as a skirt and a red flowing cape.)

We started off with Boo at the Zoo. This is a blast. I think it is so fun to see all the kids in their costumes roaming the zoo looking for candy. We met our friends Rick and Arielle and kids, who were visiting from PA. For this time around Brielle chose to be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Ava wanted to be a giraffe because we were going to visit the giraffes, of course.Zach and a monkey that was born the same day as him. So cute.
Then we got to dress up for ballet class. This time Brielle was Alice in Wonderland. She and her friends tapped and danced all over the place in their costumes. They had a good time and it was adorable to watch.The next day both girls dressed up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Brie went off to preschool all dressed up and Ava wore her costume to our Kindermusik class together. Brielle finished preschool with a parade of the kids for the parents.After all of this excitement we took the Dorothys to Gardner Village for more Halloween festivities (more of this in the next post).
We are getting closer. October 30 was trunk or treat at the church. They both were Dorothy again and collected quite a bit of loot in their little Toto baskets.We made it. Finally, it's Halloween! We dressed up one last time and went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Ava had lost her red, ruby slippers so just wore brown ones. Brie loved her ruby slippers so much that she added them to her Alice costume. I was just thankful we made it out the door one more time. Whew! Until next year.The girls went around with their friends for awhile. I love this picture. They are all just noticing a motorized bat coming toward them. Oh and I am also very appreciative of all the candy they brought home to mommy. I don't think they have any idea that I have a huge bowl of candy in the cupboard that I taste from all day!