Whoooooo is this?

Today, Zoë had a Costume Party/Bring your Friend to class in ballet. Zoë was a proud owl (an Owl Mama, in her words). We took lots of pictures in her natural habitat (that would be her room, of course). In true nesting temperament, yesterday we couldn't get her to leave the house because she loves to play teacher and exist in her imaginary world... at home. Park? What toddler can resist that temptation? Apparently, Zoë can! Well... this might be a good thing because of Frankenstorm.

What is Frankenstorm? Well, life in Washington D.C. continues to be exciting. For the third time since we lived here, we are expecting a hurricane to hit us. This one is stranger because... Whhhooooo has ever heard of a Halloween Hurricane? I thought tropical storms and hurricanes were summer phenomena? Yes, and because of that anomaly, this storm is behaving strangely, getting sucked back on land from the low pressures caused by cold weather above the middle of U.S. Poor Sandy is most confused which way to turn. In any case, we are prepared with water, food, flashlights, batteries, charged phones and tons of projects. Hopefully our little owl will not mind staying cooped (ha! pun sort of intended) up inside till Sandy passes through.

The good news? In the spirit of spookiness and forecasted gloom and doom, I've been making special treats. In truth, they are supposed to be for the school Halloween party (but who knows what will be by then) and I am justifying spending my Sunday afternoon in the kitchen as "preparing for food shortages in the storm".  Here are pictures of my creations -- yummy pretzel & chocolate spider webs and my pumpkin pie rice krispie treats.

More updates later. Till then, in case you miss us (we're fine-- Stop worrying!!! :) ), here are some photos to browse...

Holidays (yes, that includes Halloween)

We have entered the Holiday season. While my yoga classes have helped keep me sane by reminding me to focus on what's important and meaningful... life is still hectic after all. Not enough time to write a blog, for instance. However, I did upload pictures of Halloween and Fall splendor (including a video of fun at the pumpkin farm with Grandma and Grandpa). Here they are:

From Fall fun -- 2011

From Fall fun -- 2011

Some non-pictoral updates:

• Zoë has been doing a nice job with potty training! She has a sticker chart and everyday there are more stickers and more successes on the potty. But one big thing is that she doesn't seem to have much of a problem with having accidents and hiding it from us... and then being very nonchalant and silly. I feel like we hit some boundary or potty training -- this is our current challenge. And then, with Holiday travels... I'm nervous about going backwards.
• Zoë's verbal abilities are simply amazing! The other day she sang "We wish you a merry Christmas" song all the way through. I think they are practicing for the holiday party (which we are sadly missing by heading to CA early) and she holds a paper in front of her and sings very seriously. It's really cute! (I hope to capture by camera one of these days).
  
• I am also really impressed with her observational skills. The other day she said "I see moon! But Sun's up too. That's interesting. " So we talked about how moon and sun can be in the sky together, but not when moon is full. She later explained that to her Dad.
• Zoë still loves her ballet class. She's got her piqué's and curtsey's down!
  

snow = winter (part 1)

Which means that I better get with the program and summarize the rest of our Fall :) The days are going by so fast that I didn't realize it's December and I blinked and then we are now halfway through this month! The good news is that December means the holidays and that means visiting California-- we are so excited! YAY...

But hurry hurry... what happened in October and November?

Well... in October, we played with pumpkins and had Halloween and Nina and Boris came to visit. Zoë was the moon for Halloween and Mama made her costume (with Zoë's help!) We practiced wearing the costume and that was good because she was so happy and comfortable in her costume during the Halloween parade at school. But, on Halloween... somehow we got off schedule and Zoë fell asleep when it was time to trick or treat! Then she awoke ready to go out at 9pm... when only the older kids were out. It was fun to surprise the homes when we rang the doorbell, the people would expect a grown up kid and be mildly shocked that a little toddler (cute as can be, might I brag) was there requesting a "treat"! It was, in fact, a fun little "trick" for us :).

We also had a nice trip to the pumpkin farm and took a haystack ride on the tractor to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins and then of course... carved them into sppooooooky Mr. P. Umkers.

We had several other fun adventures like saying "au revoir" to Rinka and Rumadida, and wearing cute boots, and watching the leaves change color, and eating Butternut Squash risotto, and ... well, you can check out our pictures here for a summary of October, 2010.

And though we have no visual record of this (shock!) we went to the Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert rally in D.C. with Nina and Boris and showed our support for sanity. Zoë slept.

ooooh! Spooky ...

Zoë's first Halloween involved a trip to the Pumpkin patch, some jack-o'-lantern carving (ok, she was safely asleep during this dangerous task!) and trick-or-treating. We made it to 4 houses only, thanks to Zoë's impeccable diaper-timing. ;) She made a cute Little Red Riding Hood (Sarah-- your sweater has been a fantastic gift, extending well past its intended purpose!) and I decided she needed a Big Bad Wolf companion to complete her costume. Enter Mom ... in 10 minutes, I found enough grey to transform into a scary wolf-- it's a little frightening, actually, how convenient this was. And yet-- people complimented Zoë's sweater without realizing she was Little Red Riding Hood. Makes me wonder what they thought I was doing-- Did they think that I normally dress like that? Yikes!