Alex and Rory have had another great month, ending obviously with Halloween. It was a much talked about and build up event and I must say I think that it actually lived up to its expectations, for Alex at least. But we will get to all of that later...
We started off the month with a trip to one of our local malls that has a great outdoor play area for the kids featuring a splash pad. Alex and Rory had a great time and mom was so excited because it was one of the first days of Rory giving up her morning nap.
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We actually can leave the house now!! And yes for all of you Midwesterners we did this in October. One of the advantages to living in AZ. One of the disadvantages is today on Halloween it is still over 90 degrees. No I am not kidding. It is hot...too hot. But we are hoping for a cool down soon.
When unpacking our Halloween decorations I came across two fake pumpkins and decided that it would be fun for the kids to paint them. This was Rory's first painting project and she really did a great job. Alex's took a couple days to dry but once it did it was a real piece of art.
Alex has continued to enjoy riding her bike and Rory has taken to pushing a stroller or riding in a stroller behind her. A couple of the houses in the neighborhood did some really elaborate decorations and all of the kids have been meeting after dinner each night to look at the decorations. Alex has had a great time playing with her friends although she doesn't want to look at the "monster house".
As the weather starts to get cooler...haha....we have started to visit one of our favorite local restaurants again. It is really more of an outside bar with a really great menu, but anyway we often have dinner on Sunday nights there. During one of these visits Alex had to go to the bathroom so Pat took her. When they entered the bathroom the stall and the urinal were being used. Pat distracted her as best as he could while they waited. Eventually the urinal became free and Alex turned to Daddy and said "I think I am tall enough." Poor girl has a lot to learn!
We have spent a lot of time at the park this month. The girls love it, but who wouldn't? I wish I could sit in a swing while someone pushed me too!
Alex and Rudy has found their forgotten love for each other again and have spent many hours chasing each other around the house. Alex has also started "putting the dogs to bed" which entails taking all of the blankets she can find and wrapping the dogs up in them. They are amazingly patient with her and actually might enjoy it. Pat was so proud of Alex the day these pictures were taken...Alex dressed herself in her Bronco's jersey.
Alex is enrolled in soccer again this fall and is really actually pretty good. They don't play actual games but just practice dribbling and kicking and running and such. I think she actually may have some natural ability and is probably the best "player" on her "team". Who knows though, maybe I am just biased.
Rory and I spent a day with Alex at school and had so much fun! Here are a couple pictures of Alex and her classmates. She is making some nice friends and some of the other kids give me something to be thankful for. :)
Rory has continued to be just a wonderful little glow of light in our lives. She always shares a smile with everyone she meets and draws attention where ever she goes. She is starting to talk, although it is difficult to understand her, and has included words such as "backpack, hot dog, sock, and gum" to her vocab. And yes, Rory does enjoy chewing a piece of gum. She is actually quite impressive and will chew it for a while before swallowing it. The other day she pulled a stool up the the drawer that I keep the gum in, obviously trying to help herself, and when she figured she still couldn't reach started pointing to her mouth saying "gum, gum, gum!" How can you not give her a piece after that production?
As part of our pre-Halloween celebration we joined a group of friends to visit a local retirement home with all of the kids in costume. It didn't actually turn out to be a big of a hit as I would have expected but the kids looked great in their costumes. Here is a picture of Alex and her friend Andrew.
We had a great picnic with Gigi and Baba at a garden in their community. Alex brought her bike and Rory her stroller and both girls enjoyed being outside. The girls enjoyed their usual game of wearing and counting Gigi's bracelets and Rory made sure that Baba never left her sight. Once he slipped away to go to the bathroom and she searched the park looking for him until he came back. :)
So then we finally arrive at Halloween. Halloween really must be a difficult holiday when you are 3. You talk and wait for it all month and then the day finally comes and you have to wait until after dinner before you can even get into your costume! Then you finally start trick or treating and it is almost bedtime! We trick or treated for about 45 minutes, which was all of maybe 10 houses and then let Alex pass out candy with us at our house. She stayed up really late and played with glow sticks and ate too much candy. Overall I would say she would consider it a successful day. Rory on the other hand felt there was too much walking and not enough candy to eat. Next year she plans to ditch Mom and Dad and get one of her Grandparents to take her trick or treating so she can eat as much candy as she wishes. She also doesn't understand why she can't just eat from the huge bowl of candy we already had a home. Why go through the trouble of a costume and walking the neighborhood for a few pieces of candy when Mom already buys the good stuff. Rory does have a good point, but both girls did look unbelievably cute in their costumes! As a finally to Halloween Alex visited the "monster house" with her friend Abby. We are so proud of her for finally trying it and I think she found that it wasn't as scary as she thought it would be...if not that then they must have been giving out some good candy! 
Happy November to you all!
Next we celebrated a pre-birthday lunch at the 2 Toot's Cafe which is a fun little kid restaurant that brings you your lunch on a train. Alex took a ride on the horse while she was there.
Finally we planned to take a commuter train ride from Downers Grove back to Clarendon Hills. We arrived with plenty of time so the girls enjoyed playing outside while we waited.
We did finally manage to be on time for a train ride a couple days later. Here is a pictures of the girls riding. They both enjoyed the ride and the rest of the passengers enjoyed our departure from the train. Alex talked the whole time. At every stop she asked why we stopped and wanted to know who would get on and who would get off. She wanted to know what the names of the stops meant and why we stopped so often. For those of you who have heard Alex when she is one a roll when she talks you know what I am saying.
