It's morningtime!

Anna absolutely loves morning time lately. She gets up, lifts up the blinds to check and see what time of day it is, and is completely delighted when she finds sunshine (or just daylight) on the other side of the window.

This morning, after getting home pretty late from a trip last night (more on that later), she eagerly runs in our room, comes up to our bed and taps me, and with her most excited voice says, "It's morningtime Mom! Wanna play with baby dolls and be a princess with me?"

And of course, even as groggy as I was, how on earth could I turn that down? And so we played and had breakfast in our tutus and tiaras.

Just want to remember these magical mornings before they become crazed running around looking for a shoe, while packing a lunch, and remembering homework before the bus comes for school. Stay little, my little Anna!

Happy Halloween!

Anna has been looking forward to Halloween since signs of it started arriving in the stores this year. She was ready to go trick-or-treating back in September and would get so disappointed when I told her we still had awhile. We finally made a countdown chain of I think 36 days. So after pulling down day after day, it's safe to say she was EXCITED to finally go trick-or-treating yesterday!

We were so lucky to have Dave home the WHOLE day yesterday! It was much needed since we don't get to see him much these days. We had pumpkin waffles and carved a pumpkin and we just hung out in our cozy home while it rained off and on all day. Loved it!

I had planned for awhile this year that Anna was going to be Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween. My mom had given me my old dress from when I was Anna's age and it's a real swiss dirndl, which also looks like a perfect Red Riding Hood Dress. All I needed was the Hood. And when I saw a red-hooded coat at Target, it was set!...except Anna had other plans. Of course. She wanted to be a mermaid, or a chicken, or a duck, or a kitty cat, but mostly a mermaid. Then I found a perfect little monkey get-up at Old Navy. (thanks to my SIL Ashley!) And of course it was love at first sight for Anna! I loved seeing her so excited that I was even willing to forgo my Little Red Riding Hood plans.

So here's our little monkey girl anxiously waiting to go trick-or-treating...



She had a blast and was ecstatic about each and every piece of candy that she got. I was actually surprised that she wasn't even nervous to say "Trick-or-Treat" and she did a great job of only taking one per house, which I thought for sure wouldn't happen. After each house she kept saying, "Let's go get more candy mom! Another house!" It was a little drizzly, so she carried her "rainbrella" around with her and I sure wish I had a picture of that. So funny to see that little monkey walking around with her candy bag in one hand and umbrella in the other.

Then we saw our good friends Marc and Kim and their girls who Anna adores. Marc came to our house and we had warm apple cider while Anna sorted through her stash. The night was a success! Rain and all!

Now, I didn't completely lose in the costume department. Our church had a trunk-or-treat on Wednesday, and somehow I convinced her to be Little Red Riding Hood for that! Hooray! She got to wear my old dress before she outgrew it! Pictures were taken and documented for posterity. And she makes a very cute Red Riding Hood I might add.

I'm so glad to be a mom to enjoy this fun holiday through a child's eyes again! Love our sweet (and crazy) little monkey!