Catchup, again, again

Hello and deepest apologies for this much-delayed post. Life throws you curveballs sometimes and  apparently my blogging suffers first. It's been a month and a half since my last post, oh boy. We've gone through the end of summer to the start of fall and exploring leaves and enjoying crisp days to the beginning of winter, leaves off the trees, first snowfall, and being fed up with how cold and dark it is already.

October was a crazy month. I worked a bunch, Freya ended up in the hospital for asthma (she's on steroids and fine now), and we had a great time celebrating Halloween. The girls loved their costumes (a bee and a tiger) and got into trick or treating which was fun. They had their first chocolates and yes, loved them too. We got our first introduction into exactly how many candies either have peanuts obviously or have peanuts as a possible ingredient/processed with them. Most candy really. Hershey's Nuggets are safe it turns out, and what we bought to give out, and what Signe has been requesting - "nugget" after dinner. We ran out a week ago but she persists.

We have discovered, much to my delight, that the girls are much calmer when being put to bed only by Kurt, instead of by both of us or me alone. The "mama makes them crazy" effect in action. It means I get alone time or chore time while they just nicely read, etc. with daddy (instead of testing limits over and over and over again with mama) and go to sleep without a fuss, generally. Makes for very nice night times.

We just got back from a trip with the girls' friend Charlie (and his mommy and daddy Mark and Rebecca) to Kalahari. It was amazing. We had a deal from Living Social for a 2 bedroom suite, and they didn't have it available at check it, so we got a condo room with full kitchen. It was really very fun. Lots of splashing and little slides and mini lazy river-ing at the waterpark. And going with another couple was lovely - at naptime and after bedtime 3 of the 4 of us got to go out and enjoy the swim-up bar, indoor theme park, etc. Really a nice winter/birthday treat. Oh yes, it's my birthday today and I'm blogging :-) I also got to read in bed for a couple hours this morning...incidentally what I also did for Mother's Day. What a reading dork I am :-)

Well time for pictures. Woo!

Classic bathtime hair fun

Boxes are the best

A series of Freya's chair construction

She loves wearing hairbands 

Boxes are the best part 2

People say Freya looks like a doll. But here, she really does.

Fun with hair while putting in a pony tail

And her lion's mane when the pony is taken out

Portraits with trees (yes Papa is right behind her as you'll see in the next picture)

Leaves!

Cuddles/tickles with Aunt Kerry

We had an...incident. This was AFTER the three partially full boxes worth of cereal were cleaned up...

Culprits

Walking to the zoo for Halloween

Signe trying the big kid ladder (and the big kids being very patient behind her). She never made it much past that point.

Tiger bandit 

Helping Daddy with his morning exercises. 50 pounds of squirmy weight apparently makes his workouts more difficult.

Teenager

And not-so-teenagers

They are playing Ring Around the Rosie - difficult to capture due to all the ringing around

Another shot of ringing

Signe exercising with Daddy, accidentally captured mid-fall

She likes what she sees

Flapping bee 

A couple of goofballs

Halloween hugs

Walking around holding hands, so cute