Halloween!

We kicked off the month with another year of the Stein Dash.  Both Chris and the kids ran and did a great job!  And then some chicken dance, pretzels, beer and root beer later we hit the road. 

Zoë earned a Student of the Month award for Responsibility (of course she did).  We are so proud of her.  She is THRIVING in Kindergarten and her favorite part of the day EVERY day she has school is "School.  All of it."  But more details about that later.





Chris and I had a super fun date day at the Adventura High Ropes Course in Woodinville mid-month.  It was SO much fun.  I haven't done a ropes course in about 15 years and was SO nervous about my skills and how my age may have compromised my ability to climb anything.  It was scary but fun to do together!

















Coordinating family Halloween costumes is getting slightly more difficult now that both children have opinions about what they want to be.  However, they are both still pretty committed to "matching" as a family, so we settled on The Incredibles this year (along with every other family in America thanks to the second movie being released this past summer).  Zoë quickly chose Violet and wished SO HARD that Oliver would pick Dash but nooooooooooo.  He chose Frozone.  And it was perfect.  And he was the only Frozone we saw out and about.  I chose to be Elastigirl because, duh.  And Chris chose...Edna.  To be fair, his wig was awesome.  So, we rocked that family costume for, what I fear might be, the last year we can get our act together as a group. 





We had to skip out on our annual friends Halloween party because Zoë ended up being violently ill quite quickly so we stayed for the evening at my parent's house and watched football until she started puking and we made a quick exit.

Chris took the kids to the CHE school Halloween Dance (only a little bit reluctantly) and they had a blast.  I was in Albuquerque but got lots of fun videos of the two of them dancing.  They definitely LOVE to dance.  They also attended another friend's Halloween party that weekend.  I missed out on a lot of Halloween fun this year!

But I had SO much fun going to ABQ and spending time with the Palevich family AND meeting my NEW NEICE NATALIE!!! 




















Zoë's class had a Harvest Party the morning of Halloween and Oliver and I got to go and help and enjoy the Kindergarten costume parade through the school AND the party in Ms. Keil's classroom afterwards.  Oliver was the BEST helper, stuffing all of the treat bags for each student and then he got to participate in the games too.  Lucky brother!

Ms. Keil's Kindergarten Class

Zoë and her BFF Bailey

Telling jokes with Uncle Connor

On Halloween we headed to Proctor Treats again with Grandma and Grandpa and honestly, I don't think I would choose to do it again.  It's basically standing in line for an hour.  The kids, of course, love getting candy but when we got home after a chaotic dinner (have five different adults telling you what to do is stressful), we quickly ran (in the rain!) to the houses on our immediate street/cul-de-sac to do some legit Trick-Or-Treating and the kids had the time of their lives!  I couldn't even keep up!  I'd start talking to a neighbor and they'd quickly squeak out "thank you!" and be halfway to the next house before I even started saying goodbye.  It made me so happy and I tried to be as neutral as possible when I asked which event they preferred and equally as neutral (though I was doing a happy dance inside) when they answered that they'd much prefer to Trick-Or-Treat in our neighborhood next year.