Twick o Tweat

That's how Pax puts it, thought it was an appropriate title. So let's get right to it.

Geared up for Halloween by spending about four and a half hours on my haunted house drawing, complete with four pieces of paper taped together.

And then it really got going on the big day. I know you're going to be really really surprised, but I wanted to go as Jonathon Toews this year. I actually wanted to go as Patrick Kane but dad said something about how you have to treat women nicely or something so we pivoted and went with Toewser. With a little help from mom and dad's friends and their hockey gear, we really knocked this one out of the park.

And not surprisingly Mae waffled back and forth about 751 times before landing on a raccoon, but I gotta say it was a really good choice because she made a pretty darn cute one.

So we headed out to Nana's because there was only one group we wanted to spend Halloween with - COUSINS!!! It was a mess of a rainy day so our strategy was to get all dressed up and then wait for some holes in the rain, then we'd sprint out the door to GET CANDY! First ones out there were our boys Eli and Isaiah. Eli made for an awesome ninja and Isaiah was supposed to be a magician but once he added some fake glasses he found at Nana's he was starting to get called Harry Potter, so as is the case with Zaya, he just rolled with it.

And without further ado, there's Pax in his construction worker outfit. What was significantly better than his actual costume was the fact that you could keep asking him what he was and listen to him say the word "construction." Classic Pax.

So after a couple rounds of GETTING CANDY and then taking a break, our next wave of cousins came so we hit the streets again with Sophie and Luke.

Oh, and there was a quick outfit change as well. As you can see, Eli took on the Harry Potter costume for trick or treating round 2 and Isaiah is that black blob standing next to Luke, who is the Incredible Notre Dame Hulk or something like that.

Okay, other big Halloween news is that we got to meet Nana's new puppy that she got earlier that week. Her name is Lily and she is so stinking cute it's not even funny.

And yet, in true Mabel fashion, she was really worried more about not letting Buddy feel neglected so she stayed close to her best buddy, Buddy.

Even brought him with for trick or treating.

At the end of a long day, Lily fell asleep right where I was hoping she would. On the way home from Nana's Mae and I proclaimed it the best Halloween ever.

Oh, and not to be outdone, say hello to the center forward (Mom) and right midfielder (Dad) of the Croatian national soccer team.  HRVATSKA!

Oh, and one more thing for this post, which is not necessarily related to Halloween or costumes. Nana was making a couple cakes and decorating them and Pax was sitting up at the table and wanted to try, so he took a stab at decorating the cake and here's how it looked. Go Pax! Squeeze that cake frosting dispenser with all your might, buddy!

1st Day of School 2015

I'm a little late with this post but the first day of school went off without a hitch. Dad came back upstairs that morning to find me doing Mae's hair for her first day of Kindergarten.

And then we shuffled off to school, but not before we could grab some first day of school pictures.

And as you can see above, Pax managed to keep his clothes on. Here's a look and a laugh ack at last year when Pax got out of the sink from a bath and had a streaking party right through our 2014 first day of school pictures.

Piano Recital 2015

I had my piano recital a couple weeks ago. It's like old hat by now.

The Day of All Days: Mother's Day 2015

Words can't even express, so I'm just going to post a bunch of photos and let them speak for themselves. Mom = love.

Easter 2015

So we had ourselves a wonderful Easter again this year. Got ready by painting some eggs with our friends Ana and Sid (until Sid fell off the chair and cut his head open and he and his mom went to the ER to see if he needed stitches).

Then the next morning we did a big Easter egg hunt at a park by our house with some neighborhood folks.

And then Easter morning arrived. The Bunny did, in fact, come, and he left us a couple cute things in our baskets and hid 29 eggs around the house. As you can see, I was having a blast and Pax was so excited he took almost all his clothes off.

Then we headed out to Nana's for where a 65 degree day awaited us and we spent the whole day outside with our cousins - another Easter egg hunt, we all went on a big run, the whole bit.

Oh, and Dad met Grizzly Adams... oh, wait, that's just Papa; never mind.