Happy Halloween!

Lots of good fall fun happening around here...

Our story starts at the pumpkin patch last weekend, you know, or perhaps you don't, Maddie missed going to the pumpkin patch with her school friends because she was home sick (she ended up staying home for the entire week). Of course the field trip to the pumpkin patch had been talked about ALOT and she was quite upset. So, we promised her that we would go to a pumpkin patch and pick out our pumpkins, so that is what we did. Since it poured rain on the Saturday we ended up going early Sunday before we had to head to Chinese school (and her first of 3 Halloween celebrations)

Jump forward in time to this morning...Here are our beautiful, well formed pumpkins ready for carving! Of course, Daddy has the big one, I have the medium one and Maddie has the small one. She actually wanted a *really* small pumpkin aka decorative gourd but we convinced her to go a tad larger.


We each chose the design of our pumpkin, we were careful to pull out the pumpkin seeds and toasted them *yum!* Maddie enjoyed getting messy including getting us messy in the process!


Oh my! What is that? A photo of Mommy?!?! Yes, here is a picture of our handy work. Daddy did a scary vampire, Mommy did a heart theme, and Maddie went sans nose but a boot shaped mouth.


Now, I must tell you that her halloween costume has changed every day, even multiple times in one day when I would ask her. She ended up wearing her renaissance dress to the Halloween party at Chinese school. Today she wanted to be something scary...so we went with a pirate witch! I mean, that's scary right?


It seemed to have worked, and this year Daddy did the walk around the neighborhood with our neighbors and their kids - a pack of 5 scouring the neighborhood for any house with a light on!
Mommy manned the front porch and gave out candy until they returned and Maddie took over that duty.

In 1999...

... the Euro was established, the first episode of SpongeBob Square-pants, the Sopranos, and West Wing aired, the Dow Jones closed above 11,000 the first time ever, The Matrix, The Blair Witch Project, and Mystery, Alaska were released in theaters, George W. Bush announced that he'd seek the presidential nomination (*shudder*), Britney Spears had the top selling album in the US (*shudder* again), the world population reached 6 billion, and we got married!!!



10 years! Hard to believe, yet still true. A crisp (ok, it was chilly) autumn afternoon on the eastern shore Ron and I tied the knot with our family and friends frolicking about. Since then, over the last 10 years we have bought a house, changed jobs, adopted our wonderful daughter Madeline, lost loved ones, gained new friends. All in all, I'd say its been a pretty decent decade.

Maryland, 1999

Pumpkin Patch fun...

I'm of few words today, so just enjoy the pictures....

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Oh yes, we celebrated! We had a grand time at the Chinese American Community Center Moon Festival. Had a yummy dinner, dined with some friendly folks, and munched on delicious mooncake (for the record, Maddie only likes the "yellow mooncake" not the "brown mooncake") But the big news is that Maddie gave her very first performance on stage (which she LOVED) dancing the Mountain Dance.
Here she is all in her costume minus the wrist and ankle bells. She LOVED the fact that she got to wear red lipstick. In fact, once she was all dressed she wanted to run out to Daddy to show him how pretty she looked in her costume and red lipstick. I had, let's say, a challenging time trying to do french braids in her hair...the first time I ever have completed french braids. So, no laughing!

Of course she's the one standing up looking around when she's supposed to be down like all of the other girls. She eventually got there *chuckle*

You should have seen the HUGE grin on her face as they went through the dance...she was having a blast, even though she didn't have the timing or all the steps down. Daddy was on picture duty while I spent my time in the back. I asked her on the ride home what she liked most about dancing in the show and she said...seeing us watching her...aww, a heart melter there!


This is the other dance done by the youngest dancers a beautiful fan dance, which may be the next dance that Maddie is going to learn.

Maddie thought that these dancers had the best costumes *grin* Because they're PINK!


There were lots of dances by the different folk dance troops. Part of the festival was some fundraising because the older girls have been selected to perform in the Thanksgiving Macy's Day parade!

Here is a group shot of all of the performers last night - they all did a great job.

Apparently we've found something that she likes doing....being on the stage. (who would have guessed that?)