Halloween, plus plus.

Every single autumn, when I open my mom’s fridge and discover the egg nog brightly beaming at me, I think, “This is the year!  This year I will take a drink and discover the deliciousness hidden in this yellowish, brown-flecked liquid!” 

And every single autumn, I take a hearty swig and remember that it tastes like spiced band-aids. 

(And I’m having blogger’s déjà vu.  Did I write about this last year, too?  If I did, at least you know I’m sincere about the ‘every year’ part.)

My life in October wasn’t really all Vegas trips and half marathons, despite what this blog is currently presenting.  Let’s do a picture montage depicting the parts of October that actually included Olivia, shall we?

Drawing a gigantic chicken with chalk.  Yes, it has a spectacular wingspan, but my favorite part is the foot that has only one toe and one talon.  And the fact that she included the talons at all.

Family picture.

Olivia started swimming lessons a few weeks ago, and, like the creeper mother I am, I snapped a picture while she was learning to float:

Practicing her moves.

She’s pretty good.

Other than a few tears in the first few lessons when she was learning to go underwater, she did really well.  It was the very lowest level available, so she didn’t come out as Michael Phelps, but she acquired some new skills.  We’ll just keep enrolling her until she learns to swim independently; it’s pretty important to me since she’s around open water a lot in the summer.

At the end of her last lesson on Friday, she received a little certificate saying that she’d passed and was eligible to move on to the next level.  She is awfully proud of that piece of paper (it currently resides on the fridge), so we went to Cold Stone to celebrate her success:

She chose pink ice cream with gummy bears, sprinkles, and white chocolate chips.  Gummy bears are the worst idea ever, in all eons of time, for ice cream, just so you know.

I have long wondered what my DNA, plus Isaac’s DNA, plus Donald Trump’s DNA would produce.  I mean, don’t we all?

I was so ecstatic to finally find out:

Just magnificent.

 

Here’s some of my nephew Thomas for your viewing pleasure.

We carved a pumpkin!  Meaning I did all the hard work scraping it out and suffering hand cramps while cutting it up while she looked on in a somewhat disinterested manner, shouting out occasional dictations about the shapes of his eventual features.  So.

And then we had a mean witch for Halloween.

I’ll admit to succumbing to laziness this year.  I should have searched out a darling top to complete her outfit, but I was certain she’d end up wearing a jacket anyway (of course, she never did!), so what was the point?  But then we had a gorgeous Halloween evening and her jacketless costume seemed a little plain.  But guess what?  She didn’t care in the least.  And I’m pretty sure that’s all that matters.

She adored trick-or-treating this year.  Best experience so far, hands down.

She was so brave.  She was completely unwilling to let Isaac or me come up to the doors with her.  Some of the houses had really long paths up to their door, but she didn’t care.  We’d watch the little speck of her knocking on each one, saying trick-or-treat, thank you, then retreating with her candy.  Except I  had to remind her at every house to turn around and leave at the end; she’d sit and stare at the people after choosing her candy for an uncomfortable length of time, until they’d say something like, “Ok, Happy Halloween!” and still, she wouldn’t budge.  Finally, I’d have to yell, “Ok!  Say goodbye!”  before she would walk away.  So fantastically awkward and hilarious.

She wouldn’t even let us walk with her down the sidewalk.

Olivia and Rusty.  Little boys in muscle costumes are my favorite ever.

Baby Yoda.

We spent some time trading adoring gazes. #favoriteauntstatus.

Oh, and here’s a picture I forgot to add in my last post.  Isn’t that tree gorgeous?  Yay, autumn!

Olivia spent the entire day in her fairy outfit.  She is obsessed with all things fairy/princess/mean witch.  Every night when she goes to bed, she asks for stories including every fairy, every princess, and every mean witch, please!  I’ve told some spectacularly lame stories, but as long as they involve the mean witches creating some sort of mischief, the princesses or fairies in peril, and some sort of miraculous rescue from whichever party isn’t currently captured/poisoned/tricked, we’re good.

Pretending to be a captured fairy.  She leads an extremely perilous imaginary life.