Halloween

I figured if I don't post some Halloween pics soon I'll start getting harassed by my more faithful blogger friends. Anyhow, Halloween was pretty simple. We meant to do more, but Hope took a late nap and we missed Trick or Treating at the Hub. We did go to our ward's Trunk or Treat which was enjoyable. So...we actually still have the Yoda costume that Hope was last year (sorry Sarah)...and well, she hasn't grown a whole lot, and I almost thought of just doing that again for sheer laziness. But when I tried it on her, it didn't even last two minutes before she wanted to take it off. So, our back up plan was a fairy princess with a cute dress that was given to us and we haven't gotten much use out of it. When we added wings, it made a cute fairy princess...or fairy? Hope didn't actually want to wear the princess crown or carry the wand that we had...and we barely got a couple of shots with her actually wearing the wings. I think by the end of the evening she did get used to them. She was very interested in Kelvin and his siblings' trick-or-treating pumpkins and even before the candy was in it, he wasn't happy letting her play with it. He did make a handsome Captain Hook though. I did get Hope to say a slight version of "Trick or Treat" as we went to the cars, and when she realized she was getting candy, I think she got more interested in the whole activity. There's also a shot here of Hope enjoying her loot from the evening. (You can almost see the thought process going on..."He's got more pumpkins than he needs...let me slip over while he's not looking..." "Hey, little girl, did you think I wouldn't notice?")

Grand Witches' Council

So, the other thing keeping me busy (when I'm not nauseous or taking a nap or catering to the whims of my toddler) has been a fabulous Halloween Party. My friend, Maren, got me reading one of the many fabulous blogs about moms much more motivated than myself, www.meckmom.com. Last year she posted all the details for a wonderful Halloween Party, but I didn't catch the posts until it was too late to do it for last year. So, I've been anticipating this party for a whole year and keeping my mouth shut for a whole year (not even telling Andrew). She calls it the Wanda Witch Ultimate Halloween Party. Basically, it's like an Amazing Race/Scavenger Hunt party with several teams made up of couples. One of the fun parts about the party is that it's thrown by Hilda and Zelda Witch...at least ours was. And RSVPs are sent to an anonymous email, so there's a lot of buzz and guessing who the witches are before the party and then the identities of your hosts are revealed at the end of the evening. I will say that many people had me pegged...but I was able to keep it from Andrew and he didn't even know until the end of the evening. He was surprised as he looked at me and said, "it's you?" It was amusing because leading up to the evening he would say things like, this seems like something you would do...but he was clueless because there was no evidence at my house. Big Thanks to my partner-in-crime, Denise. She was the perfect co-host and helped out immensely. Here's a pic below of Hilda and Zelda Witch about to give out the Golden Broomsticks. I forgot my own camera, but there's another picture below of a team getting one of their clues in a graveyard. It was a lot of fun scouting out locations (the creepier the better) and thinking up clues to get the teams there. Denise and I were both on teams keeping our mouths shut, and being amused at our teams trying to decipher our clues. I'm sure both our teams thought we were a little less than helpful, so I guess it should be no surprise since neither of our teams placed first (maybe they should have gotten bonus points for the handicap).

The party was a great success and it seemed like everyone had fun. The one big snag we had was setting up our clues. All was going smoothly until we got to our last clue to place. Denise had the great idea to put our "brew ingredient," eyeballs, in a ziploc bag of colored water, placed in another ziploc bag with the clue, tied to fishing line tied to a stick at the edge of a creek with the bags sumberged in the creek. Teams would then have to pull the line up and try and find their team color. An interesting idea, except that the gauge or our line was too small and when we tossed the first bag in the creek it broke and sunk, and our bag sprung a leak. We spent a good bit of time trying to avoid stepping in the gross, disgusting water and finding a branch long and strong enough to fish our clue out. Meanwhile, on one of the windiest days this fall, Hope is standing on the sidewalk on the bank next to her stroller that the parking break isn't on and a big gust of wind blew the stroller in the creek. Ick. We ended up with a reasonable compromise for the clues, but there was still more than one team that had a wet clue when they got to this point.

Pumpkin Patch

Hope and I went to the Pumpkin Patch this last week with our playgroup. Hope had the most fun riding in the wagon for carrying your pumpkins and didn't want that part to end. We were a little sad that the farm near our house, Ardenwood, isn't doing their big pumpkin patch this year, but my friend, Mimi, still managed to find a cute one relatively close. It was cute and small...though probably doesn't compare to the one we went to last year that launched pumpkins from a cannon.

New Ringlein - Coming in April

Well, it's time again that I've neglected a whole month of blog posting. But with good reason this time. We're expecting a new arrival due at the end of April. So, for those of you that have been through that first trimester before, you know how exhausting it is and how nauseous you can feel a lot of the time. I'm hoping it passes in the next couple of weeks. We're so excited that we were able to conceive naturally this time, not to mention it's a thrilling savings over IVF. Andrew and his mom have nicknamed our little fetus "Cheap, Cheap." Not sure if that's much better over the nickname Hope had for a while in utero, which was, "Goldfinger." My CNM says with second (and later) pregnancies that "you'll get bigger faster, and you'll be more tired" [because you already have someone taxing your engery]. And, so far, she's right. So, needless to say, I've been taking a lot of naps, putting on a lot of Blue's Clues in the background, and sending Andrew to make me toast in the middle of the night. He's super supportive and caters to most of my whims. Here's a pic of Hope in her "Big Sister" t-shirt I got to announce our positive test result to Andrew and my parents. Poor Hope has no idea how much her world is going to change.

Catching Up

Well, you may have noticed the lack of posts lately. July was crazy busy for me as I decided to take on a little project of leading around 30 French Students for three weeks. It was fun, but exhausting. Hope was such a trooper and came along with me everywhere from Mission San Jose to the Golden Gate Bridge to a Giants game to LA. It was fun to get to know the students and teach them things about America and California. Here's a shot of Hope at Treasure Island...one of many stops we made with the students.What else has been going on...I started a toddler music group at church - Music Makers and we get together every week to do finger plays, sing songs, march around and have fun. It does take a bit of planning, but Hope and the other kids seem to enjoy themselves.

Hope had fun at the park during the ward 4th of July breakfast. She ended up chasing two boys around...perhaps it was because they had a ball...but we can still say she started her boy chasing early. As usual...we've been playing online - here's a couple pix of Hope trying out my headset.This was a fun summer activity - trying on Grandma's necklaces - all of them at once. Hope was so happy with herself.

Cousin Victor

We stopped by Dean's house after church yesterday and Hope and Victor played for a short bit. They're starting to interact a little more together...although during church it was really more of a Hope showing Victor her cheerios and not letting him have any.

Here they are watching the dog, Chancho, in the yard.

Victor's amused

And here's Chanco - Hope has really been enjoying seeing dogs and animals recently. The other day she would hardly focus on her lunch because some people nearby had a couple of dogs.

Just a silly face

Sweet Victor, muy guapo

Hanging with Gil

We stopped by and visited our friends, Becky and Gil, and enjoyed some time hanging out in their yard. Hope loved going up and down the stairs, walking in the grass, playing on the rocking chair - all the typical things a toddler loves. It was such a pleasant afternoon, Gil showed us his new Bose remote speaker for the yard, which Hope also enjoyed playing with. I enjoyed listening to the music of "Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" while Becky quietly hummed along, and Gil whistled along as he was buzzing along in the yard - sounds simple but it evoked such a quiet, positive feeling for me. My mom, too, likes to hum along as she goes about her business - I enjoy that too.Here's Hope running around in their yard.Gil even showed her the hose as entertainment...it lasted a few minutes.