Advent

The rest of the world thinks its Christmas already, so we are obliging them by attending their activities. 

We went to Greensboro's tree lighting, which was full of people.

We went to Fincastle's for dinner and the girls were great. Irene ate a bunch of ranch dressing. I ate a bunch of fried pickles. Evangeline almost ate all of her hangurber. I ate all of my Heisenberger.

And THE BIG MOMENT OF THE NIGHT!
The grand countdown. Thousands of people all watching the tree, counting down from 10.
And then the top of the tree did not light.
Pretty much the most important part.
Didn't work out.
So close. But yet so far.

But whatever. They had cotton candy.

And that is pretty much how she was for the whole time.

This building faces the park with the tree. There were a bunch of parties going on. We look forward to hosting one when we live there one day.

And here is a video of Irene with the microkorg vocoder.

fall into fall

She's been wanting to do this for so long.

Too Two!

She did it! Irene turned 2! 

Pre-Party nap.

Showing off new shoes to Baba.

Everyone loves Irene's birthday.

Strawberry cake.
She like this one  a lot more than last year.

Next day with Baba and Grandma, going to church.

Evangeline got sparkly shoes, too. She also has a carrot in her mouth.

A feast for my people.

Irene has a mom!

The next day DimDim's little sister Vung got baptized.

Its Halloween

There are a ton of photos in this post, but a lot of things have happened in the last two days.

We carved Evangeline's pumpkin with a drill. She pretty much told me where to cut and thats what I did. It kept flinging bits of pumpkin on her.

Of course, Irene was brought in for some consultation.

Irene later broke that glass cup.

Commence Halloween Costume Action!
Jack-o-lanterns are in place and costumes are donned.

We went over to Caroline's for a pre-trick-or-treating party.

Nicolo, Caroline, and Evangeline.

2/3 of these children speak Italian.


 These events led to actual trick-or-treating

Irene totally doesn't get it yet. She was under the impression that you were supposed to eat each piece of candy received upon its receipt. So, Evangeline looked back and saw what was happening, and had no choice but to go on with the crowd.

It was such a nice night out. 70 degrees. Leaves falling. A few inches of leaves on the sidewalk. Kids running around laughing. Perfect. This had to be captured on camera.

We don't know this kid. He was just method acting his ninja role.

And then I went to the aeropuerto to pick up Poppop, Grandma Aunt Carol, and Ammi.

They came to the front door with what were possible the scariest masks I've ever seen. Irene just kind of stared at them, and Evangeline was like "oh, hey, its pop pop."

And one of our chickens laid this monster egg the other day. Ouch.

Marathon

I hate those blog posts where people are all apologetic for not posting enough.

We couldn't find the cord to charge the camera, so I had to get another one.

The Greensboro Marathon, which is mostly not in Greensboro, took place today. It went right past our house, so we spent some time on the stoop shouting at the runners.

"Your shirt is my favorite color."
"Happy Halloween."

"Good job!"
"Almost there!"

"Do you want to come to my Halloween party?"

News From The Back Seat

"Some boogers are for eating, some boogers are not for eating".

Haircut

After an especially rigorous rats-nest brushing the other morning, Evangeline decided she didn't like getting her hair brushed, or wearing her hair in a ponytail, and she wanted a haircut. She wanted it "as short as Caroline's", which is very, very short. I think that would be mighty cute, but I was feeling too intimidated by straight blonde hair to attempt it. So, she got a haircut (she did a good job sitting still for the most part,
but I could have used another 10 minutes, oh well) "almost as short as Caroline's", and the first time she woke up with her shorter hair, she said "hey, my hair's not in my eyes!". Lucky for you, Kyle got some pictures before our camera ran out of battery and we lost the cord.

And Irene's hair? Still on a snip-n-run basis.

Irene and Evangeline currently have some pretty tough Tinkerbell tattoos.