Last Post before Leaving

Well, if all the i's are not dotted and t's not crossed by now, Alan is going to have a busy day on Friday before he leaves! 

I am going to miss my girl more than I can say.  I've taught her to say 'I want to Skype Mommy'.  Her daycare is also set-up for Skype so we can chat every morning if I miss her at home before she leaves. 

I can still hardly believe I am getting on a plane tomorrow. Alison, you will be pleased to hear that I am all packed and I have less than 60 lbs of luggage in two bags including mine and Ethan's stuff.  And my stuff includes a Winter coat.  The airplane looks somewhat modern this time and has in-seat audio etc and electric outlets for my laptop.  That is almost as exciting as seeing the Great Wall again.  You should have seen the tub we were on back in 2007.  No in-seat entertainment and all the bulbs except green were not working so it was like watching a terrible movie with night vision goggles.

Can't wait to meet Ethan on Monday!  Can't wait to see those cheeks in person!

Agggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

How will it all get done??

Okay, that was my little panic break.  Back to work.

Is Trick or Treat day again??

As we were pulling out of the driveway this morning to head out for breakfast (an unusual activity for us but we were out of syrup and milk) halle asked if we were going trick or treating again.  Sadly 'no' was the answer which resulted in one mildly upset little girl.  It was pretty much the perfect day: wake-up, put on a costume, have your mom put on her costume, go to a party with a bunch of other kids wearing costumes, eat snacks and get treat bags, have a three hour nap, supper and short visit with the grandparents, put on a different costume, go out trick or treating with all your friends from 'the bay' and then come home and give out candy for half an hour and stay up past your bedtime.  Wow! It's like the two year olds perfect dream!!

The spread at the FCC Halloween party.  Linda did everything except the chips.  I took care of that.  She took pitty on me leaving for China in 10 days.

Halle and Camdyn

The craft table...

Oh, a picture of Halle and I. She was the horse and I was a 'cowgirl'.

Someone must have told Ruby to smile!  :P

Grandma getting a Halloween kiss from one cute ladybug!

The cutest ladybug on our street.

Mom, that's not much of a disguise.

BFFs! Brett and Halle!

Where are the kids? I want to give them this candy?

A watched pot never boils.  Halle learned that little idiom last night. No more TTs after 8 o'clock.

Pumpkin Carving Time!

The greatly anticipated pumpkin carving event was held this evening following dinner.  Halle did not shy away from ripping the guts out of the pumpkin.  It was quite impressive.  Daddy also carved a pumpkin.  I would just like to mention that while Alan carved his pumpkin, I also carved a pumpkin, did a load of laundry, gave Halle her snack, gave her a shower, brushed her teeth, read her two stories and watched an episode of the office and took Charlie for a walk.  I'm just sayin...

Blog post test not from gmail

Testing.  Testing. One, two testing.

Blog Test

This is a test post to see if I can keep up with the blog if for some mysterious reason blogger is blocked in China.

Thomas has a home

Last weekend Alan busied himself building a Thomas the Tank Engine train table for Halle ...and Ethan.  Everything around here now is '....and Ethan'.  Gotta get in the groove because someone already has some ideas about how things will work once her Big Sister t-shirt becomes a bit more of a reality than a slogan.

Where else are we going to put all the Thomas stuff that is trickling in?