California for Thanksgiving, scratch that, the week before Thanksgiving

So you know how sometimes you think you're buying airplane tickets for one week and you end up getting them for the wrong week and make plans with your family months in advance and then call them up two weeks before you're supposed to come and say, haha, guess what, I'm coming next week?! Yeah, that's happened to me too. But you know, it ended up just fine. Shorter lines at the airport, cheaper tickets and, hey, we were going for the sunshine anyway, not the turkey :)

We had such a great time in California, it was just the right mix of fun (zoo! playground!) and relaxation. Of course, the best thing is just to be around my wonderful family who are all so fun and great. The pictures below are in no particular order, just some goodies from our weekend (the weekend before Thanksgiving, that is).

Mike's Birthday

Avery decided that Mike needed to have a baseball cake for his birthday and this was our joint effort (Avery was in charge of candles).

Turning 32 is so much fun!

Balloon-a-palooza

Averyisms

I was driving with the girls in the car and half listening to Avery and half listening to NPR. Avery says "Mom, do you hear me?" "Mmhmm," I say distractedly. "Mom, you're a liar, you didn't hear me. You're a liar mom." Well, what could I say? She was right :)

Those of you who have been reading this blog since its inception might remember that Avery doesn't like it when it's Mike's turn to read books at night. Let me say, quickly, that this is NO reflection on Mike's reading ability. It's a mystery we haven't been able to figure out. Regardless of the reason, though, Avery's new defensive strategy is to tell Mike that he can read to her "tomorrow."

Here's a sweet one: I took Avery to a primary activity on Friday. It was a family birthday night and one of the activities was to ask your child questions and see if you could guess the correct answers. To the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up" Avery's answer was "like my mom!"

Catching up on some cute videos of the girls

Halloween

The gathering and carving of the pumpkins stretched out over most of the month, with us picking up various pumpkins from various pumpkin patches. We finally got around to carving them a few days before Halloween, and Avery was insistent that hers have a "mean face like this." Mike's pumpkin is kind of like those visual illusions that has two pictures in them - look one way and you see a very happy pumpkin, look another way and you see an Asian-like pumpkin with unusally large nostrils.

Spookifying the house!

A little Minnie Dee.
Butterfly delux.

Too much Halloween partying!

What every parent should know before they have kids: this is what you're in for . . .

Chateau St. Michelle

So, this is a place we've been wanting to go to for awhile, and ideally in the summer. But better late than never, even if it's on a rainy, fall day. The Chateau is a winery and garden area - in the summer it hosts concerts and some outdoor movie events. The rain let up just enough for us to walk around a bit - it was really pretty. Maybe we can get back sometime next summer and take a picnic. :)

More pumpkin fun

The weekend following my pumpkin adventure with the girls, we went to a different pumpkin farm with our neighbors, the Froelich's. The highlight of this trip was the corn maze, Mike's FAVORITE thing (read that with a tinge of sarcasm for those who couldn't guess). Corn mazes are a good idea and pretty fun for the first fifteen minutes. After that, you start to feel like you're on a forced team building excercise and you'd really rather be home watching MadMen and eating Oreos. Luckily, there were lots of other cool things to do and look at (see below!).