The Randalls: November 2007

Who Knew?

I had no idea that a diaper box could still be so much fun for a 4 and 2 year old. Just a few pictures that I had fun taking.

Calista tried to hide in the box so Téa wouldn't see her playing with Téa's new thermos. Calista thought it was hilarious that I caught her.

Téa quickly forgave Calista for taking her new thermos as long as she got to go into the box too. My Cheezy girls.

I have to admit I was feeling a little uninterested towards Halloween this year. Mark was gone for 2 weeks in China (again) in October which happened to be right before Halloween. He got home 3 days before and so I was not feeling up to decorating and carving pumpkins while he was gone. Poor kids. Anyway, when he finally did get home we got the two very small pumpkins from the porch that the girls got from Téa's preschool visit to the pumpkin patch and carved them the night before Halloween. They had a great time and I'm glad we waited for Mark to get home to do it.

Halloween night we decided to skip the ward's annual trunk-or-treat and treat our girls to the "normal" way of trick-or-treating. We went up to Saratoga Springs to Jeff and Alison's neighborhood (Mark's brother) and Mark's sister, Leslie and her family all came as well. It was such a fun night and the girls loved the fact that they got to trick-or-treat with their cousins. Thankfully Calista didn't fall and smear her face on the pavement this year. The only mishap was when Téa got suckered into being the first cousin at a house that had a guy leaping out of a coffin and saying "boo". Poor kid cried for like five minutes. I really hope she's not scarred for life.

As you can see Calista had fun scraping out the guts of the pumpkin. She did a pretty good job too.

I think Téa gets more excited each year for pumpkin carving and dressing up. She asked me everyday for weeks when we would carve the pumpkins and was always disappointed when I told her not until it's closer to Halloween. Thankfully the dressing up part was easy to take care of. With a box full of hand-me-down dress ups from older cousins, it's Halloween every day!

This is the Mom-are-we-done-taking-pictures-now-so-we-can-get-free-candy picture. I just felt bad because last year I didn't take any so I was trying to make up for it. Sorry Téa.

Here are just some of the cousins the girls got to go with. As you can see, Calista was none other than a princess. My mom made the dress 3 years ago for Téa for Halloween and I actually made the cape. Yup, that's right!

I'm A Soccer Mom (though it's off season now)

So my little baby girl (who's not so little anymore) played soccer this summer/fall. She was lucky enough to have her best friend, Dax, with her on the team. I'm not so sure if she would have been so excited if he wasn't there with her. He missed a few games and Téa always wanted to be subbed out or not play at all when Dax wasn't there. I guess the love of the game isn't inherited. Although I never really gained the love of the game until high school. At least I can dream that she will be my Tom Boy. The best part about watching her play was that she actually just chased Dax around the field. I noticed this after three games. Dax was running around trying to get the ball and Téa just ran after Dax. I noticed it because sometimes her buddy would run a different direction for no reason and Téa followed. So the rest of the season I tried to get Téa excited about actually following the ball. Didn't work well but I do realize that soccer for 4-5 year-olds is all about getting dressed up in shin guards and your jersey and just running around with no purpose.

Téa actually posed for a picture on her last game at half time. After taking this picture I noticed how sweet she looked. I look back on her soccer season now and realized that my little girl was completely non-aggressive on the field. She was always at the back of the "huddle" of players surrounding the ball and only occasionally touched the ball when it happened to brush her foot when running with the entire heard. I guess I should be grateful that she doesn't have my aggressive tendencies on the field. Maybe I can teach her that later.