Happy Halloween!

Anna had so many fun activities she wanted to do for her first Halloween, that she celebrated for two days! First, Anna's Halloween daytime outfit - consisting of the black turtle neck that Uncle Dan pointed out would be perfect for Halloween, a bib from her grandma, and who knew it, but she happened to have orange and white striped pants in her closet!

On Halloween night Anna slept a little later from her afternoon nap - she wanted to be well rested for her evening. When she got up, Mom, Dad, & Anna all had dinner quick and then Anna hoped into her horse costume (from her Nana!):

Anna's first trick-or-treat was at the Smith's house (next door), where she picked out some Whoppers for herself. Anna hit a few more houses before we ran into our neighbors, Elise & Andrew, who were trick-or-treating in a group of about 10 kids ages 1 1/2 to 4. We trekked around with them for a little while and Anna admired all the little kids costumes & she took notes about how to work the treats better next year :)

Finally we landed at our neighbor's Nick & Jennifer, where Anna got to hang out with Porter, the pug dressed as a devil, and Maddy, the lab dressed as an angel. It was too hard to get all three of them in the picture, but her is Anna with the "devil":


After all that excitement Anna was ready for bed. However we continued the Halloween celebrations last night by once again visiting the house with over 100 carved pumpkins. Here are our favorites from this year:




And of course, Halloween would not be complete without some pumpkin custard from Neilson's, where we ended our Halloween celebrations last night:

Anna's Guide to Making One's First Jack-O-Lantern

Before making your first jack-o-lantern it is important to inspect your pumpkin:

Make sure it looks right:

Make sure it has a good feel:

Sing to it a little:

And most important...make sure it tastes right:

Next you need to explain to your pumpkin carver how you would like it to look, but make sure you have the final say.

You see this section here, this needs a little more work:


Yes, much better:

When you're done, make sure you take time to appreciate your work:

And when your pumpkin carver is not looking, try to dive inside:


Congratulations! You've carved your first pumpkin!

New Foods

In addition to rice cereal, oatmeal, peas, and green beans, which I think I've written about, Anna has also now had squash, sweet potato, barley cereal, and carrots!

Happy 1/2 Birthday Anna!

Anna is 1/2 a year old today!! I can't believe that 1/2 year has already gone by since Anna was born. On the one hand, I feel like she's been with us forever. On the other hand, I feel like she has grown up so fast! Here she is 6 month ago today:


And here she is today with her friends, Addie & Clara, celebrating her first 1/2 year:


Anna had a great time today watching Clara crawl and Addie walk!! She's sporting her new little jumper she just got from her Nana, who she got to spend lots of time with this past weekend in Hartford, CT. Mom & Dad had a wedding there and Nana met us there to take care of Anna. Seeing Nana was wonderful and the wedding was lovely, but it turns out Anna was not so hot on 2 plane trips & 2 nights in a hotel in just 3 days. She does seem to be glad to be home and back to her routine for her birthday :)

Go Giants!

We had a great time hanging out with Uncle Pete the past few days. On Sunday we all headed off to Santini's to watch the Giant's game. It was difficult to capture this picture, where at least I got 2 out of 3 Giant's fans looking at the camera:

more often than not, this was the scene:

Yes, the TV screen is just to the left in the picture above and yes, that is the New York Post, which once again fascinated Anna more than anything in the restaurant.

In case you didn't believe me...

Too cute...