Festivities

John and Meghan and making their way East to  (Middle) West all day today - having decided to drive it straight through they will be home in he wee hours tonight/tomorrow.  I thought I was going to have much of the weekend to myself with the girls.  I thought we might take a mini-break, maybe go to a hotel pool with a water park and snuggle in, enjoy a stay-cation.  Dance class, the local Halloween parade, Sunday school and the Hot Chocolate 5K conspired against a night away - even a local night away, but I still really wanted to make the day fun. 

In between all our Saturday morning dance classes we went to the Halloween parade on the town square. It is just as quaint as it sounds.  Most of the shops open their doors to trick or treaters and there is even a doggie parade.  Since we have a dachshund there is simply no way to avoid dressing him as a hot dog, right?  Poor dog - he actually looks embarrassed. Orbit pretty much hated his costume.  Once we took it off he loved trotting around the square with Papa, Grandma and the girls.  He is never happier then when he is fully incorporated into the festivities....

Dance, Halloween parade, Dance, Lunch more Dance... as if that wasn't enough we set off for Des Moines to continue our fun day.  We saw "Puss and Boots" in 3D ($14 each - holy crap!), picked up a couple of cute t-shirts, some bubble gum flavored lip gloss and then had some pizza for dinner.  The pizzariea messed up our order, so we have leftovers until sometime next week.  The girls crash landed hard into bed just now -  for all of us it was a really fun day.

After kind of a bumpy morning yesterday morning I told the girls we were going to focus on treating each other with kindness and gratitude while their father was away. Anytime they fussed at each other I would ask, "are you being kind to each other?"  When we were at the restaurant I talked about being grateful to the people who were cooking our food, serving us.  When there was a mistake in our order we talked about being kind - because we all make mistakes and hope that we are treated kindly when we do. There was some eye-rolling, but there also were flickers of understanding.

Tonight when I was putting Amelia to bed she told me she was grateful for the day, that she couldn't possibly pick a favorite part because they were all her favorite. I feel exactly the same way.

Amelia, rockin' the 3D glasses.  Totally worth the $14, right?!