A first lost tooth, a first "marathon," and some Halloween fun!

Onto October!  

Another big month for our girls with lots going on...  So in an attempt to keep the copious amount of pictures manageable, I'm hoping to keep multiple blog posts from the past month as concise as possible.  

And as always, I'll try to let the pictures speak for themselves without adding too much of my usual wordiness :) Starting with some happenings in the life of Lilee!

We've had one of Lilee's pals from church over several Fridays to help out her mama who was pregnant with (and recently delivered) her 5th (!) child, so it has been adorable to watch these two together...

 

We also keep getting a kick out of watching her with baby dolls.  She loves to read to them, dress them, feed them, put them on the potty... 

 

All this must've been in preparation for her own try on the potty! No pics of this one...  But at the end of Oct, she wanted to try herself and actually went!  Maelee and I were so excited, which made Lilee so excited... It was a riot.  We're not rushing the potty training but she is too funny with it!

 

That's our funny girl!

Just a cute shot of the girls with neighbor pal, Xavi, prepping their pizza for a pizza & movie night.

And now onto the big excitement of the month for Maelee!

This bottom tooth had been loose since the day before school started and we knew it was getting close, so I wasn't too surprised when I got the sweet pic above from her Kindergarten teacher.

Still a little bittersweet for this mama that she has lost her first tooth!

So we had a mini celebration after school with smiley-faced, lost-tooth mini cupcakes:)

Her letter to the Tooth Fairy

And the excitement at finding a sparkly dollar under her pillow the next morning!

The weekend before Halloween, Maelee had the chance to run her first "marathon" with her school for the Marine Corps Fun Run at the Pentagon.  I was so proud of our big girl for running/jogging/walking a whole mile!  Such a great morning.
 

  The three class buds stayed together the whole time!

Also last month, Maelee started a "Paws to Read" program at our local library where she can practice no-pressure reading to volunteer dogs.  It is the sweetest!  And her most recent dog was a poodle- much to our dismay, her favorite breed! Haha. She was quite excited. 

Before I get to the Halloween shenanigans, had to share a couple cute pictures of our new "pet."  Our neighborhood is filled with squirrels but much more to our delight, chipmunks!  Including our friend, "Chippy," who has made his home just across our front porch.  The girls have loved leaving little snacks for him!  (No idea why we assume it's a he...)

And a slideshow of more October pics:

Now onto trick or treating and various fun!  We were able to see Steve's parents a couple weekends in October on the front and back end of a cruise they took out of Baltimore so that was a special treat for the girls.  One of these visits fell on the same day as Shirlington's trick or treating which was great Halloween night prep for Lilee especially!

Cutest little black kitty and dalmation I know!

Sweet bedtime stories

during a short but sweet visit.

To keep our pumpkins from rotting too early, we did our pumpkin carving just a couple days before Halloween.  The girls were so helpful in prepping the pumpkins and loved having Xavi over to help!

Jack-o-lantern pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes for Halloween morning

Followed by pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that afternoon!

Ready for some quick trick or treating around our community to start off the evening!

This was Lilee giving AWAY her candy to this guy.  SO adorable!!!

After visiting a few places in our community, we met up with some of Maelee's school friends just a couple blocks from her school.  This block truly went all out!  The street was closed off and the houses had elaborate decorations, many with different themes.

Including an entire under the ocean theme!

Good class pals- the cheetah and dalmation.

I figured I'd match my girls' black and white attire and thought one of Maelee's wigs would be a fun touch.  Little did I know so many people would think I was trying to be Cruella deVil!

Steve looked pretty cute with the dog ears:)

Pretty happy after a fun night out with friends and candy!

Slideshow of Halloween Pics:

October was a big month! Many more pics to come!

Lots from Sept and a bit from Oct!

Apologies for the mouthful of a title- I started thinking, "What is this post literally about?" And out it came so I went with it...  The month of September had lots of regular moments including cute little captures of Maelee being Maelee and Lilee being Lilee, and then some big moments, too! And the little bit of pics from October actually include a little bit of NYC.   It's been a fall that hasn't let up.

Backtracking to September with some cute & sweet (and some random!) shots of our little ladies!

When I looked in one night while Maelee was sleeping, I had to take a closer look 

(and of course, snap a picture!) to see if she did indeed have a pair of fuzzy pink cat ears on.

Ends up it was an intentional decision and not sleep walking.  Huh.

Lilee has gotten so into imitation lately and loves to read her stories to Parker or with a baby doll on her lap :)

One of my favorite sights is of these two hand in hand.

Like I was saying with imitation...

Lilee heard me mention one night that the kitty needed to be fed and next thing we knew she had Maelee's shoes on and his food dish out!

Our cute little lady

The Saturday before our apple picking adventure was rainy & dreary 

(thus requiring us to apple pick on that Sun instead)

so it was a great day to make some pizza dough!

And a great afternoon to enjoy an early Grandparent's Day celebration 

with Nana & Pop-Pop over cake and fun! BEYOND thankful for these grandparents!!!

Finishing up the pizza that evening

Lilee didn't seem to mind the mess! :)

Gotcha!

1st time making pizza from scratch (well, the dough at least...) was a success!

Ice cream social at Maelee's school!

So fun to share the evening with neighbors and pals!

Gymnastics class!

Once again, the girls loved having Gracie over for a sleep over one weekend and this sweet pup was more than tolerant!

This dog puts up with a lot, between our two girls and our cat... and even seems to enjoy the little hugs from Lilee :)

And combined with the previous posts, that pretty much sums up September!

Slideshow of the Sept pics:

Now onto the little, but very noteworthy, bit from NYC in both Sept AND Oct!  Over a year ago, I talked with a good friend of ours from San Diego about their planned trip to visit NYC to coincide with a West Point reunion.  Ron & Megan are a couple we met shortly before we moved from CA but we've stayed in touch through various visits and they are an awesome family.  Their plan was to bring their four boys with them for a week long trip to NY including several days in our beloved city.

Back in the summer of 2014, I thought for sure it would work to come up to NYC to see them for a long weekend when they were here, but that was well before we found out about our beloved Apostles Church's 10 Year Anniversary Celebration weekend, which also could not be missed!  So we ended up making two short but very sweet trips up to New York, only a few weeks apart...

The Anniversary weekend was in the middle of September and we loaded up both girls for this one, leaving early on a Saturday morning, in time for a whirlwind afternoon church picnic, followed by a playdate, birthday party, burger dinner, and church reception.  I got some sweet time catching up with my dear pal, Desiree, and Maelee was beside herself with excitement for another "sleep-over" with pals, James & Ethan.  Bless their heart :) 

Loved meeting Georgie and seeing Tessa again!

 SO many sweet memories with these kiddos...

Lauren & Desiree- two of my nearest & dearest

So fun to get in a quick visit with old pals Chloe and mama Holly!

With sweet Kelly

So fun to see these great people and enjoy so many sweet reunions on Sat!

Sunday was an emotional day, seeing so many old friends, many who had moved before we did and many who are still there.  It was especially emotional watching our former Pastor, JR, preach in what ended with a standing ovation and lots of tears.  So many memories of that special congregation, incredible city, and unforgettable friendships...  God has done amazing things in NYC through Apostles and we feel so blessed to have been able to be a small part of its history.

Shawna, Ginger, & JR- truly some of my favorite people

More favorites :)

It really was an emotionally exhausting weekend but we're so glad it worked out to go.  We had still promised to visit in October for our SD friend's trip, and had also planned to see another couple that we were close friends with who had moved to Canada but returned to NY, so back up we went the 2nd weekend of Oct.  As that weekend also happened to coincide with the only other weekend we could go up to DE to see TD & MC and our annual Fifer Farm Fall Fest visit, Steve and I went up just the two of us on a Sunday. 

We drove to Wilmington, took the train into NYC and back that night, then drove back to VA, arriving back home a little after midnight.  We were so grateful that my parents agreed to bring the girls back with them from DE and keep them over night and we ended up having a sweet "date day," in addition to seeing more great folks!

 

Probably the only shot of us in Times Square!  Ha!

  With Ron & Megan and their 4 adorable boys at on one of our
favorite pizza places in the city, John's Pizza

Enjoying a stroll and some Starbucks through Central Park.

Can't even remember the last time we were able to do that!

Ending the day with more pizza at one of our favorite playgrounds with two couples that we have countless memories with- Jay & Desiree and David & Radhika.

It was especially strange not to have the girls with us at the playground and in some ways it would've been great if it worked to bring them along, but we knew it would've been an exhausting trip for them and it ended up being so special for just the two of us.

In a little over a year, we went back up to visit NYC five times.  I think a part of us will always feel like we never left and we're already looking forward to our next visit up.  But at that same time, we feel complete peace over where God has us now and are hopeful we will make similar lasting friendships here.  Stay tuned with a boat load of pictures from all the Fall Festival shenanigans!

Slideshow of NYC trips: