Our "Very Fairy (Butterfly) Princess!"

Perhaps by the time you read this, the election results will be in so depending on how your candidate fared, you can either lift your spirits with some sweet pictures of our girl or keep your spirits lifted with some sweet pictures of our girl! :)  Regardless of who wins/won, may God bless him and our great country!  We will certainly continue praying for both.

And now that the election has been recognized, I can't continue with the fun in this post without mention of another huge event that has rocked our world this past week.  An event with such an innocent name as "Sandy."

We are beyond thankful that we were not affected by any power outages, water damage, or change to our lifestyle beyond the slight inconvenience (if I even dare use that word) of not being able to frequent any playgrounds... Yeah, we are not complaining.  We even got to spend some extra time with some special friends and some new friends with our abundance of time indoors.  There was flooding down our block from the storm surges, power outages that lasted for days just a couple blocks away, downed trees all over our streets, but largely, our lives went on. 

We SO wish we could say the same for others in our city, state, and region, though.  Our hearts absolutely break for friends that we have who are still without power (including a family of 6 and a dog) in lower Manhattan, a friend from our church who pretty much lost everything in Staten Island, and so many others in Brooklyn, Jersey and elsewhere whose lives have been devastated by loss of loved ones, homes, and livelihoods.  Please join us in continuing to pray for those affected and by helping in any way you can.  

Last Wed, Halloween, was definitely a bit surreal that so much was "normal" up in our neighborhood with jolly trick-or-treating going on despite what was happening just a couple miles away.  Last year, we stayed indoors, going door-to-door in our friend's beautiful apartment building, but we were excited this year to take our "Very Fairy (Butterfly) Princess" door-to-door outside up and down some decked out Manhattan brownstone-blocks. She had a great time and afterward, we did some more indoor apartment trick-or-treating with friends with a fun party that followed.  Maelee was quite wound up by the end of the night but we're pretty sure she enjoyed every minute of it.  

Ok, almost to the pictures, but first, allow me to explain the costume :)  For her 2nd birthday, Maelee got these adorable orange butterfly wings and sweet pink skirt so I've been saving those to use for Halloween.  But weeks leading up to it, Maelee kept telling people she wanted to be a princess!  I then discovered that one of her favorite books, "The Very Fairy Princess," features a little girl with butterfly/fairy wings so we went with it.  We already had a couple "wands" from party favors, figured striped tights and a polka dot shirt would fit the look, and only had to order a sweet, little tiara to complete the picture.  

So alas, our "Very Fairy (Butterfly) Princess" was born! And if I do say so myself, she was adorable...

On our walk through the neighborhood, we went "poof!" and turned trash bags into flowers, cars into unicorns, and buildings into castles. Not sure what she was trying to "poof!" Parker into, but it didn't work...

Some more shots from Halloween:

And a few more from October:

with good pals, Tyler and James, celebrating Tyler's 1st Bday

Coloring a pumpkin (and running around the playground!) while mommy carved
at a fun pumpkin carving afternoon with friends

Our creations!

And roasting the seeds the next day :)

Yum!

Special trip to see the Big Apple Circus thanks to an old coworker/friend from Lincoln Center!

Maelee LOVED it! And absolutely lit up with the horses.

She still says her favorites were "the clowns!" though :)

The last Saturday of October, we enjoyed some time in Central Park at the Pumpkin Festival with good pal, Blake...

And the eve of All Hallow's Eve, Steve enjoyed creating the
"clown pumpkin" at Maelee's request :)

Another slideshow with more pics from October:

Whew! What a month.  Filled with some pretty major highs and lows. The storm seemed to have brought the winter in with it so we look back on a wonderful fall season and are excited for (hopefully!) a Winter Wonderland ahead :)

Apples and Pumpkins and Hay- Oh My!

Remember how I said October has been a busy month with an "onslaught" of pictures?  Well,  let some of that onslaught begin! 

(And we haven't even hit Halloween yet...)

We have really enjoyed fall this year but alas, Hurricane Sandy is now pounding at our windows and quickly blowing down all the beautiful foliage that we've been admiring. Thankfully, we've been able to take in quite a bit of this season as winter may seem to come early with all the bare trees that will be left.

Earlier on in the month, we took a short drive out of the city to "Outhouse Orchards" (yeah, hideous name, we know) with some other people from our church community.   We had a great time picking apples and just taking in some fresh air and open fields.

It was a sweet day. Maelee had a blast tasting apples and sitting on pumpkins, and even surprised us by excitedly braving the pumpkin bouncy house!  She is starting to get less and less hesitant about more "daring" activities :)  Uh-oh!  No, she is no dare-devil yet, and we certainly aren't encouraging her to be one, but we sure were proud of her for trying something she'd normally back away from.

As always, here's a slideshow of MORE pics from our apple-pickin' day: 

And we were super proud of her the next weekend for riding a horse- with mommy's hands tightly around her waist first- and then riding a pony all on her own!!! 

Backtrack first though... we had a very special weekend (weekend before last) in DE visiting Too-Dad & Too-Mom (aka Mary Catherine, aka "Nart), and Nana & Pop-Pop even drove up for the visit!  It really was an awesome time.  So many sweet memories and we are so thankful for these relationships.  

On Saturday, we spent the morning into the afternoon at the incredible Fifer Fall Fest.  Mary Catherine's late husband's family owns the Fifer Orchards and they put on a wonderful festival each fall with adorable rides and activities, more apples and pumpkins (and hay!), and lots of family fun :).  We all had a blast and Maelee loved every minute of it!

So proud of my big girl!

 In heaven at the petting zoo :)

Loving the pumpkin "barrel" tractor/train ride!

Playing in a sea of corn...

The gender confused farmer and wife :)

Fun (and informative!) hay ride :)

And as our fun was ending, Maelee asked to ride on the pony by herself!!!

Yup, we were proud.

Had to get a few more posed shots :)

Then Maelee got some final apple picking with Nana & Pop-Pop 

while Steve and I took in the the big corn maze

It really was great.  And just such a fun time with family.  Here are a few more shots from our memorable weekend:

And a final slideshow of more shots from the DE trip: