November to remember...

Is it really already the Christmas season???  Still not sure what happened to November but there were too many sweet highlights to have it slip by without mention. Especially at the end of the month in our whirlwind Thanksgiving trip where we got to see Mee-Maw & Grandpa, Aunt Kim, and Nana & Pop-Pop!  

The first few weekends were pretty filled with church and service events, including a fun volunteer opportunity that our church community group did together at the World Vision Storehouse, packing up meal kits for victims of Hurricane Sandy.  It will still be a long, slow process of recovery for those hardest hit- please continue to pray for these areas!

Some other notable moments from this past month (with pictures!) include lots of fun with animals at one of Maelee's favorite places, The Art Farm in the City:

With Crikey, the bearded dragon

With Angela, the blue-tongued skink (may she rest in peace... sniff)

With Peanut, the guinea pig

And the transition to her big girl bed!!! We finally took the plunge and are very thankful that for the most part, she has stayed put!

Loving the new-found freedom to just climb right in :)

And out!

Then the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we made the daring mid-afternoon bus ride to DC.  We couldn't leave earlier but we were quite nervous given our daughter pretty regularly naps from about 1:30-3:30pm and NEVER naps in a car.  Or on the bus.  Or train.  Or in the stroller. Etc.  Sigh...

It was a long trip but we are grateful it went well and Maelee was pretty occupied with books, games, and some life-saving videos.  (Thank you, Little Einsteins, Dora, and Christmas Classics!) We stayed the night at my folks in VA and then made an even longer trip down to NC to see Steve's parents and sister.  Travel on the day before Thanksgiving is never a breeze, but with a 2 year old who doesn't nap in any sort of moving contraption?  Whew.  Those were a long 7 hours,  but again, she really did great all things considered and we were singing the car dvd player's praises!!!  And were even more grateful to enjoy a few days in North Carolina...

With a sweet and happy Thanksgiving day...

And some more special moments with family:

We came back from NC the following Sat and spent a couple days in VA with Nana & Pop-Pop before having to travel again.  More sweet times...

And getting our first tastes of the season at the National Harbor!

A little someone LOVED the train rides :)

Let the Christmas season begin!

And lastly, more pictures from November here:

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 :)