Oh, the fun things you get to do.

Play an improvised game of ping pong ON TOP of the ping pong table.

Have smoothies for breakfast on the kitchen floor with grandma.

Dig in to extra baby shower cake with grandpa.

Visit an aquarium way cooler than our own.

Hang out with seldom-seen (or never-before-seen) family.

And wear goggles at any time of day or night.

Well, now this sounded like a good time!

Here you go, the final card. When I saw that picture, I knew I had to use it. The faces are too perfect. Rebecca all cheesy, Daniel with his mouth wide open (the boy can’t keep it closed!). A fun moment.  Happy Holidays, whatever your celebration of choice may be!

I ordered the cards from Shutterfly and they came very quickly. Names removed in post-production, of course.

We’re really having fun with Hannukah this year.  Something about this age just makes celebrations like this more fun. And I’m totally, shamelessly feeding into the over-blowing of a very minor holiday.  Because you know what? I grew up with Christmas. And when December hits, I feel an overwhelming need to be festive.  Except that we want to raise Jewish kids. And while we’ll continue to participate in Christmas with my family (for whom it was never a super religious day, anyways), I don’t want to overdo it and then get all confused as they get older.  Well, best defense is a good offense, so I’m trying to make Hannukah really fun.

Step 1: Candles.  Huge hit, especially since I let them pull up chairs to the sideboard where we keep the menorah so they can see them up close when we light them.

Step 2: Presents. Trying not to go too nuts, but it’s really fun now that they sort of “get” the idea of presents.  Just one thing each night.  They were skeptical of my initial offering of bean bag chairs, until I showed them how to flop into them.

Step 3: Party! We had some friends over for a little Hannukah party last night.  My three favorite Jewish comfort foods (brisket, noodle kugel, and latkes) all turned out quite well.  The nice part about having friends who all have similar-aged kids is that we’re all on the same wavelength and schedule.  Party starts at 4, we ate dinner at 5:15, and everyone was out the door at 6:30.  Even if it ended in a poop explosion and the place was trashed like a frat party, it was still good fun.

Holiday cards are some serious pressure.  Especially, I think, because I kind of hated the ones we sent last year.  Hated the picture, design was meh.  I was determined to do better this year.  Which, of course, means that the photography gods have not been smiling on me recently.

Oh, sure, I’ve got some cute pictures from October that will certainly work. But I also have this mental block about wanting them to be as recent as possible, even though the kids don’t change in appearance month-to-month they way they did as infants.

And the last few weeks have been, to say the least, rough.  Fewer daylight hours for nice outdoor shots. Lots of cold and rain. A week of visitors and holidays throwing us off our normal routine.  Six hellacious days of (suspected) H1N1 for Rebecca.  OMFG the tantrums.  Yesterday, I think the two of them made a pact before I got them out of bed that at least one of them would be screaming at all times.  Thank god M came home early from work, because I was on the verge of a complete mental breakdown.

Anyways, all that adds up to a notable lack of good photos.  Sunday night, I made a declaration: I had until Wednesday afternoon to either take some new pictures or just order cards with the October pictures in them.  So I carried my camera to our various outings this week.  Indoor activities, flourescent lighting, and never-ending runny noses and tantrums seemed to indicate it just wasn’t going to happen. Nothing holiday-card-worthy.

And then, just before lunch today, the hazy sun was out and it was warm enough to play outside.  The fates aligned. The tantrums paused. I pulled out the camera and just kept clicking.  That’s the joy of digital photography, is it not?  Just keep on clicking.  Doesn’t matter if 95 out of 100 shots are crap.  The more you take, the more likely you are to get the one.  (If you need tips, Sarah posted some great ones on HDYDI the other day.)

And so, before I click “confirm order” on this year’s batch of cards, here’s a few that, adorable though they are, did not make the final cut.

Well.

The food was good.  Really good, if I do say so myself.  And judging by the very reasonable amount of leftovers in the fridge, I finally seem to have hit a sweet spot on quantity.  I started cooking early in the day (with some assistance), and cooked on and off until the final push to finish everything at about 5.  Really not bad.

My dad and stepmom were in town, and I almost felt bad that there was so little I needed by way of food prep assistance.  But hey, they were there to take the kids out for a walk while they were going stir-crazy before lunch, so that in itself is a big help.  And, really, they were just there to see the grandkids.  And see them, they did.  Daniel, especially, seems to just love the extra attention and was on full funny/cute overload.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the rest of the day (or week) was such a great success.  It was cold and rainy, so no outdoor activities.  Rebecca has been miserable and sick and over-tired the whole week (today marked 4 straight days of wailing and flailing with a side of fever and runny nose).  Unpleasant, at best.  She is a pretty demanding child when sick (I will admit she may have gotten that from me), but she feels so rotten that she has no idea what she wants.

“I want oatmeal!
NO OATMEAL!
I want TV.
NOOOO Sesame Street!
I want to sit on the chair.
NOOOOOOOOOO!  NO CHAIR NO CHAIR!
Waaaaaaahhhhhhhh……

I feeling sad right now.”

It’s exhausting.

The kids briefly sat with us for dinner, though there was a lot of demanding to get down, and a lot of “I don’t yike it” when suggestions were made to try anything but the cranberries.  Rebecca had yogurt for dinner. Daniel eventually discovered a love for Pumpkin Bread Pudding and, while devouring his serving and that of the person next to him, exhibited a focus I’d never previously seen.  He is my child, after all.

At any rate, Dad and Stepmom are headed home in the morning, and I can only hope Rebecca gets over this virus and doesn’t pass it along to her brother (a girl can dream).  It’s been, quite frankly, a nightmare. Especially since I feel pretty confident that there is nothing to be done but wait for it to run its course.

Alas.  At least the food was good.

My kids may be rapidly creeping up on 2½, but this year felt like our first real Halloween.

Year One was a nightmare. Not yet three months old, I remember it being one of those hellish, screamy newborn days. Traffic was awful and M was super late coming home from work. I couldn’t calm the babies down. Between the drool and the spitup, they had long-since ditched their Halloween onesies.  I was just glad when it was over.

Year Two, we actually bought costumes. The kids even wore them! And kept the hats on and everything! But they were still awfully young, had no way of understanding candy or trick-or-treating or anything, and kids didn’t start going door-to-door in our neighborhood until after my young toddlers’ bedtime.  Ah well.

But this, Year Three, now this is a little bit of actual Halloween.  Costumes have been worn for several practice occasions and are much-loved.  Books about pumpkins and costumes and trick-or-treating have been read (and frequently requested) at bedtime.  They love their “candy bags,” and have been practicing saying “Trick or Treat! Thank You! Happy Halloween!” for weeks.

This morning, we carved our first family pumpkin, and the kids were enthralled.  “It’s a jack-o-wantern, Mommy!”, cried Daniel.  Rebecca fed our kitty-cat pumpkin some of her cookies and announced that the jack-o-lantern “wikes it.”

After nap, the costumes came on and we twiddled our thumbs waiting for it to get dark enough to start trick-or-treating.  One of the few times of the entire year that I have the slightest regret about my kids’ early bedtime.

We were seemingly the first ones out in our neighborhood, and the kids loved it.  Boldly walked right up to the door, knocked, and said Trick or Treat in full voice.  Daniel then mixed phrases and shouted “Thank you for the Halloween” all the way back down the steps.  I had to run back to the house to hand out candy, but M tells me they got a little grabby at the last few houses. Ah well, it was a solid first effort.

Once home, they sat down for a little football and enjoyed their spoils (one lollipop, each, for tonight), and got a kick out of the other kids coming to the door.  All in all, a great First (or, third) Halloween.

Again with the random blogging PR perks, I got a tip that the Stone Zoo was hosting some early Halloween festivities this weekend!  Among other things, there were trick-or-treat tables set up along the zoo path, so the kids got to practice the “trick or treat” “thank you” and “Happy Halloween” sequence that we’ve been talking up.  Oh, and we got to preview this year’s costumes.  They were a big hit.

Daniel is actually wearing the same pirate costume from last year. It was really big on him back then, but he can still fit into it now.  Rebecca was thrilled with her new butterfly outfit.

For any area folks that missed it (I assume it will be a washout with tomorrow’s nasty forecast), the Franklin Park Zoo is doing a similar program next week.

— — —

And, lest I forget, we do have a winner for next weekend’s Halloween Town tickets.  Random.org had the honors of choosing:

It’s Rebecca, hooray!  Of course, I saw her this afternoon and forgot to bring the tickets… but it’s not like we don’t see each other five times a week, anyways.  I’ll try to remember to bring them to COPE on Tuesday!

One nice thing about making your contact info available on your blog is that you can sometimes get the inside scoop on some really cool things. (You also get very weird things, but we’re going to ignore those.) One of those very cool things fell into my lap recently, and I get to pass it along to you guys!

On Saturday and Sunday, October 24 and 25, there is an awesome Halloween party/festival going on in Boston at the Seaport World Trade Center.  Halloween Town is sponsored by iParty and is a benefit for the Kids Fund at Boston Medical Center.  There’s all kinds of activities for toddlers all the way through older kids.  Trick or treating, a haunted mine, face painting and crafts, and even live performances, including the awesome Dan Zanes & Friends.  No joke, it looks like an absolute blast!

So, are you local? Do you want to go??  I have a family four-pack of tickets to give away!  Please leave a comment telling me what your kids are going to be for Halloween!  And for an extra entry, tweet all about it (don’t forget to include me, @etowndz, in the tweet) and leave an extra comment saying you’ve done just that.

Entries close this Friday (October 16) at 5PM, at which point I will pick a winner at random.

And if you don’t win, you can order tickets online and save $2 off the at-the-door price (kids and seniors are $14 in advance, adults are $17, and children 3 and under are free!).

I was going to write a kind of sad, cranky post about how I had an underwhelming Fourth of July and how it got me feeling incredibly homesick and determined to move back to Chicago sometime in the next few years. And, well, I sort of did and you can read it over at How Do You Do It? (notice the new URL!).

I was still cranky Sunday morning and into the early afternoon, despite a sunny day and a visit from Aunt R on a rare day off from the hospital. Still feeling disappointment. Nostalgia. And still emotionally and physically exhausted from our month of rain. And then, something crazy happened.

At nearly 5PM, we started talking about what to do for dinner. M knew exactly what he wanted: a roadside stand-type restaurant with fried seafood, burgers, and ice cream. Something on the ocean. He had a very clear picture in his mind of where he wanted to go. So we decided to pile into the van and try to find it.

We headed east, toward the coast. I suggested we head toward my aunt’s house in Marblehead (the one person on my side of the family who doesn’t live in the Chicago area). She lives near the water and I had vague recollections of passing restaurants and shacks on the ocean on the way to her house. We gave her a call and said we were heading her way. She said her husband and son were at the beach at the end of their street, that it was low tide, and a perfect time to come by. Off we went.

We put our feet in the sand, though the kids weren’t thrilled about the cold waves on their feet. But the sun was warm, the ocean was calm. It was awesome.

And to top it all off, my aunt pointed us toward the exact beachside shack M had seen in his mind’s eye. Fried seafood. Burgers. Onion Rings. Ice Cream. And some raspberry lime rickeys that Rebecca couldn’t get enough of.

By the time we climbed back into the car to head home, it was an almost unheard-of 7:45pm. Normally lights-out time for the toddler set in this household. But you know what? Everyone was happy. They talked and sang songs and played peekaboo the entire way home.

Got home and kids took a quick bath and were in bed shortly before 9PM, no too-late meltdowns.

It was a good day.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! No big plans at the in-Progress household. A BBQ later in the day at the lovely and talented Mommy Esq.’s house, and then another year of kids in bed before it’s really dark out, and watching the Boston Pops on TV. We lead an exciting life, people.

Otherwise, not much to say here. M says I get to take this morning off (so why was I wide awake at 6:30am?), and it has finally stopped raining. YAHOO! I leave you with a few pictures of yesterday’s non-rainy activity: strawberry and raspberry picking at Smolak Farms. It was a hit, and the most meltdown-free morning I’ve had in a very, very long time. Just don’t try to take the strawberries away from Rebecca. Daniel preferred eating the raspberries straight off the bush.