More Pumpkins!

We have had great weather on the weekends in October -- sunny and very mild. With a week to go before Halloween, we were in shorts! Saturday evening we went to a Halloween party at a friend's with whom I play tennis. Ellen has a 10-year-old son who was incredibly welcoming to all of us, including Bryn and Luke. We are really proud of Bryn and Luke because for some periods of time they hung out in the basement with the other kids, even though they didn't know any of them. (Luke found a huge bin of Matchbox cars, so he was in heaven.) And because I have never bought them, they ate A LOT of cheese puffs. Toward the end of our time at Ellen's, my tennis instructor arrived with his six-year-old daughter Saara, and that's all Bryn needed -- another girl the same age to be buddies with. At some point, perhaps in the spring, we'd like to have Nausher and his family at our house -- perhaps they could teach us how to prepare an Indian meal.

The next day was our neighbor Lawson's birthday party, and his was the first completely unstructured party that WORKED. Bryn and Luke decorated two pumpkins each, with tempera paint and glitter pens and in Luke's case googly eyes and pom poms. They both played on the swing set -- Luke can now pump his legs all by himself, so pushing is no longer required, and Bryn tried her hand at T-ball for a bit. Luke said Lawson's was "the best party to date" because in lieu of cupcakes he had a tower of doughnuts. Instead of favors there was a book exchange which I think is a neat idea. As Lawson lives in the neighborhood, albeit on Hathaway Lane, Bryn rode her scooter to the party and Luke his Big Wheel. On the way home, Luke needed some assistance going uphill, so Ken pushed from the back, and sometimes rode along, too. (Unfortunately I cut Ken's head off in this picture, but they were moving FAST!) What a beautiful, fun fall weekend.