Good-bye October

October was a relatively quiet month. It started with a birthday celebration for my brother. Let's not talk about how old he is now. I'll just say he's my younger brother, and I'd prefer not to think about his age, mainly because I consider myself frozen at that age. In any event, we were treated to the Pope room at Buca di Beppo. And I caught this great shot of Casey and his cousin Joey:

We also headed off to a local pumpkin patch relatively early in the month this year because of soccer and church commitments. We've traditionally used our family photo at the pumpkin patch on our Christmas card, but Marcie got brave (and got her face painted), so we probably won't this year. Still, it's not a bad photo of us:

We were invited to a fantastic bicycle birthday party in October. The kids made name plates and rode in a bike parade. One of the crazy things about October in Southern California is that you just never know if it will be freezing or we'll get a heat wave. Last week, it was in the mid-60s one day and then it hit almost 80 degrees the next. We got lucky most weekends, and that birthday party weekend was one of them. This is me and Casey getting goofy at the party (and it's not lost on me that I'm pretty lucky that Casey isn't embarrassed by me already, let alone that he will still act silly with me in public):

Casey picked out his Halloween costume weeks (and maybe months) ago. Marcie was less settled. At first she wanted to be a zebra. Eventually, though, she settled on a panda. She was adamant, though, that she did not want to be Kung Fu Panda because she wanted to be a girl panda. Finding a regular panda costume proved to be difficult. And taught me not to trust the pictures on the ads. Because the picture was of a regular panda costume. But what we got was a Kung Fu Panda costume. Which we modified by giving the panda a skirt to cover up the shorts and make it truly girly. I must admit, I was especially proud of Marcie when I arrived at her school's annual Halloween parade to discover that she was the only girl in her class who did not dress as a princess of some kind or as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Don't get me wrong- if Marcie had wanted to be a princess, I would not have fought her. It's her costume after all. But I felt a little bit proud that Marcie was more creative than that (and I'm sure it doesn't hurt that she's got a big brother for a role model around).

Here's me with Marcie at her class Halloween parade:

And here is Indiana Casey . . . I mean Indiana Jones and Marcie as a panda the weekend before Halloween, when we took them to a Parents' Night Out costume party (while we went to dinner and go-kart racing):

When the big day finally came (and it was a big deal- Casey counted down the days all week), Marcie decided she didn't want to wear her hood. Which was fine, because it turned out it was a pretty warm night. So we painted her face like a panda to match the costume instead. Jason and his dad took the kids trick-or-treating, and they had a blast. Here they are, just a little before the sun set:

Today, of course, marks All Saints' Day. Both kids dressed up as St. Patrick for church. I dressed as St. Clare, sporting my mother superior nun costume, which I used for a work costume contest (and won with!). And now these costumes reside in our costume box, where I hope they get plenty of wear and tear over the next 12 months.

As a side note, Casey is getting quite creative. Today, he stood at the front window and narrated what he saw across the street (a gentlemen visiting the girls who live there). The funny thing was that he used voices for the guy and what he anticipated the girls would say. And the window was open, so not only did Jason and I get a good chuckle, but I'm pretty sure the guy could hear the whole thing-- and laugh along with us, too.