Greetings!

First of all, let me point out that the pics posted have positively nothing to do with this post. I just thought they were humorous.

Friday night began our weekend of parties, with a shindig at our neighbors' home in the Halloween theme. Lucy donned her black kitty cat costume, and the boys went as a Clone Trooper Leader (Lou), and Darth Maul (Nolan).

Our neighbor is a fabulous party-thrower, and she had food and games set up for all. Lucy's favorite was the mummy wrap. Though rather confused at first, she quickly embraced the idea. When the first round was over, she happily volunteered for the next round, and then petitioned for yet another round by grabbng a roll of TP, handing it to Ed, and then turning around and waiting patiently for the games to resume.

I might also add, that Lucy is not phased by the scary Halloween items - rather, she is thoroughly amused. One of the party favors for the older kids was this melty-faced, crazy-haired, scary ghoul that screams when you press his belly. This had Lucy in stitches for the majority of the evening. She slept with it.

By the way, she has named her little Chinese doll, "Bubba".

Saturday night we celebrated Nolan's 9th birthday with a trip to the Drive-in to see High School Musical 3, and the 3 of his buddies spent the night. Lucy loved the drive-in. She brought her bin of plastic fruits and veggies for additional entertainment - but what almost-two-year-old girl needs that when she has 4 9-year-old boys doting on her? Honestly, you have never seen such attention showered on a kid - and she knows it.

Example: When the movie was over, the car wouldn't start, of course - this happens when you open each of the doors 48 times and leave the radio on (duh). So we had to ask the lovely people next to us to jump our car. It was late, and Lucy was clearly exhausted, and was wailing away in her car seat. In an effort to comfort her, Nolan employed distraction techniques with the plastic veggies, Alexander sang "Rock-a-by Baby" over and over again, Scott rubbed her leg, and Ben offered further suggestions. It was a late night.

Sunday found us at the Church Fall Festival, which was just lovely, as always. Lucy donned her black cat costumed, and was escorted to the event by Darth Maul and a Clone Trooper Leader. The cat costume is a hit, though I think she would have rather gone as Darth Maul. Nolan can't see really well out of the Darth Maul mask, so he took that off when we got to the festival (much to our relief, as it looked like we were bringing satan to the church function - which isn't much better than the ninja that looked like a terrorist last year, but I digress), and I put it in the diaper bag. Lucy kept pointing to the bag saying, "want want!". In an effort to figure out what on earth she wanted, I pulled everything out one at a time. When I got to Darth, she grabbed the mask and gave it a few little kisses, and a hug.

Go figure.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!