Happy Halloween!

Halloween is a very serious holiday in the Hsieh home. Ava talks about what she's going to be all year. Her ideas are very innovative, ranging from a toilet to an ice cube to every animal she can name. I don't even try to narrow it down until a couple weeks before the actual day because I know it's going to change. This year she stuck with bird for quite a few months and luckily her fabulous Tia Christy had one on hand that she mailed to us. Ava loved it and so we found a dress and made some wings and we were ready to get ourselves some candy. Even Ben and I got into the spirit with Waldo and Cruella Deville costumes. ( I made sure there was no photographic evidence.) Unfortunately for Ian, he still cannot articulate what he wants to be for Halloween and therefore has to wear Ava's leftovers. But at least I didn't stick him in a princess dress.

Ava getting ready to leave for her school party

Shake your tail feathers

Here pretty birdie!

These are her best school buddies, Landon and Blake. Doesn't she look like one of the boys? :)

Ava got to design her pumpkins this year and Ben did a great job bringing her vision to life

Trick Or Treat!

Ian checking out his loot

Hoarder

Ian's personality is definitely coming into its own these days. He is such a funny and sweet little guy. One of his many quirks is that he is super protective of his stuff. If you come anywhere near his, 'bapo' (backhoe), 'da tu' (garbage truck), or 'du tu' (dump truck), he will scream in glass shattering tones. He carries his precious cargo from room to room to his highchair to the car and up to his crib. I feel kind of sorry for him. It must be tough to have an older sister who can articulate her every thought when he can't put two words together. I'm sure he views his traveling caravan as a necessity. And until he can say, "This is my dumptruck so please don't take it," I'm going to let that boy bring every mode of transportation wherever he pleases. As long as that happens before the third grade, then I'm drawing the line.

Catching up

After uploading 161 photos I'm realizing that I'm a little behind in my updates. I've been somewhat distracted by soccer parties, bird costumes, and fish party planning. But before I get to any of that I wanted to share about a family adventure we took a few weeks ago. We headed out into Mt. Hood National forest to hike up to a lake, but they were repaving the road and we couldn't get through. So an hour into our adventure we had to start over. Ben thought we were close to a hidden floating bridge that took you across the Clackamas River. We asked around and found out that you had to hike down a paved road for about a mile. What we weren't told was that once you got there you had to scale down a cliff while clinging to a cable imbedded in the ground. We all made a valiant effort (except Ian who opted to sit quietly and drool) but only Ben succeeded in actually getting onto the bridge. Someday we will try again and maybe even jump in to swim. I have a lot of somedays building up. Here's a glimpse of our journey.

Ava's list of birthday ridiculousness

Apparently my nearly five year old has too much time on her hands as she has constructed a very extensive birthday list for herself. Here are the highlights:

Pink sparkly shoes

Tinkerbell costume

Tiana costume

Sleeping beauty shoes and fake earrings

Tinkerbell shoes

Rapunzel costume

Tinkerbell figurines that comes with her friends too

Fake computer

Mini-Van

Real Pet Unicorn, please, please, please!

Fifty Dollars

Tinkerbell books

Pinkalicious Book

All of Tinkerbell’s friends costumes

Toy horse

Real horse

Horse Pillow Pet

Swingset

Ok, so I am slightly embarrassed to admit that early on in her young life I discovered a way to avoid tantrums at any and every store that carries toys, candy, and sparkly things that catch her eye. I simply tell her that she can put it on her birthday list. Luckily, she's always been so thankful to receive anything that she forgets Mama didn't wrap up 'the entire Disney store' and deliver it to her in her new mini-van. I'm banking on the fact that by the time she realizes 'put it on your birthday list' means she's not getting it, she'll be past the phase where she screams, "I hate you," runs into the Sears store and hides in the optical center until found and spanked and then caged in the car like a wild animal until Mama regains her composure enough to drive home. You know, just hypothetically speaking.

It's my party and I'll...have an under the sea theme in the middle of October...if I want to!

We are in full party planning mode around these parts and after careful deliberation Ava has decided on a sea themed birthday. Well, I thought, it's better than unicorns (her choice two months ago), or sparkly flairy (her idea last week....as a side note, a flairy is a fairy that cannot fly because it has had a spell placed on it by an evil queen.) I'm sure the seven boys coming to her party will appreciate not having to come dressed in a tutu or wearing a prosthetic headpiece. I thought that surely Party City would have something under the sea themed on their shelves. I was wrong. That is something they only carry in the summer. So it looks like Mama is going to have to get creative and paper mache her own octopus pinata this year.

I will say that I did have a tiny bit of fun making her invitations.

Now with 12 kids and all their families coming it's time to work on the menu.

Early fall fun

Last weekend we headed into Canby for our annual trip on the pumpkin train. Ava wanted to wear her bird costume, so we put Ian in his owl costume and headed out. We ate caramel corn, went to the petting zoo, climbed the maze, and took pictures. I don't even think it rained, so all in all it was a great day. Although after the ticket lady told me that my daughter (Ian) made a beautiful Indian Princess, I might have to rethink his costume.

We love library day!

Nurturing his sensitive side with a quick Pinkalicious read through

There's nothing quite like finding the book AND the movie

Mama makes sure we only check out classic literature

Yay for new books!