Baxter

Emma's teacher told them about a special friend at the beginning of the year: Baxter the Bear. Baxter comes from Maine and the entire class waits for him to arrive to the school. They track his travels down the East coast and learn a special song about Baxter "the lovable bear from Maine". When he finally arrives, each child gets to take Baxter home for a weekend and then write about it in the class journal.

We had a turn with Baxter in November. Emma asked if we could take Baxter to Disneyworld but I had to explain to her that it wasn't quite possible! But even without Mickey, we tried to make it a special weekend. We started with going out to see a movie - something we rarely do. We watched The Care Bear movie in honor of our guest and snacked on Gummy Bears. Matthew and Ben came with us to the movies. Poor Ben - he isn't a big fan of the movies and this cartoon one was a little bit too pre-school even for me. But the kids loved it! We took Baxter out to lunch and shared ice cream with him too. On Sunday we dressed him up and took him to church with us. So although we didn't do anything too exciting, Emma had fun with him and especially enjoyed introducing him to all her other stuffed animals. We may be lucky enough to get Baxter one more time before the year ends. We will have to start planning what other fun things we can do with him!

Bringing Baxter to our house

Emma, Matthew and Baxter at church

Baxter meeting Emma's other animals

Eating Ice Cream!

At the movies

Family Halloween

Emma asked to be a witch this year for Halloween. I was hesitant to get her a witch costume since she usually wants to be something "pretty". Luckly I found a perfect Princess Witch costume on EBay that was a decent price. She looked perfect! Matthew was such a struggle last year. He doesn't like dressing up but since he has been so obsessed with dinosaurs lately I made him a dinosaur costume. It was really just a hoodie with spikes and a tail sewn on. I dyed it his favorite color (green) and since it was a jacket it didn't feel much like a costume. He kept it on all night and really enjoyed roaring to all the people we saw.

I was so excited because this year Ben could actually join us for Trick or Treating. He didn't have a game, he didn't have a competition, and he wasn't sick! I think this is the first time we all went door to door together as a family. It was such a wonderful evening.

We did our normal tradition and went to my wonderful brother's neighborhood in Marietta. Earlier in the week some of my Dad's family from Ecuador came to town. They really wanted to see how Halloween was celebrated in the United States and asked to come join us. It was a treat to have them tag along. They enjoyed seeing all the decorations and costumes.

The weather was much better than the rainy night we had last year and the cold night we had the year before that. In fact, at one point I even got a little too warm. We went our normal route but this year with Ben helping out we cut our time down a bunch. He would put Matthew on his shoulders between houses and would encourage the girls to rush to the next house. The usual 1 hour plus trip took less than 45 minutes!! Ben was such a good sport. I know Halloween really isn't his thing but he even dressed up. What a great Dad he is to our kids. I hope the entire family can do it again next year.

The beautiful Princess Witch

Dinosaur for Matthew and Skull for Emma
(They picked out what they wanted on their own)

Vampire and Dinosaur

My first semi-homemade costume