october-festivities

The fire fighter and the sparkle fairy riding the unicorn are ready for some candy.

Whoo! Well where did that month go? We were on the road for most of October, at the beginning of the month in Alberta, a trip which mostly was lame; and the end of the month Wade and I were in California for some meetings with our really good friends and then we went on a 4 night Mexican cruise which ROCKED. Man, I really love my husband.

The transition home has been pretty rough for Eleanor. She seemed to do well while we were gone, but when we came home she was clearly terrified we were leaving again. She has been better over the progressive nights, but she is still not back to normal, so we'd love prayers for that, and that there would be no long-term fears or wounds from us leaving her for 10 days. I have figured out since we had kids that how long we go away for, that's how long it takes us to recover, so I have tried to mentally prepare myself that it could be at least 10 days before things settle again. We're on night #5 tonight - half way there?

We had fun with the girls yesterday, dressing up for Halloween, going to our local mall for train rides, trick or treating and supper. We stopped by Stu and Jacqui's t see their new place (AMAZING) and Soph tried T or T'ing at two houses in their new 'hood, which she called "darking" because she was out in the dark. That was about enough for her. She got a bad scare when she was 2 which she still remembers so we have gone with well-lit activities. She LOVES to dress up so much it seems cruel to deprive her of the process, which was clearly the best part. My brother was with us and videoed the whole thing, which was precious. Here are a couple of clips below:

Soph: "Come on, Mat! Let's go on the Spooky Train. All of the pretend stuff is... all of the spooky stuff is just pretend!"
Nori (off camera): "Candy! Candy! Candy!"

Soph:"This is such a pretend. All of this stuff is pretend. This is just pretend, ok? This is very pretend."
Nori: (Rough translation) "Noone told me that Mum would not be on the train. OOO wow. Wait. Where is Mummy?