Trick or Treat!

We had quite the adventure yesterday.  We had swim class in the morning, went to the church festival around the corner for a little bit, had lunch, and then took off to Balboa Island to meet our friends Lili and Josh and their kids Oliver and Austin.  Oliver and Jayden are buddies, and Jayden spent most of yesterday saying "I just really love to see Oliver."  And luckily Lili and Josh are way better at Halloween than Carmen and I are, so we had a pretty good time.

I made a few Halloween treats for lunch - mouths (apple slices, peanut butter and marshmallows) and broomsticks (pretzel sticks, string cheese and chives).

She's a WILD one!

Sitting up checking out the giant basketball.  :)

We met Lili, Josh, Ollie and Austin for dinner on Balboa Island (which is in Newport, right where Carmen used to live when he and Alex lived together).  We had a good meal and then set off to trick or treat.  The appeal of Balboa Island is that the houses are about 12 inches apart, so you can hit up SO MANY houses in a pretty short amount of time.  Here are some pictures:

The crew: Koalas, Witch, Kylo Ren (the villain in the new Star Wars movie), Darth Vader and Yoda, Michelangelo and Donatello

Donatello, ready to get his candy on.
Poor kid could barely see through his mask, so we had to guide him up and down stairs.  He stuck it out for quite a while, but once it started getting dark, we finally convinced him to take it off so he didn't break any bones.

Sunset.  Not a bad view for Halloween.

The boys: Donatello and Kylo Ren.  So cute.

The Grahams.  

The Wallaces.
(I know the tutu doesn't fit - it was just something fun to wear!)

Some of the houses seriously went all out for Halloween.

One of the "treats" was vampire teeth, which we clearly had to try on when we got home, even though it was late.  So cute!

It was a good night, although a little hectic.  Jayden had a great time, and was worn out by the time we called it quits.  And because we started so early, we actually got to call it quits by like 8 pm, maybe 8:30 pm.  Halloween on a Saturday is an adventure, because it gives the adults a reason to go all out too.  :)

And then.  Time Change.  Seriously?!?  Seriously.  Do we really need time changes anymore?  I feel like there are enough parents out there we could start a movement to abolish the time change.  I slept poorly anyway, and Jayden actually "slept in" until 6:30 (the new time), and wasn't terribly grouchy all day either, but it was still hard.  And Jayden just barely went to bed.  So tomorrow might be ugly.  Dakota was a hot mess all day today.  She spent a lot of the day fussy and tired.  I did get her one really good nap in her crib (something I'm really trying to focus on since she has to nap in a crib at daycare).  She went to bed relatively easily, so I'm hoping she gets some rest tonight.

She was mostly calm when we were outside.  This is us at soccer class.  She's wearing a tutu onesie from Gigi's friend Ms. Stephanie.  It's adorable.  I should have known pink would be her color - only because I was doing whatever I could to avoid overwhelming pink!  Oh well.  I'm still going to buy lots of non-girly colors, but I'll throw a pink shirt in here and there, I guess.

And tomorrow it's week two of daycare.  I'm pretty much dreading every Monday from now until forever.  I mean, clearly, it will get better, and probably quickly.  But work is completely uninspiring right now, home life is hard, and I just feel like I can't do anything well.  I'm even trying to do things at work to be inspired, and I just can't pull my head out of the sand.  And at home, I'm doing some things okay (I was pretty proud of the Halloween treats, and Jayden and Carmen liked them, so I felt good about that), but I just can't clean out our guest rooms and I can't get certain other things done that need to get done.  Part of it is time, and part of it is motivation.  On days like today I just want to curl into a ball and hide from the world.  But with two kids and work to go to tomorrow, that's just not going to happen.  I'm thinking maybe 2033 I'll get a chance to hide for a couple hours?!?

Hope everyone's Halloween was wonderful, and, considering how quickly the next two months go, Happy 2016!