Fall Break Fun

Because the school district I now work for is on the "balanced schedule," my students and the rest of the staff have been in school since the beginning of August. This means, however, that we received a nice break this month - 2 weeks right smack dab in the middle of October.  If only I always got to work 6 weeks and then have 2 weeks off!

One thing that my Fall Break did not include: extra sleep. :(  Nora has embraced the 7am wake up and does not seem to be swaying. Bummer dude.

Anyway, even though I'm just part-time and still at home as much as I am at work and can make weekday trips to the Children's Museum, playdates, etc., we still packed in Fall Break with lots of fun activities. In no particular order:

Check this out!

The finished products

- Pumpkin painting and carving: This was Nora's first encounter with pumpkin guts. She was hesitant about putting her hand inside a cold pumpkin (because we're the slacker parents who didn't go to the pumpkin patch but waited until the coldest day of the year to buy one at the local garden store), but exclaimed "yayyyyy" and "whooaaaaaa" over and over.  Eventually she came around to playing with the guts, but mostly tried to put it back inside the pumpkins instead of taking it out.

Hmm, this is interesting.

Finally getting into the good stuff (and look at those piggy tails! If only they would stay in for more than a couple of hours.)

- The Children's Museum with Alice (and Diane and BabyE): The new baby/toddler area is amaaaaazing.

They're going to form a band. They need another member whose parents are willing to give up their garage and peace and quiet. Any takers?

- The Zoo:

She's even making her monkey face. :)

Just hanging out with the dolphins

She looks so big in this picture.

- Two Halloween parties:

Happy Halloween! Love, The Waldos

She was already in her jammies by the time we took this picture, but she was a ladybug. :)

- Lots of playdates:

Lunch with friends (left to right): Hadley, Cruz, Nora, Jaxon, Joshua, Nicholas, Lincoln

Nora and her buddy Joshua

Me with my new bff, Connor

- A trip to Grandma and Papa Joe's house: She loves to visit family and always has a blast, and this time she even slept fairly well, which makes it much easier on me. We played a lot at their house, visited GG and Papa's house for lunch, the cousins' house for dinner, and even snuck in some shopping (for Mommy, who hasn't bought new work clothes since before she was pregnant...and the old ones that are still in style now have super pretty spit up stains).

Little monsters. (Nora borrowed Cam's costume so she could match Connor.)

Building blocks with Papa Ray.