.: It’s like taking candy from a baby…

Annabel had her 3^rd birthday on the 30^th of October, so we were baking cupcakes and muffins for 3 days before. The school is every strict about what you are allowed to send to school for parties, so the cupcakes were for home J We let Annabel decorate half of them…BIG mistake! Have you ever seen a 3 year old in charge of icing, sprinkles and cupcakes? In the end it was voted (mainly by me) that Annabel decorated cupcakes were to be consumed by family only as I cannot guarantee how much little girl spit and fingers ended up on them!

Braden, AJ and Finn looking as cute as ever!

The next day was Halloween which as you know is a big deal here, so Annabel dressed up as a pink princess, Braden as an elephant and Finn as a lion (my little bush babies ha ha) and true to their characters Annabel pranced around in her silver little girl heels, Braden sat with his big cheeks, blowing bubbles and chilling and Finn cried like a fierce lion! Dave had a halo alice band on while blonde haired Amanda wore a pitch black wig! I dressed as Robin (in the) hood, and had on tights and a bow and arrow set.

Princess Annabel

Lion *Finn* and Elephant *Braden*

We went trick or treating which was really fun (although do I need to mention again…cold) After walking one block we decided that it was too cold for the boys to be out, after a few more blocks Dave decided to re-join us with some wine, not quiet OBS but hey, when it’s that cold - does it matter? Once we had finished our drinks and our hands were moments from falling off we headed home, but this girl was not satisfied with the candy collecting ability of a 3 year old decided to head out alone, but knowing that it may look a little weird I figured I had to join up with some youngens so I would look like the caring big sister… So I walked outside and saw a group of 3 like 12 year olds (a tooth fairy, hippie boy and sumo wrestler) and ran after them, and laid out the plan they had to come with me…at first they thought I was crazy but in the end it was pretty fun, every time they walked past a house I was like “hey wait we didn’t go there yet!” After walking a block or two I bid farewell to my surrogate brothers and I headed home. It was more for the experience than the candy, and it was pretty fun!

My cute little candy collecting container

The girls (my au pair friends) and I headed out that night to a place called Buckheads, it kind of reminds me of Tavern J We had a really good night meet some crazy characters! Then to top it all off, we were going into to daylight savings time, so I was getting so confused about what the real time was!

The witch *Rieke*, German girl *Nadine*, Robin hood *me*, Horror Cleopatra *Tamara*, Pippi longstockings *Anna*

The Sunday November 1^st , meant waking up early (after a late Halloween night) because my host mom was called back to Philadelphia to testify in a court case. They paid for her and I and the boys to fly to Philly and for our hotel for 3 days. Amanda’s parents live in New Jersey which is pretty close so they drove up every day to see the boys which gave me some time off to explore the city.

The Sylvester Stallone Statue by the Art Museum, PA

The World (meaning America and Canada ha ha) Baseball Series was going on and the Phillies were in the final against the New York Yankees. (They play up to seven games, but it is the first team to win 4 games that takes the series…I think that’s how it works?) Well the atmosphere was really fun because of the hype around the games, unfortunately the Yankees won the series, but we were already back in Milwaukee by then.