Oh-Bla-Di

Although it’s never really been “our” holiday, Halloween was big this year.  The question of who Ava would be has been a topic of discussion for months – it was a never ending, never repeating sequence of princess titles.  We ended up doing something generic out of her dress up bin and let her call it whatever she wanted.  Matt and I spent a good while talking about who we would dress up as well.  At least all the effort and though wasn’t wasted.  With all the festivities, Ava ended up wearing her costume three times!

Friday morning, Ava’s school hosted a Halloween parade.  All the kids showed up in their costumes and then marched around the hallways for the other kids to see.  Even though we don’t go to school on Fridays, Ava got to go participate in the parade.  Matt and I were there to watch, too, so that was fun for all of us.

This girl LOVES a parade.  They do them often and they really make her day!

Here’s Ava with her teachers.  She has such a good time with these ladies!

Friday night, the Hoffmans hosted a Halloween costume party at their house.  It was a really good time and, this time, we all got in on the costume action!  As I mentioned before, Matt and I have become huge Dr. Who fans lately, so we dressed as The Doctor and his companion, Rose Tyler.  Ava reprised her role as a princess and Noah dressed as a glow-in-the-dark bag o’ bones.

Right on schedule, then, we finally got around to carving our pumpkin on Saturday afternoon.  Matt drew up several pumpkin faces for Ava to choose from and she settled on a standard Jack o’ Lantern.  Can’t argue with a classic, right?

Even Noah wanted in on the pumpkin carving action!  (Funny side note, his class at school carved a pumpkin also.  His teachers said he wasn’t really interested.  Ha!)

We collected all the seeds and roasted them since Whoozers said she wanted some.  When they were done and we offered them to her, she wasn’t the least bit interested.  Go figure.

Sunday night, we got a surprise visit from the Hoffmans just as we were getting ready to go trick or treating.  It was great because we were able to get a couple of photos of all the kids and then walk our block together gathering candy.

Ava had been practicing the sequence of trick or treating events all week in her mind and, by the time we got to the third or fourth house, she finally had the knock on the door, say trick or treat, and say thank you sequence down pat.

All in all, it was a successful Halloween.  We got rid of all our candy since Matt is a generous hander-outer and are down to just the little bit Ava gathered in her adventures.  That’s a good thing, since Matt and I have had candy bars for dinner a few too many times lately.  We’re very ready to head into the Thanksgiving/birthday/anniversary season now.  November is really our month.  Can’t wait!

We hosted a pool party/barbeque for the Fourth of July again this year.  Being the folks with the pool when it’s 105 degrees outside makes us the natural choice for putting this one on.

We had a great group of folks to celebrate with this year, including Kevin F. and his wife Cara who were visiting from Tucson.  The Belchers brought their new-ish puppy, Troy, with them and he and Libby had an interesting time getting to know each other.  The eventually settled down and got some sleep so that we could enjoy the parties!

The weekend ended up being rather gourmet, as we tried out a few barbeque recipes we had picked up during our stay in Texas.  We had grilled corn on the cob and Ava actually tried some!

Our resident firecracker was ready for the party early in the day.  Whoozy really loves to throw parties.  Can’t believe how big she’s gotten in the last year.  In case you need the comparison too, here’s last year’s photo.

As good as our meal was on the third of July, the menu for the Fourth was amazing.  Matt spent all afternoon cooking and smoking ribs and then we had, as sides, PW’s Mac & Cheese, baked beans with real bacon, pico de gallo, guacamole, & bacon-wrapped pineapple bites. For dessert, we had homemade vanilla ice cream, apple pie, & cupcakes.  We also had homemade strawberry ice cream that I made as an experiment and, oh boy, that was awesome.  Needless to say, no one walked away from the party hungry.

During the course of all the eating, we did find some time for some swimming…

…and, after a short break to eat dessert & wait for it to get dark….

…some fireworks.

People a couple of streets over were lighting some really big fireworks, so we got a pretty good show when all our sparklers ran out.  They didn’t know it, but our stranger neighbors had a very appreciative crowd sitting in our driveway.

Because of other major events coming up in our world soon, we’re at the end of our summer party season.  It was great to wrap it up with such a fun event!  Thanks to our friends for joining us….we’ll plan to do it again next year!

This post is weeks late, but its tardiness doesn’t reflect any lack of love of our Daddy around here.  Ava and I were excited to celebrate Matt with a relaxing day for Father’s Day (packing for a trip, doing laundry, and crazy doggie errands is relaxing, right?).  We got up and had some yummy coffee cake and coffee for breakfast and followed those treats up with some crafty gifts.

The first was just a little something to help our resident superhero remember that it’s ok to come home when he’s working so hard to make the world just as it should be.

And the second was to let him know that, no matter where he is, he is loved by all of us at home.

Lots of love to you, Matt, for Father’s Day and every day that you make our family complete.

I’ve mentioned here before that, in the Webb family, our two major holidays are Christmas and Memorial Day.  We don’t generally make it to Kansas for Christmas as we’re a little more pressed for time around that part of the year, but we’ve been trying to make it back for Memorial Day the last couple of years.

Last year’s visit seemed particularly poignant since so many things had changed about the place and our family.  This year, though, it seemed that we had settled into a new normal – accustomed to a new place, our new hosts, but preserving all those traditions that make the day so special.

As usual, we gathered at the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in the morning.

Maybe it seems strange to others, but I love that Whoozy thinks of this place as just another place to have fun and enjoy company and the outdoors.

The little girls of the youngest generation always seem to fall right back into step and become fast friends again each time they see each other.  The older girls watch out for the younger girls and they all play really nicely together.

This year, Ava not only had little girls to play with but also a new baby boy cousin and a baby kitten to love on and snuggle.  She tired of holding baby Blake fairly quickly, but sat and held the kitten for nearly an hour.  In spite of Larry’s best efforts, we didn’t come home with a new pet.

We spent all afternoon gathered in a circle, eating and visiting, telling a few new stories and several old ones.

Before we left for the day, we managed to wrangle the little girls for a picture and even got a shot of their mamas.    It’s hard to believe that these little  girls have changed so much in a year.

Their pretty mamas, of course, haven’t changed a bit.  

Thanks, Webb Family, for another great get-together and thanks to Pat & Larry for hosting all of us year after year.  We’re looking forward to next year’s picnic!

We’re off on one of our family trips this summer.  We flew, rather than drove, to Kansas this year, so we prepared for the trip a little differently.  A couple of iPods, a few episodes of Little Einsteins, and a digital copy of Star Trek, and we were in shape.

This was such a great traveling experience, in spite of the illness that took over our house in the couple of days leading up to it. We had plenty of layover time to enjoy a casual lunch at Chili’s in the airport and a cooperative toddler the whole time.  Keeping our fingers crossed that our adventures in Kansas keep Ava busy enough to be tired and cooperative on the way home too. 

More about our adventures coming soon!