Halloween

Halloween is so much more fun when you have a kid old enough to get into it.  Paige loved dressing up this year.  For the ward party she dressed as Minnie Mouse: 

She loved wearing the dress and the ears (and wears them around the house frequently).   My costume was a totem pole (I was one face, Quinn was the other face):

 Jake dressed up like PSY and had Gangnam Style playing from his phone the whole time.

It took Paige a couple of trunks to figure out what trunk-or-treating was all about, but she soon got the hang of it and LOVED it.

And of course since she loved trunk-or-treating she was super excited to go trick-or-treating on Halloween. Holly and her kids came with us.

Paige and Heidi dressed up like two little ladybugs:

Peter the mouse:

Paige would walk up to a house and say "trick-or-treat!" before even knocking on the door.

After just a few houses the two little bugs got a bit worn out, so Jake carried both of them home.  During the walk home they just looked at each other and kept giggling.

For days Paige has been begging to go trick-or-treating again.  She keeps saying: "when it's dark Heidi will come over, we'll both be ladybugs, and we'll go trick-or-trick again."   She's been struggling to grasp the fact that we just go trick-or-treating once a year.

Swearing In Ceremony

The last step in becoming a licensed attorney was for Jake to be sworn in to the Supreme Court in Virginia.  He went down to Richmond and participated in the ceremony. 

The ceremony itself was scheduled to take place on the day that Hurricane Sandy hit our area.  Absolutely everything was canceled that day EXCEPT the ceremony.  The federal government was all shut down, the government offices in Richmond were shut down, and even the Virginia Bar Association (the people hosting the ceremony) was shut down. But they didn't reschedule the swearing in.  I really wanted to go to the ceremony, but I didn't want to risk going into labor in a hurricane in Richmond so I stayed home. 

Richmond Trip

 Jake attended a CLE class in Richmond to get a certification he needed and Paige and I decided to go with him.  It ended up being pretty fun.  We left early Friday morning, pulling Paige out of bed and taking her in her pjs.  We dropped Jake off at the class and then Paige and I set out to entertain ourselves.  I decided last minute that I was going to go along so I had no plans and no idea of what to do while we were there.

We started off with breakfast at McDonalds:

And then spent the entire day at the Children's Museum of Richmond.  Paige was in heaven!  This museum was pretty awesome.  There was a TON for Paige to run around and play with and all I had to do was follow her.  The museum wasn't very busy, which made it even better.

Here are just a few of the things she did:

Digging for dinosaur bones (which later she described as "digging for dinosaur bums"):

 Sitting on a dinosaur (she looks terrified, but she was actually enjoying it):

Playing with one of these things (what are those called??):

You can make the hen "lay an egg" and it drops down (she did this approximately 800 times):

Posing in an apple tree (she's saying "cheeeese!"):

Painting in the craft room (again: "cheeeese!"):

Shopping in the little grocery store (my favorite part, mostly because I remember doing this when I was younger):

Planting and picking vegetables:

 It was a really awesome museum. Paige really loved it and begs me constantly to go back.

We stayed that night in a hotel, which was kind of disastrous.  Jake and I expected (for some reason) that Paige would fall asleep quickly around 7:00 (like she did every night we were in New York) and then we could read/watch TV/get caught up on work.  But that didn't happen.  She took hours to fall asleep, so we had to have the room dark and quiet until she was asleep.  Then around 3:00am she woke up SCREAMING and took another hour to fall back asleep (sorry, neighbors...).   Not quite the relaxing night we were picturing. 

The next day, Jake went to class again while Paige and I explored the public library.  Like most libraries they had an awesome kid's section, so we hung out there reading books and playing with the toys until it was time to go home.

Then Paige cried/whined pretty much the entire drive back.  Ugh. 

But other than the whining parts, it was actually pretty fun to get out of the house and see some place new.

Pass!!

After over two months of waiting for the results, we FINALLY found out... 

JAKE PASSED THE VIRGINIA BAR!!

We couldn't be happier or more grateful that he passed.  

Running Errands

Little Heidi spent the morning running errands with us.  It was great to have her along because she and Paige just giggled with each other and I could focus on the shopping.

Sharing the cart at Target:

The oh-so-loved car cart at Giant (bulky and hard to steer, but total worth it):

Holly's Here!

In a surprise turn of events, Bryan and Holly and kids moved out here!  They live approximately 1.5 miles from us.  We're so happy to have family SO close to us.  Paige and Heidi LOVE playing together, and are way cute when they get together.  They mostly just run around and giggle.  We wish more family lived close!

Bug at Breakfast

Paige LOVES to dress up and be a ladybug.  Often one of the first things she asks for in the morning is to be a ladybug.