My week

What a great week!

I spent the early part of the week in Boston for a few days of training. The days were jammed packed with meetings and information, but every time I go for training, I walk away so inspired and stirred up with expectancy for great things. This trip proved the same.

We had some friends over for dinner on Thursday night.. one of our topics was the movie Food Inc. I haven't seen it, but hearing about it made me sick to my stomach. We have slowly been adopting more organic foods into our diet and less meats. Our conversation made me think more and we may go ahead and make the switch over. We have a brand new co-op opening up a few minutes from our place, so we are going to check it out and look into joining. I am on board with supporting local farmers and butchers, so I am excited to see what the Willy St Co-op has to offer.

Today I had my mom's group and it is always a delight to get together with these women. Seriously, I know many moms struggle with finding other mom friends, due to the competitiveness between parents. Not the case at all here. These moms are real and honest and I love being around them.

Besides that, I have been playing with Liliana, cooking, catching up from being out of town and catching up with phone calls to some friends.
Now, off to bed.

Halloween Candy

I remember as a kid, the Post Halloween Swap.

I would dump out all my candy and separate into piles:

Pile 1- Items I would promptly throw away, like those plastic spider rings.

Pile 2- Good candy, like Snickers or Reeses Peanut Butter cups

Pile 3- Candy I didn't prefer, but could possibly be used to trade at school the next day

Last night when we were trick or treating with the girls, we noticed that they were passing up the good candy and going for Pile 1 or Pile 3 stuff. So, we decided to coach them.

At one house I went up with Liliana and Lily's uncle came with her up to the door. In the bowl were a variety of items.

ME: "Liliana, look at the Snickers! Should we pick that one?"
LILIANA: "Sure". (In goes the Snickers).

LILY's UNCLE: "Lily, how about a Reeses Peanut Butter cup?"
LILY: "No." (She grabbed one of those round white and red after dinner peppermints).

We were cracking up at the end of the driveway when we told everyone else. Then it became this game to see what kind of candy we could get the girls to pick. We were scheming how to get the good stuff. Hilarious.

So, all to say- this morning we have our 3 piles. Fortunately we stepped in with our "candy coaching" in the nick of time last night to make sure we had plenty Pile 2 candies!

Trick or Treat

We had such a FUN Halloween! We went trick or treating with Liliana's friend Lily. Lily's aunts and uncles came with us too, so we had quite a crowd going from house to house.





We also made a stop to see our neighbor Betty Lou. She had gift bags for the girls for Halloween with books, candy and home made treats.








We ended the night with dinner and hanging out. Great Halloween!

My neck of the woods this week

This has been a good week. We had some friends stay the night with Liliana so that Chris and I could to go a bed-n- breakfast. Before she came along, we used to have a get away a few times a year. But since becoming parents, this is only our 2nd time to go anywhere for the night. It was so needed and we had a wonderful time together.

We had our family "Walt Disney night" watching the first half of Fantasia. Usually for family movie night we get in our pajamas and climb up in our bed and watch the movie together. I love being as a family and Fantasia was a great show to watch this week- it is basically classical music with animation, which we all enjoyed.



Last night we had 2 of our Chinese friends over for dinner. They cooked at our house and made some of the most delicious Chinese food I have ever eaten. We learned more about Chinese culture and history and it was such a fun time.

Today I have been doing laundry and getting some food ready for our Halloween dinner tomorrow. We are trick or treating with some other families and then having dinner together. I can't wait...

Fiesta Time!

Liliana goes to a Spanish immersion school one morning a week and one of her little friends invited the class to a birthday party. We went as a family yesterday.


I appreciate the Latin American community so much. The party was great. We met at a place called Pump It Up- they have huge inflatables for the kids to bounce and slide on. (They also let the parents join in and we had SO MUCH FUN!!)



Then all the parents and kids went to the party room afterwards for lunch and cake. Most of the kids who attended come from a bi-racial family and so we had a chance to meet several Hispanic parents yesterday. I would say in general this culture has such a gift of hospitality. They made us feel so welcome, fed us a ton and we left with such a warm feeling. It made us feel so good about the school community Liliana is part of and it was nice to have the chance to meet the other families and have fun together.

Now that Liliana is getting older, we are becoming more mindful of her community. I know this is just the beginning of a long journey of teaching Liliana to choose her friends wisely, yet also include people and show love to those who are not like her. So far, our daughter has many great role models and people in her life, so we hope it continues through the years.

Harvest Party

Yesterday we went to our annual Harvest Party. Here in WI they have FUN corn mazes. It is actually harder than you would think and takes at least an hour or more to get through them. We had so much fun finding our way through and dodging each other in "corn wars" from the kernels.



After that we had fun playing at the barn and then had a hay ride and bon fire. Perfect fall fun. I love this time of year and the fun traditions we have.

Uncle AJ's visit

My brother in law came to visit us for a few days. So much fun!

I am the youngest in my family, so it has been fun for me to have a brother and sister in law who are younger than me. AJ lived with us for awhile back in St. Louis, so I am particularly close to him and love him a lot.

I am not the only one.. my daughter is crazy about her Uncle AJ. She wanted to be next to him every waking moment. Uncle AJ is a big guy, but he the most tender person when it comes to kids, especially little girls. He had a princess purse and pony for her at the airport and spoiled her the entire time he was here.



I am so thankful for my family. I know often in laws don't get along, but I consider Chris' family is my family- 100%.