November 6 = Go to Charleston Day

We made it to North Carolina last night- it was pretty late and neither child slept for even a second.  There were a few minutes where I really thought Malia was going to doze off but she held on strong.  They didn't go to sleep until really late so I thought they'd sleep in but they had bigger and better plans.

Zachary and I left the kids with Pops and headed to Charleston.  It was so nice to be able to ride in the car together and listen to music and have conversations and we stopped to get food and were both able to go in instead of trying to communicate over screaming children who should go in and order what.  We went straight to the Citadel first and met up with some of Zachary's fellow classmates and stayed for the parade.  

After the parade, we went to check into our hotel.  It was amazing!  And we walked to a beach house one of his classmates, Patrick French, was able to borrow from one of his Dad's classmates.  It gets really fuzzy from there because I had a lot to drink.  That's all I'm going to say because I don't want any evidence to be used against me later in life when my children read this one day ;)

November 5 = Leave for NC Day

This week has flown by!  Today we dropped Liam off at the CDC and Malia and I met our friends, Amy/Evie and Ashley/Annie at the library.  Malia had fun dancing and walking around.  They had little egg shakers that Malia hoarded and towards the end when the lady leading the Babies in Bloom session had lots of toys out Malia started cleaning them all up- can you tell we have to clean up about 10 times a day?

Then we headed home and got a few things done before leaving again to pick up Liam and then we came home for nap time.  Thankfully, Zachary and I had gotten a lot of packing done the night before so I was able to take a nap too!  I didn't take too many pictures on the trip but here's one of Malia plugging her ears because Liam was shouting along with something on an iPad.

November 2 = Sit in the Chair Together Day

They both got in this chair without my help.  I'm assuming Liam helped Malia get up but I'm not sure.

I have been noticing lately that Malia really values her alone time.  Almost 80% of the time when I go in to wake Malia up, she's already awake; she's sitting her crib peacefully and looks like she's lost in thought.  So after that together time in the chair, she retreated to the red chair and drank her milk.

November 1 = Midshipmen Dinner Day

We've hosted a few midshipmen dinners at this point but today was exciting because Zachary's chief hosted it at his house- we were just responsible for a dessert.  So we enjoyed watching football and relaxing on this beautiful Sunday.  The cats had a good day too:

When we did head to Chief Sawyer's house, were greeted at the door by Rex and Malia was in heaven.

Then Emily and Ty helped entertain Malia- she loved this bean bag/couch thing.

And they had a chalkboard wall which both kids loved.

Soon after the midshipmen got there, Malia made it very clear that she was mad.  Mad about what, I do not know but she and I went to the car and I ate the dessert we made and she ended up falling asleep.  She gets tired when she's mad.  Once we got home, it was bedtime and Zachary and I enjoyed a night of catching up on some tv in our "adult cave" downstairs.

October 31 = Halloween

We had a fun Halloween!  We went to the gym and had our normal naps but around 5:30 we started preparing for some real trick or treating!  This little duck and Mr. Snoopy didn't look too thrilled but once we got outside they loved it.

One thing I noticed was most parents had drinks in their hands and I think alcohol was involved.  Liam did a good job of saying his version of trick or treat and Malia thought it was neat that she could just walk up to people and take things out of a box or bucket they extended her way.  We took the double stroller and the kids took turns sitting in it and walking and riding on daddy's shoulders.  We didn't last very long because it got dark really quickly but when we got back, we kept the kids in the stroller and gave them some of their candy while we handed out candy to other trick or treaters.  Then, we left the bucket outside and got ready for bed.  Liam still wasn't totally understanding the concept so I think next year will be even more fun!

October 29 = Trick or Treat Day

Today was an exciting day!  We got to go trick or treating at Bancroft Hall.  The upperclassmen have a tradition of trick or treating at the Plebes' rooms and so Zachary decided the kids should too!

I dressed both the kids in neutral clothes so that they wouldn't clash with the costumes.  But with neutral clothes on Malia I just had to try the headband again.  But this picture also shows her new favorite toy- this is a TOY pacifier.  There's hardly anything for her to hold on to with her mouth- I'm not sure how she does it- it's for a doll but she's decided it's for her.

Anyway- here are the trick or treating pictures!

He wasn't too enthusiastic about his costume before realizing wearing the costume earned him candy.

Remember the guy she was sitting with at the midshipmen dinner?  She found him again!

Poor Liam didn't have access to his hands so it took him a while to get candy out of the box

...and then he started crawling.  That got lots of laughs!

October 27 = New Recipe Day

First I need to share a picture of Liam.  I got him up from his nap and he had gone to sleep with his Redskins jersey on under a thermal gray shirt.  Well, he's been obsessed with this "football shirt" so during his nap, he wriggled that thermal shirt off as well as he could.  He didn't get it all the way off- he took the bottom of the front of his shirt and got it over his head.

Today was a late class day for Zachary so we had dinner on our own.  I try to pick easy dinners for Tuesday nights for this reason and I had recently watched a Pioneer Woman episode with a recipe on hamburger soup.  We had leftover taco meat from the midshipmen dinner so I just had to pick up some beef broth and veggies and made this delicious recipe.

I heated some up for Zachary when he got home and he was a fan!