Trick or Treat

A lot of people around me say they don't celebrate Halloween or they're not much into Halloween. But Halloween was so much fun for us this year. Angela came to join our Halloween parade on Sunday. Ali came all the way from NYC to trick or treat and this was his first long trip ever.

Saturday I spent the whole day cleaning the house. It was well worth it even I was very tired at night. We need a motivation to do deep cleaning once a while. The longer we relax the more work accumlated at the end. Having a guest is always the best reason for us, lazy people to do cleaning, don't look at it as cleaning, look at it as excising. Anyway I was very happy to see a clean house. Last deep cleaning was in Janurary right before we went back to China. Time flies!

After a little last-minute shopping on Sunday moning, we welcomed Christine and Ali at Pittsburgh International Airport. It sure is a huge airport, we spent some time to find each other. Christine still looked the same, but Ali was totally different than last time I saw him. Las time I saw him he was in mommy's belly and now he is a 27 lbs big boy. We then had lunch at RoseTea Cafe. I got my favorite pudding milk tea, Sophia and Ali both had great appetite.
Brian, Hoda and Angela met us at the Blueberry Hill Park Halloween costume parade. We were a little bit late after changing Sophia and Ali. Angela wore mommy made angel costume, very pretty. Ali was a bear, yes, he's a bear, even without a costume. Sophia was a duck. I got her a duck costume because she makes "Quack, quack..." sounds all the time. But the size was a bit small. All three children got their numbers for the costume contest, Sohpia's number was "518", a lucky number, but didn't help her to win. None of them won. But each of them got a treat bag. Angela was very happy with all the candies in the bag and couldn't stop eating. Ali loves digging everything, bags, pumpkins. Sophia was all into sorting, she moved all the stuff from Ali's bag to hers, smart! The activities at the park were more for older kids and very crowded, too. The only thing that we had fun was horse riding, not really horse riding, it was wagon. It was the first time for Sophia, for me, too. We were all very exited. We also found out that Hoda is expecting their second! Congratulations!
After the parade, we went back to our house. Three children sure made our house full. Everyone was busy. Wzg and Brian was talking, I didn't listen, so don't know what they were talking about. All my attention was taken by the three little ones. They were moving around the toys to everywhere from family room. Hoda was cleaning up behind Angela, Christine was busy taking pictures, I was watching to make sure everyone stay in the safe area. You can imagine the whole scene. To make everyone relax, I decided to turn one TV and pop in the little people DVD. Sophia ran to her TV seat when she heard the music. To my surprise, not every child is Sophia, loves watching TV. Angela didn't care, she was still digging the toy box to make sure she checked out everything in there. Ali was still wandering around to look for cans, bottles. I felt so lucky that I found something that can grab Sophia's attention when I'm busy, but also worried about she got too much TV. Worry is always parent's job, never the end.
As usual, we went to the buffet for dinner, children had fun playing with turtles and running up and down the bridge. At the end of the first day, we had loads of fun but already tired.

Wzg was so kind to take a day off and drive us to the Simmons Farm on Monday. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. I've heard many good words about Simmons Farm from coworkers and friends, so we drove all the way for pumpkin patch instead of going to the farm close to our house. But I was a little dissapointed that it wasn't good as I expected. The hay ride to the pumpkin patch was fairly long. I didn't care much because the view was fantastic, plus the driver looked like "Mike" in "Desperate Housewife". Probably because it was early on Monday moning, there were not much people at the farm when we got there. Neither Sophia nor Ali wanted to explore the maze or fire truck slide. All they liked was driving the tractor. Pumpkin field looked ugly and was pretty picked over. We managed to get some pictures and headed back. Sophia and Ali started to have some interests to play after we were done with the ride. They played a long time at the farmer's market. Sophia sorted again, she sorted the big and small pumpkins, while Ali digging the apple baskets.

After having some fresh apples as snack we brought Sophia and Ali to the petting zoo. There were quite a lot of animals, goats, pigs, chicks, ducks. Goats are most aggressive, little black pigs are very cute. Sophia was "Ga, ga, ga..." all the time and she fed goats with daddy, too.
At the end of the day we went to the most popular place in Pittsburgh, Point state park and Mount washington. Sure Sophia and Ali weren't interested in the view, but the cable car looked fun to them.
The big day came, October 31st! We planned to go to Children's museum bright in the morning, go shopping at outlet after lunch, carve pumpkin before dinner, set off trick or treat at 6pm. The result? We didn't made any of them as planned, but we had as much fun.
As we have two little ones, we could never make on time. We arrived Children's museum at 10:30am, a little later than we planned but still good. Sophia still loved everything in the museum, especially the garage. This time Sophia "drove" the mini cooper for a long time. A new thing that I found out was that she likes to hug people. She tried to hug a boy in the nusery, she tried to hug Ali sometimes without me asking. This must be learned from daycare. She looks so sweet when hugging people.
After a short lunch we headed to the outlet.

When we were about half way to the outlet, it started to rain. Nothing
would be more difficult than handling two toddlers and shopping in the
rain. So we made a U turn and headed back to Ross Park Mall. I felt
much easier to do indoor activities. As always we bought the tasty
pretzels in the mall to help Sophia and Ali stay still in the stroller.  Can
you belive we ate four of them, they are tastier when buy one get  one
free. At the end we even had some time to spend in the playgound,  both
Ali and Sophia had a lot fun sliding.
When we got home it wasn't too late for trick or treating, but no way
we had time to carve the pumpkins, we gave up. Wzg was home early to
cook for us. But the weather wasn't coorperating. It rained all night.
But Halloween is once a year, we couldn't miss that due to rain. We
still dressed up Ali and Sophia and went out to trick or treat. They  are
both too youny to say the words "trick or treat". Sophia understood
that she got good things to put in HER basket though. She walked two
houses mostly by herself, but refused to walk anymore. I don't blame  her,
it was dark and wet. I carried her for another 6 or 7 houses and  was
totally exausted. We were back with a basket of goodies. Sophia  went
though everything, looked like she was counting, who knows if she  had
any idea of numbers, but at least she knew the more the better. Wzg  took
over and brought her out with stroller for more treats. When they  were
back, Sophia held her basket really tight and happy, not
even  willing to share with mommy. Because they were all hers.
Sophia started to understand the word of "mine". She acted like a
little cop, watching all of her toys and belongings. Whenever she saw
Ali got close or touched her toys, she moved really fast, yelling  "mine,
mine, mine", until she got hold of the toy. She even robbed a  piece of
sausage from Ali. Now she will say "mine" whenever she wants  sthing
from me. What a sign of growth!