After much anticipation and planning, Halloween has finally arrived. After many costume changes and trick or treating ideas, the candy gathering will finally begin.
Many Disney princesses , ghost, ghouls and unicorns were in the running; but a genie costume won the popular vote by the girls.
My wishes were granted
After a morning Halloween parade at Ava’s school, lunch, trick or treating in a small town in New Jersey on a bootiful fall day, I would say the girls had a fantastic day. This was just the beginning. The festivities would continue after dinner.
My highlight of the day was not only in the joy of seeing the girls receiving, but in seeing the giving spirit of Ava. We were walking to the next door to collect more loot when she asked where the beautiful music was coming from. I told her it was the man sitting on the ground playing his flute. Her and her mother walked over and placed money in the man’s flute case. Then she came back to us and asked if she could share her candy with him. I love her giving spirit.
We had our annual pumpkin carving party. Prior to the party, the girls came to the house to help me put out the pickings and prepare the dip.
I chose a dip that is easy to make so the girls could be hands on, not to mention. it is delicious and always a hit using very few ingredients.
We begin by adding the cream cheese to the casserole dish and microwaving it for a few seconds so it is easily spread.
Cream Cheese
Then we added the chili. We used canned turkey chili but you can use your own recipe, bean chili, beef chili etc. etc.
Next the shredded cheese.
Shredded Cheese-Hand washed
Next we added a “pepper spider” ( See if you can find the spider on the finished product) The girls worked really hard on putting him together. Microwave and serve with tortilla chips.
Hint – the spider is orange with a white kinda spider web.
May not look so good, but sure is tasty and spooky! It’s always a go to and always a hit.
This week we survived our annual pumpkin carving and decorating party. Ava and Liv decorated their pumpkins and, of course, won in their specific catagories….the four and five year old category and the two and three year old category. Both girls were happy with their prizes, lol dolls.
Here they are showing their prizes and their pumpkins
The adult children continued onto the pumpkin carving competition. There were two pumpkins per family. Mike and Ashley (Ava) and Gina and Ricky. You will notice there is one pumpkin short. I’m not naming names, Ashley, but Ava did help carve her family’s pumpkin for the first time this year and a fine job was done (can you guess which one) Ha Ha, Ricky they may pick yours.
Each family received a prize..not shown
A fun and filling night was had by all. I’ll post the pre dip making post separately.
Meet Tucker! He is the cutest little Doxie. We adopted Tucker from his original owner when she could no longer take care of him due to health issues. She held onto Tucker for as long as she could, but was pleased to give him to someone who would love him and keep him busy.
Tucker – I’m Innocent
Meet “paci”! “Paci” is one of Liv’s favorite things other than Tucker and her dogs, her sister, Lol dolls, fav princesses. You get it, she has lotsa favorites; but “paci” is high on the list.
It is almost time for the “paci” fairy to visit. I guess Tucker heard that and had ideas of his own. He was only trying to help. Needless to say, Liv was not very happy with Tucker!
Thanks to backups, Livie is happy again. She stands by Tucker being guilty. Guilty or Not? You decide.
The school assignment for this contest was to create a woodland mystical figure, describe it, name it, and tell what it likes to eat and what special skills it may have. Each grade will have one winner. The pressure is on for a kindergartner.
She is a Unicorn Fairy Gnome, her name is Rosabella PomPom, she likes to eat tomatoes and marshmallows and her special skill is she rides a bike really, really fast.
The night prior to judging, family and guests were invited to view the entries and attend a book fair. My daughter thought the judging would take place that night. Unfortunately, it didn’t and winners would be notified the next day over the loud speaker in the school. The teacher assured the parents the children loved this. We weren’t so sure Ava would take so well to not winning.
The next day at after school pickup. Ava’s teacher came over to the car to tell my daughter the good news, but she already knew by the big smile on Ava’s face. She won her school’s kindergarten prize. Congratulations, Ava. Good job
This is actually her ice cream dance, but I’m sure she was feeling it when she won.
One particular outing became an interesting day with my grandaughters and my daughter. We started out with good intention, but as always the day turned into a shopping spree.
After much decision on my daughter’s part as to where she should bring her car for servicing, (the good intention) she decided on the dealership. Yes, of course, I would pick her and the little granddaughter up from the dealership. The older granddaughter was dropped off at preschool earlier. Of course, I arrived at the dealership before my daughter.
After dropping the car, we decided to do a little shopping and lunch prior to picking up Ava at preschool. Of course, we were running late and, of course, we didn’t pick up the belt for her husband. The only request he had after agreeing to a large furniture purchase.
We picked up Ava from preschool on time. All secured in the car and feeling guilty about not picking up the belt for her husband, we decided we had to go shopping again. We owed him! Any excuse. Ready for checkout after quite the excursion, I, of course, asked if she had the belt. Mission accomplished. A good day, all in all.
I dropped them off and was in a rush as I had an appointment at the office. I stopped home to freshen up and no sooner received a distress call from my daughter asking if I could check my car for her wristlet. It contained her credit cards and gift cards. No such luck.
I told her to call the store to have them view their video camera for some hints. The store advised they could not do this without a police report. She proceeded to contact the local police and to explain her story. The police officer asked if she had checked everywhere as I also had asked. Yes, all checked.
The officer was so kind and offered to go over to the store to check the parking lot where she was sitting with the girls and the store’s video footage. He did ask about how long we had been in the store. She timidly replied about an hour or two. What?! Well it was a Marshalls. No questions asked by the officer only help offered. Kudos to our friends in blue.
Fast forward an hour. Ava wakes from her nap and her mom tells her she’s lost her wristlet and had to call the police. She began to laugh. Hmmm, can’t figure why she would laugh. A few minutes later after going to the bathroom without having someone go with her which in itself is odd for her, she comes out with the wristlet. “Look what I found” We will never know if she just happened upon it and had been sitting there the whole time or if Little Miss Ava napped with it on her wrist.
Lesson learned, check with your child before calling the police. Lesson two, if you call the police be sure to make your trip short so two hours of footage are not recorded. Lesson three, Gia should not be taking pictures of her granddaughter in her newly styled hat and sunglasses.(Picture above) Sorry, couldn’t resist.
After much angst over the lost wristlet, it turned out to be a good ending for us, but not so sure about the officer but, hopefully, we added a little levity to his day. Thanks again for the people in blue.
There is always an opportunity to teach a child mindfulness and the meaning of teamwork. As you know form previous posts,  I am a grandma (they call me Gia) of two beautiful girls, two and four at the time of this lesson.  Ava is now five and, of course, too old for a nap.Â
At times, situations escalate from calm to chaotic faster than you can get your pedal to the metal of a Maserati. Sometimes a Gia can intervene in these situations and teach small lessons.
All three of us were sitting on a glider being silly singing made up songs. Rocking and singing to the beat of our newly created music when out of the blue someone, I don’t point fingers, but it was the little one beating to her own drum. I usually encourage individuality, but we started gliding into the wall. At first, I thought it was an accident  My older grandchild decided to grab her sister by the shoulder to stop her. The younger one yelling at operetta heights (there’s a career choice) and swinging like Babe Ruth (another one), I knew the situation was escalating quickly. I simply took both girls into my arms and separated them. Okay, you called me out. It wasn’t quite that easy, but I persisted. I explained we could be swinging and singing if we rock our bodies in unison and if we used teamwork. It worked and eventually the girls were sleeping in my arms. I did have an ulterior motive.
These two little cuties experienced a whirlwind weekend as their Uncle Rick married his beautiful bride, Gina. Congratulations to Ricky and Gina. May you live the life you always dreamed.
As I said, it was a whirlwind fun filled three days. We went from nuptials on Friday to rehearsal dinner on Saturday to the actual wedding ceremony and reception on Sunday.
These two were beautiful additions to the wedding.Â
These little ones survived all the fun and festivities, late night parties and all their dancing at the wedding and I mean non stop.  They held their composure through most of the time despite having colds and their lack of naps.
All was well until our sensitive Ava realized Ricky now had two families and would have to be shared. Gina has been in Ava and Liv’s lives for over a year. As inferred and written in previous blogs, Ava is really in tune to the dynamics of a situation. There was a shift and she did not like it. She did not take well to this. Alivia just went with the flow. Â
I took Ava and met up with Rick who assured her that he would always be there for her and will always be her Uncle Rick. Gina came to where we were and picked Ava up and gave her a big hug and kiss. All is well with Ava for now.
Lesson learned…Life changes can be hard but also good.
Again, Congratulations Rick & Gina. Enjoy your honeymoon.
