Katie's First Sleepover!

I have been telling Katie that she could have her first sleepover when she was 10 ~ but we only made it half way there. Yep, at the tender age of 5, Katie spent last night over at her good friends house for her first official sleepover!! Not only is this the first time that she has slept at a friend's house, it is the first time she has slept away from the house at all without mom and/or dad. On top of that, she has only slept 2 nights away from us in her whole life, and that's when she stayed home with Nana and we went away for one night at a time. WOW!!! So - here's the story.... Last week Katie went over for a play date and when I went to pick her up they asked if she could come over for a sleepover this weekend. Since they are good friends and they also live in our neighborhood, I said I would think about it. From the moment Katie got home from their house she was asking when she could go have her sleepover. She also was insisting that she wanted to stay at their house for 4 days. As if 1 night isn't hard enough for mommy! So, when the weekend arrived, the conversation we had with Katie was so cute that I have to record it as it happened:

Mom and Dad ~ Katie, come over here, we want to talk to you about staying the night at (friends) house.
Katie ~ I know why you want to talk to me. You want to tell me that if I stay for 4 nights then you will miss me and that you will need my help, so it's ok, I will only stay for 1 night.
M & D ~ OK, that sounds good (trying to hide our laughing. We then told her she needed to go to take a rest if she wanted to stay the night at her friends house.)
Mom ~ So, what do you want to do? (Meaning, do you want to stay the night at your friends house? are you nervous? Are you willing to go take a rest? etc.)
Katie ~ Well, I really want to stay for a couple of days.

Hmmm, I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that she was so anxious to get away! :) Of course, I called once that night to find out how it was going, and it turns out that at 8:45 Katie climbed into her sleeping bag and said she was pretty tired and wanted to go to sleep. The fact that I wanted to call 100 times is irrelevant isn't it???

After a very successful night at her friends, Eric went to pick her up - at which time she told him, "I didn't miss you at all. I actually forgot all about you." Nice!!! And I was so worried!!!

"This is the best Halloween ever!!"

Our three little cuties ready to head out the door!

According to Katie, this year we had "the best Halloween ever!" I have to admit, it was a pretty good one! Katie and Aidan are both at really fun ages for holidays ~ they understand that it is a special day, get excited about it, and are still so completely innocent and cute in their pure excitement!

Katie's Halloween started off with a "Harvest festival" party at Kindergarten. They got to try to eat apples off a string (kind of like bobbing for apples without the watery mess) and get their face painted. Although the Kindergartners couldn't dress up, the older kids got to parade through their classrooms all dressed in costume, so Katie got to see her friends that are a few years older ~ especially Payton, Raydon and Lauren.

The festivities started at our house a little before dark and the kids could barely contain their excitement long enough to get dressed! Katie was an angel, Aidan was spiderman and Mylie was a ladybug - I think they all were super cute! :) We even got to trick-or-treat with cousin Jacob, who was a darling lion. Both Katie and Aidan had so much fun trick-or-treating that they didn't want to come home, but thankfully decided they were tired in enough time to make it all the way home walking themselves - a big improvement over last year! :)

The whole gang - Katie, Aidan, Mylie and cousin Jacob

TJ - the Halloween witch - poor dog! :)

Katie showing off her face painting from school - Mylie sure liked it!

Daddy, Katie and Aidan making the Halloween house

The finished product ~ thanks Nana for the fun house!