To kick off the Halloween season, Sarah signed up for window painting this year and painted a lovely scene on the window of our hairstylist, Gisele.

On 10/26 Larchmont held the annual Ragamuffin Parade, here’s Sarah in her black cat costume with her friend, an orange cat.

The 5th graders at Chatsworth have an annual pumpkin decorating contest where the assignment is to decorate a pumpkin like your favorite literary character. Sarah said she has been hoping for years to make a dragon pumpkin from Wings of Fire, so we made it a reality! Out of a pumpkin, cardboard, and lots of masking tape. I especially loved Sarah’s idea to make horns out of pencils.

And here’s the finished project! For those who are WoF fans, it’s Qibli from the 10th book in the series. She won first place in her class!

That week the kids also carved their pumpkins.

And then on Halloween day Sarah walked in her last EVER Halloween parade at Chatsworth (sad) and then went trick or treating with friends.

Blaine decided to stay home to give out candy this year, and did an excellent job. Here’s one pic from the evening of a standout house we went to that had a full on Lord of the Rings theme, with a screen showing the eye of Sauron and everyone in full costumes. So cool.

After Halloween we booked tickets to see the Great Jack-o-lantern Blaze at the Van Cortlandt Manor. I’ve been meaning to go for years but always put it off since you have to buy tix in advance. This year we had plans to drive all the way to Ardsley to get the “Flumist” vaccine which is a nasal delivery flu vaccine. The kids loved it, anything to avoid a shot. We also got a beer at Captain Lawrence, and then got to admire the pumpkin displays at the Blaze. A fun way to cap off the holiday!

Happy Halloween!

Birthday week 2024!! For Blaine’s 12th birthday he wanted Walter’s hot dogs for dinner, and then after we accidentally ended up with too much cake because I got a small cake from the Snackery and Andrew picked up cupcakes. Oops!

For Sarah’s 10th birthday she asked for her favorite dinner – steak, baguette, and kale chips, and then for dessert she asked for fudge!! Which I had ordered from Murdick’s, her fave place in Martha’s Vineyard which is originally from Michigan. Plus some more cupcakes!

Sarah got lots of legos for her birthday, here she is with one of the first sets she assembled, a Ninjago dragon from Gram and Grandad.

On Friday we went out to dinner at one of Sarah’s favorites, bartaco in Port Chester. She really loves their roast chicken.

On Sunday we hosted the kids’ birthday parties at 5th Dimension VR — 3rd year in a row for Blaine! Last year we had one big party for both kids, but this year we decided to do them back to back. Sarah’s party was at 1pm, followed by Blaine’s at 3! It all worked out very well and much VR was enjoyed by all.

One last pic of Sarah in a wearable blanket she got from a friend!

There was something else for me to celebrate in October — our new paddle courts opened! We were able to launch our women’s paddle team as planned and had our first home match on 10/24.

The kids had two days off from school for Rosh Hashanah that happened to coincide with Aunt Molly’s performance of West Side Story with the Melmark Players, so we went down to PA for a few nights. On Friday morning we went out for brunch and then to see Valley Forge!

It’s a great site, the visitors’ center is fantastic with a wonderful movie narrated by Laura Linney! We learned all about Washington’s order for the army to be mass inoculated against smallpox, I feel like February 6 should be a holiday to celebrate vaccination.

The kids also enjoyed learning about the log cabins the army built to survive the winter. Lincoln Logs!

Then we did the drive around the site and visited Washington’s headquarters and saw some replica log cabins which slept 12 men each!

That night we saw Molly’s performance — it was awesome!

We also brought along C.A.H. so we could play with Uncle Fran!

I thought this was a hopeful sign of things to come but now it just makes me sad…

But then I look at this pic and it cheers me up.

We drove back to Larchmont on Saturday in time for Sarah’s soccer game that afternoon. Here’s a pic!

On Sunday, we went on our annual fall outing for pumpkins and a corn maze, and this year the farm we chose also had apple picking! We went to Fishkill Farms, which was SUPER crowded driving in but then once we got inside (we needed a reservation) it was very pleasant. Small corn maze, but that was fine with the kids.