Halloween!

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking on this post. Lia had a hard time picking a costume this year. Or rather, the costumes she kept coming up with were a little too hard for me to conceive -- like a minion from Despicable Me or a purple giraffe. She ended up going as a princess and she was perfectly happy.

This photo is from a stroller strides group I took pictures of. They hired me to snap some shots of their kids all dressed up in their costumes during their group time. Lia came along and even got to trick or treat a little.

The kindergarten classes at Max's school had a Halloween parade. It was really cute to see all the little kids dressed up in their costumes! Lots of transformers and Rapunzels this year.

(that is not Max in front, he's towards the back of the line).

 

I thought this was kind of funny.

After the parade Max's class combined with another kindergarten class walked through the park next door to the assisted living home (or as they told the kids, where the grandma's and grandpa's live -- Lia was slightly confused when she didn't see her Grandpa, Grammie, Mimi, Da or Papa there) to sing Halloween songs to all the old ladies and a few old men, too. They were ADORABLE singing and the old folks loved them of course.

 

And a class picture...

Then I had to snap a few photos of the kids in their costumes.

 

Of course she had to get in on the karate chop transformer action, too.

 

 

That weekend our church had it's annual Trunk or Treat for the kids. This is one of the best activities the church does all year. The kids have a blast getting to go trick or treating in a safe place, all contained to one parking lot and they get TONS of candy. They also had games and photo ops, too, but it was a little crowded so we stuck to the candy.

 

And I had to share one of the best costumes that night. She sat right in the middle of the parking lot chanting and spouting all kinds of occupy nonsense. We got a kick out of it!

Lia Loves Liang's

During soccer season this year with Max we pretty much had to eat out every Wednesday night. I definitely wasn't on top of packing some kind of dinner every week for us to picnic after his practices. His practices were at 5:30 on Wednesdays about 30mins from our house so it was kind of crazy trying to get there in rush hour traffic, entertain Lia for an hour in the cold (it would get dark and cold half way through). We survived and Max had a blast, but by 6:30 we were ALL starving.

Once in a while Tyler was able to meet us after work so we could get dinner together. On a recommendation from a blog and Yelp (best app ever) we found Mama Liang's Kitchen -- a Taiwanese noodle restaurant. It's a chain out of Northern California that serves yummy Taiwanese foods and soups with hand pulled noodles. The noodles are really thick and chewy. SO good! We really like this place. I'm sure there are better places, and since we aren't Taiwanese we don't know any better!

Well, Lia has fallen in LOVE with Liang's. Like, seriously loves it. We ordered beef noodle soup, beef pancakes, a special red pork and she devoured EVERYTHING. She couldn't get enough!! We tried giving her the soup and noodles separately so she could eat them easier and she insisted they go right into her soup like we were eating. She ate so much pork we though she would pop and she slurped up all that broth (which was slightly spicy) like she was famished. This girl LOVES Asian food! Her new love of Taiwanese noodle soup goes right along side her love of sushi and miso soup and rice and noodles.

Read about it here: http://kirbiecravings.com/2011/10/liangs-kitchen.html It's worth a visit if you are near Kearny Mesa!

My Husband's Pretty Sweet

I came home to this... yes, those are roses.

Random iPhone Photos

These posts are some of my favorites because I get to revisit all those photos I took with my phone while out and about. These are in no particular order.

Carpooling Fun

Lia discovers a new mom while out shopping. One with much nicer legs than her real mom.

Max has a special date with daddy for haircuts and ends up with a giant donut.

Funny signs in the doctors office while waiting to see the doctor for a cough that was unstoppable.

Beautiful San Diego skyline.

She wants to be just like her brother all.the.time.

A rare moment of loving one another. Okay, so they aren't that rare. It's just the last two days they've been much more nuts than usual.

Picture taken by Max after a workout (something that actually IS rare around here for me these days.)

Random car photos.

Me and the kids.

I have to say that this photo in particular sums up so much for me. It's one of my all time favorites. Their personalities are just shining through. Lia the goofy one. Max in the background holding on sweetly. Slightly blurry as we run through life here and there trying to catch up and be present. This photo IS motherhood to me.

I asked Lia to put the toilet paper away for me in the bathroom. I came in and saw a giant TP Tower.

Other random photos...

Picnic with puppy in the living room.

How we do Angry Birds.

Lia's perfect day? Watching all 3 Toy Story movies surrounded by every character.