Today it literally rained cats and dogs outside for several hours this afternoon into the evening. The streets were flooding and the street corners everywhere were like swimming pools from all the downed leaves clogging up the storm drains.

Trick-or-treating was going to prove interesting this year, that's for sure!

We did a modified cupid costume for Bean taking the weather into account. She is an angel pony, now.

Lulu was still her ghoolish ghost but got drenched after we started walking in the neighborhood. Fortunately her drenched appearance only helped the costume and her desired effect. The downside, was she was understandably wet, cold and miserable. 

We cut the trick-or-treating short because of the miserable weather and went to much fewer houses than in years past. I whipped up a batch of hot chocolate for the girls once we got home and they were changed in to dry clothes. Lots of marshmallows on that hot chocolate!

Earlier in the day, Eddie outdid himself with the pumpkin carvings. So incredible!

He also put in "spooky eyes" and lights in the dormer windows in the attic. They looked amazing!!!

We didn't do Spookarama last year because Eddie and I went to Seattle for our anniversary. This year, we went.

Even though I'd made Lulu her Stampy Cat costume for ComicCon last month, she wanted to go as something different for Halloween.  I told her she was on her own then. This white dress has gotten more use than I could have ever imagined in Lulu's hands.   She wanted to be a dead ghost girl so she cut and sewed the "blood" on her costume herself. She made her own "knife" from cardboard and tinfoil. 

I told her I would do her make-up for her, though. 

Lulu is hamming it up it up in these pictures, but she also hammed it up to full effect to the teachers and the parents of her classmates once inside, doing her best gruesome and maniacal stares.

I dressed Bean up as Cupid, which was super easy and so appropriate. Her costume was as big of a hit as Lulu's was.

Two years ago I saw a group open for Mike Doughty called Moon Hooch. They were awesome! Well, they came back to Portland to open for another musical act this year so I bought tickets to see them, again. (Eddie missed them the first time, he had been out of town for work during that show.)

Moon Hooch put on a great show, once again, though I thought their show two years ago was just a little bit better.

We left before the main act as we were there to see the opener.

When we were on our honeymoon in Italy back in 2004, we bought this bottle of wine in Ravello from a winery literally carved in the side of a mountain. We had big plans to open it on our five year wedding anniversary to celebrate. There also were plans to go back to Italy that year for our anniversary, too.

Well, five years later came and we had Lulu and had just had Bean and were now living in Portland. Going back to Italy wasn't an option for the 5 year anniversary. We also forgot to open the wine on our five year anniversary, too. And the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth anniversaries.

It seemed like a good idea to finally get around to doing it this year, our eleventh.

We should have opened it sooner as it was unfortunately not worth drinking all these years later. Blah!

Eddie and I each gamely took a sip, and decided, that was good enough for both of us and switched to different beverages.

The best part of our voluntarily subdued anniversary celebration though was Bean toasting along with us at the dinner table as we all clinked our glasses and her saying to us, "Happy Marriage! Happy Marriage!!"

Happy Marriage, indeed!

Last night was Bean's kindergarten school conference. It was all good news, other than Bean is a bit of a chatterbox and she had to be moved to another table and placed next to a table mate who wasn't so apt to want to indulge her chattiness with her. However, her teacher was excited to share with us a story of something that happened during lunch recently, involving Bean.

There is a little boy in kindergarten, not in Bean's class, but who has some learning difficulties. He was out on the playground in the covered area and wanting to play with someone who would "growl" with him. (Bean's teacher made cat claw hand motions like a kid might do pretending to be a tiger or something while growling/roaring to demonstrate what he was doing.) 

Well, most of the kids either didn't want to play with him (and refused his requests) or avoided him because they were uncomfortable with him and the situation. Somehow, Bean was on the scene. He asked her to growl with him and Bean looked at the teacher like, "What is he asking?" Her teacher kind of nodded that it was okay to play with him, so Bean turns to this little boy and does this huge growl/roar at him, complete with her hands up in the kitty claws motion.

I guess the little boy started laughing and laughing at what Bean did, completely thrilled, and Bean just kind of shrugged it off like, "All in a days work..." as she went on her way. 

Bean's teacher was so impressed. She said it is her favorite story of the school year so far, and she was even telling her roommates about what Bean had done.

"Was Bean wearing her tail pants that day?" I asked her teacher.

"Yes, she was!" she exclaimed.

Perfect!

Eddie and I both reiterated what we had told her teacher at the start of the conference: Bean aspires to be a wild animal when she grows up.

Neither of us were surprised that she did this awesome thing for this little boy on the playground. That's totally our Bean!

Like the famous six word short story from Hemingway (Baby shoes for sale. Never worn.) this falls into that same category of short story brilliance!

You literally have it all: intrigue, love triangle, drama, and interesting careers.

Truth really is stranger than fiction...

We went to see Patrick Watson last night at the Doug Fir. I've been a fan for several years now and wanting to see him perform live. He always plays at the Doug Fir, but typically, it's been a work night when he's come to town and/or there were three acts before him on the bill. I couldn't do it, I'm too old! It's also challenging finding a babysitter for a late school night.

Well, Mr. Watson was coming back again this fall and it was on a Friday night, for once. I lined up a babysitter, bought tickets and off Eddie and I went. 

This was the stage before the show began. The back of the stage had these interesting lights with bubbles around them set up with feather boas tied at the bases. I didn't realized until after the show, but it copies the cover of his latest album, Robots in Love. During the show, they'd flash the lights at times (though they were left on throughout Patrick's show) and they had smoke machines attached to some of the lights, filling them with smoke and creating an absolute cool visual effect. Loved it!

Opening act was a band called Blood and Glass. They were AWESOME! I loved their music, her singing and how her voice sound, and she was very animated and told this story narrative though the songs and in between the songs. It was almost performance art! I knew we had to leave with their album at the end of the night.

Turns out, the opening act, also is in the Patrick Watson group for this leg of the tour. How convenient! Turns out the woman below, is married to the bassist in Patrick Watson, who grew up with Patrick in Canada.

Here is Mr. Watson below. Very funny guy and very talented. I should mention, that he and his band get bonus points for being their own roadies. That's how down to earth they are. 

Patrick plays piano beautifully, guitar, ukulele, and sings. His music is very indie folk rock but a lot of his music has a 1970's sound to it in the rocking way that ELO or Supertramp sounded. And boy, can he hit the high notes! His voice covers a range, as well. If you couldn't see he was a white guy on stage but could only hear him, you'd be hard pressed to know whether it was a white man or a black man singing those great high notes and harmonies.

Canada really has given us some incredible musical talents. Canada also supports their musical talents as well, so that might all be connected as well. Dan Mangan, Patrick Watson...Keep 'em coming!

And thanks for bringing vinyl for sale, Patrick. We took home two more of yours and one from Blood and Glass to add to our growing collection.

On school mornings we walk to the bus stop. Three mornings a week a neighbor girl, Stella, joins us. Her mom drops her off and heads into work and we head off to hunt for snails!

There is one block on our route that we have called "snail alley" for the amazing number of snails we find on that stretch. We haven't found them anywhere else on our route. Stella, has amazing eyes and because of that we 've given her the moniker of "Stella the Snail Hunter." She's found the tiniest of snails on plants!

One morning, we found 15 snails. We thought that was a pretty good day of snail hunting! But then, another day, we got 24. Yesterday, the girls all agreed that if they could find 30 snails, we could celebrate by having hot chocolate on the walk to school. We'll, what do you know, by the time we got to snail alley, we counted past 30. It was unbelievable the amount of snails that we found.

This morning I am making hot chocolate for our walk up that will be garnished with whipped cream and sprinkles. Maybe even drizzled with a little Nutella! Tomorrow there is no school so it will be a nice way to end the week as well.

Bean still relates very closely to being an animal, even though she has started kindergarten. The tail pants are still in rotation in her wardrobe, even though they have become high waters on her at her ankles. While the kids at daycare just accepted that Bean was the kid who acted like an animal and wore clothes with tails as a normal everyday occurrence, we didn't know what the kids in kindergarten would respond. 

While Bean has pretended she is a cat and a dog previously (and still does, depending on her mood) she now is all about being a wolf since she is enamored with her her Okami Den and her Amaterasu games which features wolves.

Eddie often says I birthed a wild animal when I had her, and that seems to be truer and truer as she gets older.

While eating lunch with Lulu in her classroom, she offered her writing journal for me to read and go through. Interspersed among her story writing I found this interesting gem. For those of you who don't know the backstory, you can find it, here:

Now, we perhaps know why she did what she did, though her thinking she could pick locks was the last thing I would have considered for her reasoning.

Lulu's school offers a first Friday parent lunch every month. This happened last year on Thursdays when she was in the third grade. It's a nice way for parents to come in and see their kids at lunch and hang out in the classroom with them. 

Below, my invitation!

Lulu's classroom, where her legal name is listed and the cause of much first-day of school consternation. 

My big girl! What a treat to be able to each lunch with her at school today.

This is what six looks like! I should also add, that Eddie and I both comment regularly, how Bean is a completely different kind of six than Lulu was.

Grandma took Bean's order for her birthday cake and came through with stellar results. Bean specifically wanted a chocolate cake and it had to have horses on it. (Of course!)

Lulu wanted to light the candles on the birthday cake. She is wanting to learn how to strike and use matches when called for, but she is also very scared of them. Fortunately, she is a "rules" girl, so she is perfectly fine with only using them when an adult is with her. 

Bean specifically requested a Toothless toy for her birthday. It had to have a moving mouth, wings that moved, and breath fire and ice. I found exactly what she was asking for online and she was very, very happy when she unwrapped her present! It's a pretty cool toy, too. There is a tiny water resevior you can fill up inside the toy and when you press a button on the bottom of Toothless, it activates a heat coil and he emits blue light from his mouth and "smoke" vapor. It's awesome, really.

He also projectiles these plastic "fire" and "ice" sticks from his mouth and Bean subsequently nearly lost an eye the first time she tried it. His wings are pretty wide, too, and pointy on the ends. We nearly had some eyeball catastrophes from that as well. A cool but dangerous toy!

Grandma and Bumpa outdid themselves in the gift department. I had provide a list of suggestions to choose one or two of them from and all of them arrived! Bean just loves her new My Little Pony Lunch box as it's "My Little Pony" themed, has sparkly sequins on the bottom, is purple and holds a lot more than her old lunch bag. 

Look at her smile!!

She also got a new My Little Pony water bottle that can hold hot or cold items. Her old water bottle was falling apart so this is a welcome addition and upgrade for school. It was also purple with ponies, so she is thrilled beyond bits. She's also quite smitten with the flip button top!

There were also activity books, striped shirts, notebooks for writing and a light-up wheeled suitcase bag to be had. Bean and Lulu don't know it yet, but there is a trip on an airplane in their upcoming future that the new suitcase will come in very handy for next month.

Yep, we like to credit the Alberti side of the family for our creative genius genetics. Here I am, wearing a skirt I received from my aunt for my birthday this year. My aunt is pretty darn creative and crafty, too, thanks to the Alberti heritage. It's hard to tell from this picture just how genius this skirt is or what it might be made from, so I'll just come out and spill the beans: UMBRELLAS!!!

I know, I know, she's amazing. My skirt is made from two umbrellas, black for the underskirt and a wonderful floral for the top skirt. They still have the umbrella points that go over the metal ribs at the bottom of the panels as well as the piece of fabric that wraps around the umbrella itself to keep it all contained in your purse or car or where ever.

I told my aunt that she could make a small fortune making and selling these skirts. Especially in an upcycle market as Oregon. But she is off trying out her next great genius craft project!