All hallow's eve-ish

Weekend Update

Petra had a busy but fun weekend. Saturday was Family Festival Day at the Getty, and Petra had great fun making a sun print and charming all the volunteers at that table. She also enjoyed a pear pastry, while Mama and Dada had some espresso and tasty coffee cake from the cafe (the coffee cake was still warm...yum!). While waiting for her sun print to dry, she checked out the other activities, and made a couple of postcards and a frame for her print. She had gotten up pretty early that morning (her plaintive cry of "I'm staaaarving!" around 6 am roused Richard), so she started to fade around 11:30 or so. She wasn't interested in doing her "pony dance" to the music, so we knew she was ready to nap and started heading for the tram. She was out before we made it to the freeway.

Later that afternoon, we headed over to a concert at Creative Seeds, where a chamber music group called Tonoi was doing a performance of "Madigan the Pumpkin". Petra enjoyed the music and the story, and thanked the musicians enthusiastically as we left. We had planned to head for home, but saw that the local neighborhood association was having a Halloween carnival that was about to start, so we headed over the that. Petra had lots and lots of fun on the giant inflatable slide; she was a little wobbly climbing up to the top of the slide the first couple of times, but was soon scampering up like a champ. She charmed the teenage volunteers by thanking them and offering them candy from a bag of treats that we were snacking on. Other highlights included a bowling game, and a "fishing" game, where she won a spider ring and a gummy rat, respectively.

We bought a few raffle tickets just to support the neighborhood association, and were pleasantly surprised to have one of our numbers called in the first drawing (good thing too, as we were getting ready to leave). We got to pick a prize from the prize table, and Petra chose a cute pink purse adorned with flowers. As we arrived home, we saw one of the neighbor kids and Petra invited herself over to his house. They played happily for a half hour or so, until it was time to go home so he could have his bath. We thought it would be a good idea for Petra to have a bath as well (twice a week whether she needs it or not!), but she didn't share our opinion. Note to self: put in earplugs before putting Petra in the water.

Sunday was a birthday party for one of the girls from Petra's class. Mama played chauffeur and Dada stayed home to finish up Petra's robot costume for Halloween. The party was great fun (ponies and a pinata! How will we ever keep up!), and we ended up staying longer than we expected. The attendees had lots of fun, and it was fun to meet other parents from school. The robot costume is finished and looks great - Dada did a spectacular job. Petra is excited and keeps asking if it was Halloween yet (and talking about Madigan the pumpkin). Just a few more days!