Happy Halloween

We had a fun Halloween! We did so much today. Before lunch Leo and I went to Tuesday Morning looking for a new bath mat. On the way home Leo put some fun sunglasses on that Sarah bought me for Halloween and he looked like a Diva. Okay, maybe not a Diva but he is Cute with a capital "C".

After a little shopping we came home and carved pumpkins. We have some pretty great pumpkins. The boys got totally into it. For the first year Aidan actually got his hands dirty and cleaned out the guts of the pumpkin. Go Aidan. Leo designed his own pumpkin with fangs and everything.

After carving pumpkins, we made caramel apples. And after that we had some friends over for pizza, salad, snacks, apple cider, and a Halloween cookie! Doris came over, Aidan's friend William, his sister Queenie and mom Elsie. Also our friends Mauricio, Misty, Magda (the pretty fairy), and baby Santiago. 

Aidan was a clone trooper and Leo was Iron Man. William was Darth Vader and Queenie was a cheetah. Magda was a pretty fairy and is two years old. She was cracking me up because she left one house and said "that was trick-or-treating" and she said it like "Now THAT is how you trick-or-treat!"

Aidan Won an Award!

Aidan won the Principal's Good Citizenship Award for community spirit and outstanding leadership in the 2nd grade at school the other day.  They announced the award at the school's town hall meeting last week.  We couldn't be more proud.

Announcing Two New Members of the Holma-Ritualo Family

 Aidan and Leo have wanted a cat for a very long time. A couple of years ago Aidan and I made a bet with Jason that if I didn't watch QVC for 100 days and Aidan didn't watch Cartoon Network for 100 days we could get a cat. Well we moved to a new house and we can't have a cat in the new house so we didn't get a cat. I really don't like not paying up on bets.

We didn't get an animal and we didn't we didn't get an animal. It hit me hardest when this year at school Aidan had his picture posted outside his classroom with a paper that had information about him (i.e. his favorite food (pizza)) and one statement said "Name of Pet" and Aidan wrote "I don't have a pet." How sad right???

So for Aidan's 8th birthday we decided to get him a guinea pig. Since we went away for the weekend we gave him a book about guinea pigs and promised on Sunday when we got home we would get him a guinea pig. He was so happy! If we weren't having so much fun at the hotel he would have wanted to leave early. We read the book about how to care for guinea pigs and it said that they are social and like to live in families.  Aidan is quick! He asked if we could get two. Aye!

So on Sunday, October 3rd we brought home Edward and Biscuit. We went to the pet shop and bought their home and then we went to another pet shop and fell in love with 10 week old Edward (I got to name him!) and Biscuit. Aidan has a very kind heart. When he saw the two of them sitting in the cage he was more concerned about leaving one behind than he was about taking two home. I'm a sucker for animals and for Aidan so he asked me quietly two or three times while we were in the store and I said "yes".

They are a little hard to tell apart but Biscuit has the darker hair at the top and Edward is lighter. We took them to the vet and found out we have two boys (thank God). They seem a little scared and nervous all the time but we love them and we think they like us too.