The girls and their friends...sitting on top of the world!--at Haus des Meeres

Here we see a Sweet-o in her native environment with a trio of tiny cakes! --at Cafe Central

Even my cream horn came with it's own creme puff hat!

 Here she is kissing the last victim goodbye

Things got a little crazy after all the schnitzel and cake

This is what happens when you aren't a morning person, but you are a people person.  Slumbering on the floor of the kitchen while Mama makes breakfast.  

The countdown is on!  Audrey would not give up until I told her EXACTLY (and counted on my fingers) how many days until Christmas.  I think this means I'm allowed to listen to Christmas music now.  

The fruit hat is big these days.  There's really nothing it doesn't go with.

I physically could not resist purchasing this sweet tin full of shortbread today.  Turkey, consider yourself disrespected! p.s. They actually had fresh whole turkeys at eh market today with "Happy Thanksgiving" stickers on them...they expired on the 11th.  You win, Austria.  You. Win.

One more random update: Bailey's most recent Christmas wishes include "new hair" (she's big into wigs at the moment) and a trumpet so she can "play the music".  Something tells me this holiday is going to be hilarious.  

So, this is why there's been a suspicious lack of bison in Austria...--at Naturhistorisches Museum

We found a pika!

possibly the best sighting on our outing were the wild hamsters.

Girls day out! --at The Demel

Ending the day with raspberry sodas and schnitzel (the grown-ups ate real food)--at Wiener Wirtschaft

Our Epic Halloween

Halloween this year was perhaps the most special one we've had as a family so far.  I'm realizing, particularly as we're traversing our homeschooling journey, that there are some things the girls will always show excitement for on their own (big cats, Christmas, and cake to name a few) But there are other things that they take a lead from their parents on--when I get excited, they get excited.  And that's how we approached Halloween for the first time ever this year.

We spent the week leading up to Halloween making decorations and integrating spooky themes into our school time.  Audrey started lumping Halloween in with Christmas as far as comparisons to her level of excitement went.  The evening before the big day, Audrey took pains to make sure her cowgirl outfit was laid out and ready to don as soon as she woke in the morning.  John even ironed her button-up shirt for her.  It was a big deal.

Turns out, the girls were in some form of costume from the moment they woke up, but the very first thing we did was go out trick-or-treating.

Every day, we pop into a shop just around the corner from us.  It's an ethnic clothing store that touts gorgeous scarves, sari's, incense and every accessory known to man.  It's owned by a man whose name we don't even know, but we call him Mr. Happy-Happy, because it's what he asks us every day:  "Are you happy happy!?"  He adores the girls and lets them grab candy from a bowl in the back of the shop every single day.  I talked to him the day before Halloween about how American kids trick-or-treat.  (He had heard of it, but didn't know what it was called.) After listening to my explanation, he started laughing and saying: "Every day here is Halloween!".  Which is completely true.  So, donned (warmly) as cowgirls, Audrey and Bailey came to Mr. Happy-Happy's store on Halloween morning to give him his first official trick-or-treaters.  We even brought our candy buckets.  He let the girls grab their candy and gave them each full-sized Manner bars.  You can't beat that.  As we left, he hollered at us not to go trick-or-treating at the bank because they wouldn't give anyone anything.  But, still, we ticked off our list: Go trick-or-treating.  Which, in Austria, is no small feat.

That afternoon, our house was invaded by all the girls' best friends.  Most of my Mama-friends aren't really the pinterest-happy kind, but I was seriously impressed by the grub we wrestled up.  There were mummy (hot)dogs, "pumpkin" clementines, mummy juice boxes and wormy ice cubes.  We had planned stuff like a Halloween-themed dance party and making gummies, but in the end it was mostly a completely mad playdate. The kids all adore each other and were having the time of their lives.

After a few hours of ad-hoc nasching and playing, I suggested we attempt to gather the kids to make some slime.  In hindsight, I don't know why I thought this would be on-par with baking as far as the mess factor went, but there was cornstarch, shampoo and food coloring everywhere.  Our slime ranged in consistency from nearly rock-hard to liquid goo.  At one point one of the kids (in his defense, he's only 15 months old, so he has an adequate excuse for behaving like a frat boy) was sitting in the middle of the table, flinging slime around by the measuring-cup-full.  Mostly, we moms were just too busy laughing hysterically to care about the mayhem.  In the end, no one was really even wearing a costume, most kids had to be generously scrubbed down, and the aforementioned 15 month old elected to play in nothing but his diaper for the remainder of the party.  It was pretty epic.

Not to mention that as our party was winding down, the girls and I were also getting ready to go to a party at the UN complex. We showed up, fashionably late, to John's work party and made the rounds. This party was certainly more adult-oriented, but the girls still raked in a fantastic haul of candy and just as many compliments about their pink cowgirl boots. It was the first time I had seen a lot of John's work friends since before we took home leave, so it was worth the feeling of exhaustion that was rapidly setting in to get to catch up with some good people.  

We beat feet home fairly quickly after making an appearance at the VIC, stopping at a lowly street food stand for some sketchy pizza so the girls wouldn't starve to death (snickers don't count as dinner, turns out) and returned to our epically trashed house.  It felt good, though--the residue of that much fun.  We celebrated the snot out of our Halloween and had the incredible mess to prove it.