About ten minutes after I put Avery to bed the other night she called me back in her room. “Mommy,” she asked in serious voice, “how do you become a princess or queen?” Somewhat stumped at how to answer, I said that  one way is to be born into a royal family. “But how does that happen?” she responded. It’s sort of hard to explain, I told her, before we had the following exchange:

M: “Take Elsa and Anna. They were princesses because their mom and dad were the queen and king. They’re not real, but -”
A, interrupting me: “Yes, they are. They’re at Disneyland, and Disneyland is real.”
M: “Oh, yes… You’re right. I had forgotten that.”
A: “And Elsa and Kristof came to my birthday party. So they’re definitely real.”

-M

A quick, recent video of the girls bopping around the house. (And good stuff to embarrass them with someday!)

-M

The soccer season is officially over; Avery had her last practice yesterday afternoon. Here she is with her little Lion teammates.

-M

The second-graders at Zoe’s school visited a science museum, UC-Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science, yesterday. Q was one of the chaperones and reported that Zoe had a fabulous time. And Zoe confirmed this when, during our nightly tradition, she told me the bad and good parts of her day: “My thorn was nothing and my rose was everything.”

-M

Avery came home from school one afternoon last week with some news: “AJ asked me to marry him.” She told her little classmate “maybe,” she went on to report – and when I asked why, she said, “I thought it was a good choice.” After a few days, she told him that she had finalized her decision and told AJ “yes.”

Fast forward to this morning at drop-off, when Avery spotted AJ on the playground and ran up to him in excitement. The two then walked into class together, with AJ’s arm around her, and I heard him whisper to her, “I told my mom.”

There’s just one word to describe this situation: Adorbs.

-M

A few words from the girls as they sat and waited for the first trick-or-treaters on Friday.

-M

Given how many Halloween-related activities we typically do each year, the actual day is sometimes anti-climatic. Not this year, though: The girls had tons of fun trick-or-treating with their friend Sophie and even more fun giving out candy at home. And the best part: For the first time in three years, Zoe wasn’t sick for the holiday!

-M