Halloween 2011

Hope you had a Happy Halloween! We started the festivities in downtown Charlottesville on Saturday (picture with Mary in makeup) and finished it off with Trick or Treating at UVA on Halloween. Thanks for the costumes, Grandma!

Wow, has it really been that long?

With the social aspect and ease of posting pictures on Facebook, it seems I've neglected our little blog for a long time. Finally, now, with the girls in Georgia with grandparents (coming home tomorrow) I'm missing them and thought I should add an update for those of you who are not Facebook friends. If you want to be, my page is www.facebook.com/lhoranyi.

We've been doing lots of things and taking lots of pictures. The ones here are fairly recent, they are just the ones I was looking at on my phone today and I think they capture the girls personalities well. I like to call this series "Scary Mary Attacks - at Food Lion." I should also explain the babysitter painted their faces, I picked them up like this. We don't usually go to Food Lion in disguise.





Today they are seeing the Smurfs movie with Grandma and Papa. They've liked the Smurfs for a while, thanks to a $5 DVD (90 mins. worth of episodes!) I found at K-Mart about a year ago. The other day (with just the two of us) Sophie said, "I know what I want to be for Halloween now! I want to be Smurfette!" (She has a Halloween costume revelation about once every 2 weeks.) I asked her what Mary would want to be, and she said, "Mary wants to be a scary girl."

In other news that has happened since the last post, the girls finished their first (and possibly only) year of preschool at St. Mark Preschool. They were the stars of the class. They had a performance that the families could attend and they sang a lot of songs. They really remember songs well. Their teacher stressed to us to get them in a gifted program when they start school, so they must be pretty smart. They are probably prepared for 4K this fall, but their birthday is a week past the Sept. 30th cutoff. Right now they have a babysitter they love that also does lessons with them, so we will stick with that until next year. I just don't want them to be bored in school as Sophie will be sad and Mary will cause trouble. (Her nickname from us is "Unnecessary Mary." Sophie is my "Petite Flower.")

We've been having a great summer and trying to make it to the pool as much as possible, to work on our tans and get the girls more comfortable with the water. They can both get pretty nervous, especially Sophie. If I take her out in deep water, she says, "Put me back on the land!" We just returned from summer vacation and had a couple trips to the beach, which I think really helped with her confidence. She would just stand and let the waves hit her - she called it "surfing."

Our vacation was last week. We went to Williamsburg and had several day trips. Destinations included Busch Gardens, Gloucester Point, Virginia Aquarium and Virginia Beach, trip on the Jamestown Ferry to Surry, Yankee Candle Store, and finally a day trip to Chincoteague Island for the beautiful beach and ponies. I have a lot of pictures and will hopefully get around to posting more of those with a little more narrative. This week our babysitter is on vacation, which is why the girls are in Georgia. This is their first time there by themselves and I think they are doing well. We will see each other again tomorrow, meeting somewhere in North Carolina.

Mary and Sophie at the Yankee Candle store in Williamsburg

First Dance Class - warm up

First Dance Class

Here's a video I took at the girls' first dance class today. As you can see, they had a great time. I think they are naturals.

Merry Christmas!

Mary and Sophie with "Santa" (Sophie did not think this was the real one)

We have been staying warm and enjoying this time of year. A lot has happened since the last post that obviously was not documented here. If you would like to see more pictures, please visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/lhoranyi. A lot of you are friends on facebook, I don't know if you have to "friend" me to see pictures or not - maybe not, sometimes I am more lenient than I should be with privacy settings.

We are leaving tomorrow morning to drive down to Georgia for Christmas. This is the first year the girls have had specific requests from Santa, and I think they've kept them pretty reasonable. Mary is probably most excited about getting a doll that pees and poops. They have both been enjoying the holiday season and were in their first Christmas play at church (they were shepherds). They have also learned many Christmas songs and sing them wherever we go. Today Sophie asked to eat Trix cereal for breakfast because it looks like Christmas ornaments. I don't know who is the most excited about Christmas. It might be me.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mary and Sophie's 3rd Birthday Room

The girls turned three on Thursday, October 7th. They had preschool that day and Peter and I stayed home and put some canopies on the beds, then I put up some new curtains and a table and chairs. I thought they would like it, and I think I was right. It was fun to see their reaction!

We had a birthday party today at Bounce n Play. It was the first time there for us and a little overwhelming, but I think everyone had a good time. Mary and Sophie had a super fun birthday!

Summer Vacation - June 2010

I realized on my post about a month ago I said I'd have more vacation pictures, so here they are. These were taken at Buckroe Beach in Hampton, VA, outside our vacation condo in Williamsburg and at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

Mary and Mommy

Contemplative Sophie

Father's Day - picnic at Buckroe Beach

The "lighthouse" at Buckroe Beach

Sophie on the playground in our vacation "backyard"


Mary


A big hug from Cookie Monster!

Sharing secrets with Ernie