Field trips and charity work and baking, oh my!

My weekend was filled with baking and charity work and all-things-Ellie. It was wonderful. We started off on Friday with Ellie's field trip to the pumpkin patch. Dude, so much fun! El and I had a great time. 12 parents chaperoned! All together we had 16 adults adn 24 kids. That's quite the ratio! The kids and adults both had an excellent time. It was freakin' freezing, but luckily, I came prepared with hoods and gloves for me and my little shadow.

El was stuck to me like white on rice from the moment I walked in the door. All the other kids were busy still talking to each other while their parents stood in the background of classroom. Not my kid! We're going through another phase of separation anxiety for sure, but I must admit I love that she wants to be near me.

We rode the bus (without seatbelts - yikes!) and it was a lot bumpier than I remember busrides back in the day. We took a tractor ride, picked out our pumpkins, fed the animals (those goats are persistent! one actually got out of the pen!), then had a picnic lunch before heading back on the bus once again to school. When we got back, Ellie pleaded to come home with me, but I had to go to work to help finish setting up for our 1st ever Haunted House at my company. I promised her she'd see me and get to go trick or treating in just a few hours, but one of the teachers still had to pry her off me.


(Ellie's Pumpkin. The girl LOVES stickers)

The Haunted House was a HUGE success! We had so much fun setting up our room (each dept had their own room to decorate and the winning dept got a $200 gift card to a local restaurant). We went with a pumpkin patch theme at the front of the room and sectioned off the back for our "Mad Scientist" section for the older kids. We had pumpkin decorating, cupcake decorating, a professional photographer set up in the corner, the works! People kept coming back to our room after they saw all the others. Ellie had a blast. And... my team won! Woot woot.





The Haunted House was just one of the many fundraisers we've had at our office the past 5 weeks for Breast Cancer Awareness. My company raised $6500 this year, and we ranked #2 overall. Not too shabby. We've been #1 in the past, but the Hamden Public School System beat us this year with $8000. That's pretty incredible for this economy.

The walk for Breast Cancer Awareness was yesterday, and although parking and traffic was atrocious, the walk itself was lovely and inspiring. Harry and Ellie joined me this year, and we all had a wonderful time. This will be something we do as a family for years to come for sure. The turnout was insane! And lucky for us, the weather was really nice.



Besides the walk, I also had a wedding shower to go to last night, so I was baking cookies all Saturday for the walk and the shower. Call me Betty Crocker.