Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get more candy, of course! Today we journeyed to Hoboken to be part of the Hoboken Ragamuffin Parade along with several of our friends from church. Unfortunately, Kaia fell asleep about 2 minutes before we met up with all of our friends, so she missed the pre-parade trick-or-treating.

Allow me to digress for a moment to give context to one of my favorite things about the day. Kaia began calling Asher "our baby walrus" recently. I have no idea where this originated. Then the rest of us were assigned an animal as well - Kaia's a penguin, I'm a seal, and Peter's a lion. All afternoon before the parade Kaia referred to me as "Seal" - "Thank you for coloring with me, Seal," "Can I have some popcorn to eat, Seal?" etc. She's not much of one for spontaneous affection, but a couple of times while we were coloring she threw her arms around my neck and said, "I love you, Seal!" Every time Peter would call on the phone or when we would talk about him she would ask, "Our lion is calling?" or "Our lion is at work?" Back to the parade...Kaia woke up just in time to catch part of it. I didn't think she was really paying attention because she looked rather dazed. After some insane trick-or-treating (due to the ridiculous crowds on the main street of Hoboken), we headed to the residential side streets for some more enjoyable strolling. True to her style, Kaia wouldn't say a word to anybody she got candy from but then she became a little chatterbox with me in between houses. She kept saying, "There were penguins in the parade, Mommy. They were penguins like me!" She sounded like she was just thrilled she'd found some of her kind. Kaia really cracks me up. She's such a character! Lani made the trip with us in a princess dress again!

Asher caught on very quickly to the concept of getting candy from people. He loved this sucker and kept trying to wiggle out of my arms to go get another one when he finished it.