Happy Half-o-ween!

Little Clara is officially half-way through her first year of life! As I promised last month, here is my little dumpling in her hilarious Halloween costume:

Cluck-cluck, Clara!

Our "chicken nugget" is doing great these days, saying "da-da-da," rolling all over the place and even doing the hands-and-knees rocking that precedes crawling. Yeah, I'm going to have a mobile baby before too long! It's crazy. She's also tried a few solid foods (rice cereal, banana, avocado and carrot). She watches us eat with hungry eyes and eagerly grasps at the utensils as we try to feed her, but once the food arrives in her mouth she makes the most pitiful, disgusted faces. She usually manages to swallow whatever it is, but it's just funny how she can go from being infatuated with food to horrified by it in an instant.

Poor thing got her first ear infection over the weekend. After a night of her refusing to nurse and crying intermittently, I decided to take her to urgent care Sunday morning. The antibiotics kicked in quickly and we got our happy, giggly Clara back a few days later. Thank goodness!

Her Halloween costume comes with chicken feet booties that are far too huge on her, and the hat is torturous enough on its own so I opted to leave them off for this photo shoot. But seriously, A CHICKEN. It's pretty much amazing. I just wish it wasn't so warm outside. When I bought it, I anticipated cooler weather. It's not normally still in the '90's at the end of October. I feel like I'm being robbed of the gorgeous weather we usually get between now and March!

The big kids also got to don their costumes early this year for the annual Foote Family Halloween bash. Carson went as a Power Ranger (Super Megaforce variety, he'd like everyone to know):

Audrey is the biped, land-dwelling version of Ariel, red hair and all:

By the way, that red hair spray stuff is super-convenient to apply but absolute insanity to remove. It seriously looked like a murder scene in the bathtub after her shower that night. And it seemed like no matter how many times I rinsed it, there was still more red dripping from her hair! You can see I didn't even completely coat her whole head, but that didn't matter. Maybe next time I'll just hose her off in the backyard ... I'm sure she'd love that.

(Currently accepting Mom of the Year nominations.)

Anyway, I hope you have a fantastic Halloween! Post links of you and your kids all dressed up in the comments. I'd love to see them!