And speaking of Roman Holiday, a post or two ago, I've been learning more and more even now about my hero Audrey Hepburn.  A lot of heroes become less heroic the more you learn about them and the behind the scenes of their life.  And then you kind of wish you could know less about them so that they could be your hero again.  But you can't, so you just have to try to find a new hero.  But with Audrey Hepburn...I love her and increase in respect for her the MORE I learn about her.  

I'm amazed, AMAZED I tell you, at her life.  She seems to be a hero for every season of my life and I'm so enjoying that realization.  I love her movies, her style, all of that.  But I feel...past that almost.  Beyond it.  It's kind of struck me as sad that this is pretty much all people know about her.  But there is so much more to her life, you know?  It didn't stop with the movies and the style.  Her and her image went beyond those things and on to some of the most noble work that can be done in my opinion, especially from a celebrity of all people.  She was a mother and an advocate for children.  One of my favorite books now is a biography about her written by her son Sean Hepburn-Ferrer.  Pretty much the entire book is about these two things, motherhood and Unicef.  It's a glimpse into what was really important to her.

My interest in her now is looking at her work as a humanitarian, her work with Unicef.  A spokesperson.  For children.  She used her image, her influence, people's interest in her this.  For children.

I wish I could have an assignment where I could write a paper about the later years of her life and all about her work with Unicef.  I've been finding interviews with her on youtube and speeches she gave about the subject.

I just can't get over her.
She lived a beautiful life, in almost every sense of the word.

Also as I was looking up these things on youtube I also discovered a newfound excitement and respect for another old celebrity- do you know who the first celebrity ambassador for Unicef was?  Danny Kaye.  I've always liked him.  But now I think I love him.  He raised so much awareness for Unicef.  I found interviews and videos of him where he entertained and played games with the kids, singing songs, dancing, making faces, ruffling their hair.

These people are so impressive to me.  Why aren't more celebrities doing things like this?  Why aren't more of US doing things like this?

I'm so grateful for heroes that last.

Tonight was a late night.  But not in the way you'd think.  

We got home late from errands and I had started dinner before we left and didn't want to waste it. So rather than just throwing some mac and cheese together and calling it good, I took the time to make our spinach artichoke pizza while they did our Friday movie night tonight instead (I could see and hear from the kitchen, one of the good things about a small apartment).  

This whole month is Harry Potter!  Audrey loves a good movie and is starting to be interested in the "fun-scary" aspect of Halloween.  So she was all into the Chamber of Secrets tonight (which I think is one of the scariest ones) and even though she had a very pained/worried/scared expression on her face at parts, whenever we offered to turn it off or fast forward she yelled "no!"  We didn't get through the whole movie and I will definitely be skipping the spider part and maybe the snake part too.  

Once we sat down to our 9 pm dinner we started new nightly tradition: The Question Game.  Or as it has morphed into (because of playing it with a 2 and 4 year old): The Favorites Game.  Throughout dinner we go around the table and each person asks everyone else a question.  As implied, it's usually a "whats your favorite..." question.  It is something I just came up with one night when Samantha was visiting and I wanted some more directed conversation at our dinner table.  From that first surprisingly fun dinner it has become this tradition around our table every night.  

The best part are the questions they come up with.  

Audrey's are sometimes sweet, sometimes random: 

"What's your favorite thing about Mommy?"  

"What's your favorite witch?"

Hannah's are just cute and hilarious, sometimes just repeating the previous question that we all just answered:

"Who's your favorite cousin?"

"We just did that one Hannah, can you think of a different question?" 

"Oh.  Who's your FAVORITEST cousin?"

My personal Hannah favorite:

"What's your favorite big pickle?"

I had to stop typing for a minute for laughing so much.  

I love my kids and I love my whole life much more when I am patient with them.  Then I want them up with us at night instead of counting down the minutes till bedtime.  Which is sometimes the case and that's okay.  But it feels pretty good to have a night like this every once in awhile.

Earlier in the evening:

Sometimes it's so fun to let it be a late night.  For the sake of a good dinner tonight and in the name of "we still just want to be together for a little while."

 Our Halloween tradition since our first year of marriage has been to watch an OLD scary movie.  Right now it's a tradition for just Andrew and I together and maybe someday our kids can join us.  We own a few- Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant, the second Thin Man movie with William Powell, Myrna Loy and Jimmy Stewart, and a few others- but I like going to the library and finding ones we haven't seen yet.  It has to be just creepy enough to get that scared/excited feeling but not so creepy that I'll have nightmares.  Cause no matter how old I get that still happens!  Black and white Alfred Hitchcock movies usually hit that sweet spot.  

Two of our all time favorites:

Here is our list for this year (from our date night to the library to pick some out):

Shadow of a Doubt

The Ladykillers

Frankenstein (the real original)

Escape from Alcatraz 

(we just toured Alcatraz last year and being there was sufficiently creepy...I don't know if I'll be able to watch this whole movie but Andrew wanted to get it!)

No Way Out 

We've also always enjoyed reading together and the last few years have gotten into some Agatha Christie books at the suggestion of my sister Julia (who has always loved murder mysteries).  We've loved them so far.  My favorites are the ones that have a movie to go with it so that we can have a movie date night once we finish the book.  So far we've read and watched Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun.  We are hoping to read Murder on the Orient Express before the new movie comes out (we'll probably watch the old one too...I kind of like watching different versions of the same story).  

For the kids we always watch:

Corpse Bride 

(my fav out of the kids ones)

Mickey's House of Villains

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Happy Haunting Disney Sing Along

and any Halloween episodes of their favorite shows, like Sofia

We've been loving our fall decorations, our "Shades of Fall" candle that I'm obsessed with, the fantastic autumn weather, and making pumpkin bread and gingersnaps.  Hannah has discovered her love of pumpkin bread this year.  The other day she had it with all three meals AND for snacks.  Hmmm...I better watch that.

And here are some beautiful pictures of how we've kicked off our fall season, our first October walk this year.

The Lagoon Trail in Farmington

Why can't Fall last at LEAST 3 months???

After:

My friend Audrey Hepburn

We are beautiful!