Halloween winds down

We're just about ready to move on to the next holiday, but today we enjoyed a bit more Halloween fun. This morning we got up early and had breakfast at IHOP before school/work (because they were handing out free "scary face pancakes" for the kiddos).

After school we prepped for our new ward's Trunk or Treat. The girls and I made spiderweb and mummy faced mini pizzas. Then the girls got suited up. Liz decided at the last minute that she wanted to be witch instead of a butterfly which means that she has yet to wear the costume that we purchased (and she agreed to) this year.

Then it was on to the trunk-or-treat.

Costume parade (my girls ate their cake-walk cupcakes while they paraded)

Gabrielle never made it into her costume

The actual candy collecting:

At home we sorted through the candy bags. I told Liz to pick out her favorites and then give the rest to me in exchange for a surprise. I was pleasantly surprised by both how small her keep pile was and how excited she was about the books I gave her.

Gabby. She has found her hands and it's super cute.

She's loving hugs and tickles and kisses. This was taken right after Andrew smooched her cheek.

Yeah, she was grumpy, but I wanted a shot of her festive leg warmers.

Not much seasonal stuff left to do: a couple more get togethers tomorrow and maybe we'll finally get around to carving a pumpkin in the evening. Yesterday we finally got around to our acorns. We had collected them two weeks ago, I painted them orange last week, and then yesterday we started to drwaw jack-o-lantern faces on them only to find that some of them had hatched bugs (some sort of white, wriggly, grub-like thing). Gross.

Yesterday while I vacuumed . . .

Alaina got into my purse and drew all over herself. I figure every kid does this at least once and in general Lainey seems to enjoy drawing on herself more than drawing on paper.

Naturally Laines drew on her church dress as well (clearly she picked out her clothes for the day, not me).

At least she tried to clean herself up once I took the pen away.She got even messier when we went to my friend, Janie's house to decorate sugar cookies. I think the dress is a goner.

Updates

These last couple weeks have been eventful:

Andrew put in his two weeks notice. He starts a new job next week (in DC, not NC).

Alaina pooed in the potty (no, we are not toilet training, it just kind of happened).
I called our cable company to complain about the new "guide" setup and ask if I could have the old format back. After being on hold for awhile I decided against complaining and hung up. When I told Andrew about it he pretty much said I was being ridiculous and resisting change too much (his words: "acting like your grandfather").
Lizzie participated in our new ward's primary program and did a fabulous job.

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I survived my first Andrew-does-ski-patrol-stuff-all-day-Saturday-AND-Sunday weekend.Gabrielle has started cuddling with us again (she had a little hiatus when she started to hold her head up).I gave a talk in church about agency on my second Sunday. I had to speak for 15 minutes and wasn't sure I could. Andrew said, "I know you can speak for 15 minutes." I told him talking at him for 15 minutes wasn't the same as talking to a 100+ congregation from the pulpit. I survived. Lizzie went to the optometrist and we discovered that she does NOT need glasses (hallelujah!). We also discovered that I have been mispronouncing optometrist. Andrew bought what he says can be his birthday and Christmas gifts from me (we'll see how feels about this in December). I officially decided against cloth diapers after we changed five nasty ones between the two little ones a couple Sundays ago. My decision was confirmed this last weekend when Gabby had a blowout both mornings and I elected to throw her onesies away rather than launder them.

Breakdown

Yesterday afternoon when I went to pick up Liz from her Brownie troop field trip to Nalls I decided to linger a little. The girls had fun playing with pumpkins and I liked that they were exhausting themselves.

We had fun, but it didn't end well. Lizzie misplaced her free pumpkin and started to pout about it. I put her in time out during which she managed to break a pumpkin. Not cool. Instead of hauling a pumpkin home to carve, we bought a broken one and left it behind.

Next stop was the grocery store. Sometimes my kids are wonderful little angels when I run errands. Often they are not. I don't think there was ever a moment when someone was not crying or fighting. I couldn't wait to get home.

Drew called just as I walked in the door carrying Ellie and seven bags of groceries. He promised to take the girls off my hands when he got home. When he walked in an hour later the girls were just getting out of the tub.

Liz ran to Andrew and absolutely gushed as she said, "Daddy! Daddy! Guess what? Mommy said that when she has a breakdown then you'll take us to dinner so she can have a break and guess what?! Mommy's having a breakdown!!!" She said the last sentance in exactly the same way she would say, "Guess what?! We're going to Disney Land!"

Pre "Breakdown" photos: Alaina was very drawn to the Mexican Hat pumpkins:

She also enjoyed exploring the tunnels:

Liz really enjoyed playing with her fellow Brownies:

Again, laina was really, really into the Mexican hat pumpkins and got upset if the other kids looked at them wrong:

Cart ride, even cooler than the preceeding wagon rides:

The standard pumpkin shot, though with poor sun planning on my part:

Somehow I didn't get a pumpkin shot of Alaina--a total middle child moment.

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Yeah, she wore her pajamas all day:

Too much

I think I might be all Halloweened out thanks to this weekend. We went to three different trick-or-treating events which was probably two too many. There are still so many seasonal things I have on the agenda: pumpkin based dinners, pumpkin carving, visit a pumpkin patch, go to the costume parade at the National theater, attend a fall festival, and make some more crafts. Now suddenly I feel like I'm done with Halloween. Honestly, it might be that I've just had too much candy. I've induldged all weekend and now I feel gross and guilty. We'll see how long this feeling lingers . . .

Party Crashers

Last night we went to the Trunk-or-Treat at our old ward. We figured we'd only been out of the ward for a month and we missed our friends so we went. It was fun. The soups were yummy, the girls enjoyed all the fall carnival activities (cupcake walk, face painting, fishing pond, and so on). Alaina might have done okay in the costume parade on her own, but I told Liz to walk with her.

She was fine with it till I started taking pictures.

She cheered up when the trunk-or-treating started.

We loved seeing Alaina trick-or-treat. It was super cute. She insisted on carrying/dragging her own bag. It had some holes in it by the end of the night, but not big enough to leak candy.

Air & Scare

Yesterday I intended to take the girls to the Fall Harvest Family days at Mt. Vernon, but instead of getting up early and getting out. I turned on cartoons for the girls and let them scrounge for food in the previous night's Halloween bags while I slept in a bit. Not surprisingly I had a huge mess to deal with when I woke up (including poop all over my neglected baby). I just didn't feel like dragging the girls all over a giant estate.

Then, Wendi called and let me know about Air & Scare at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center. Free event indoor Halloween event?! I was totally in. It was fun. It was exhausting. It is another event that I'm glad I went to but probably won't be in my annual repertoire (at least not the same weekend as another big, crowded candy fest).
Since it was indoors the girls got to wear their fairy costumes.

We gave Lizzie's friend Jordan a ride to the event and she ended up hanging out with us most of the time. Liz loved it.

There weren't many candy stations, but there were a lot of other fun activities. Liz got her face painted.

The girls raced their witch (colored picture attached to a balloon wheezing air).

They also watched a puppet show, guided a remote control robot through a little maze, and shot "fatal mini sound waves" at ghosties (below). All very fun.

The place was a bit of a geek fest. It was absolutely full of Star Wars photo ops. This was the only one that didn't have a line. Not sure who the characters are, but they had light sabers and I figured Drew would be amused.

This shot was taken right before we left. Yeah, we were exhausted and we had one more event planned for the evening.

Boo at the Zoo

I've wanted to go to this event for awhile, but it's never quite worked out before. Either I had a lot of homework or we had other stuff planned or Andrew just didn't want to go. This year it worked out. It was a lot fun and I'm glad we went, but it probably won't be an annual thing for us.

Honestly, one of my favorite parts was that I got to do the trick-or-treating myself. It's been at least twenty years since I've done that.