Halloween 2011: Revenge of the Toddlers

Argh!

So how cute do my little pirates look?  They love watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates on Disney Channel, so being pirates was a pretty easy pick for costumes this year. 

And don’t you love their awesome pirate ship?  My friend Sylvia let us borrow it.  Her husband built it for their boys last year, and they let us borrow it to put over our wagon for this year.  We got a ton of comments on it as we were walking down the street.  One guy even went in his house to get his camera so that he could take a picture of it!

We started out at our neighbors’ house where Lauren, who also babysits for me, was dressed as a gypsy.  She went right along with our theme, so she went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood with us. 

Charlotte thought that having Lauren come with us meant that Mommy was going bye bye.  Charlotte wasn’t too keen on that idea, but once we started down the street, she was okay.

We ended back at the neighbors where Lauren’s boyfriend was helping hand out candy.  We had a whole pirate crew!

The kids had a blast trick-or-treating!  And of course they were very excited that I promised them each one piece of candy before getting ready for bed. 

Now off to sift through my pirates’ loot…

Painted Toast

Yet another idea I found on Pinterest…

Painted Toast!  How fun is this?!?!  The kids had this as part of their lunch today and loved it.

I put a couple of drops of food coloring into four bowls of milk, gave each kid a paintbrush, and let them use bread as their canvas.

After the kids finished painting, I popped the bread in the toaster, and we had our painted toast!

Of course one little boy wanted his pretty toast covered in peanut butter.  The kid would eat peanut butter at every meal if I let him!

This post is linked to: Made By Little Hands Monday @ Delicate Construction, It’s Playtime @ Hands On: As We Grow, TGIF Linky Party @ Living Life Intentionally, The Sunday Showcase @ Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Show & Tell @ ABC & 123, The Mommy Club @ Crystal & Co

Dressed Up Pumpkins

We picked up a couple more pumpkins this week and decided that our brood of pumpkins needed to get dressed.

Since the pumpkin that Charlotte picked out last weekend is just a baby, it gets to stay inside out of the cold.

We dressed up the two pumpkins the kids picked out on Trenton’s preschool field trip (more to come on that later) as mummies.

Gauze might have looked a little better, but my first aid kit was lacking, so we wrapped our pumpkins in medical tape instead (and now I really need to redo the first aid kit since all the tape is now gone!).  We glued on some googly eyes, and we had ourselves some mummies!

And do you remember this pumpkin that Trenton picked out last weekend? 

Well, this is what the big bootied pumpkin looks like now….

And no, I did not pull these out of my underwear drawer.  This pumpkin has a lot more junk in the trunk than I do!

We’re Going On a Pumpkin Hunt

A church just down the road from our subdivision set up a pumpkin patch at the beginning of October.  Every time we drive by, Trenton asks if we can stop to get pumpkins. 

So, today I decided it was finally time to adorn our porch with a festive fall pumpkin.

I had already bought the kids matching Halloween outfits, and a trip to the pumpkin patch gave me the perfect opportunity to get some cute pictures of the kids in their matching clothes!

The kids had a great time checking out all of the pumpkins, but they weren’t too keen on the picture taking aspect of the trip.  Oh well, at least they had fun!

The best picture of the kids together that I managed to get…

 
I let each kid pick a pumpkin.  These are the two we came home with -

And this, my friends, is the “back side” of the pumpkin Trenton picked…

I could definitely have some fun decorating this!!! 

Birthday Buddies

The reason I picked the dates I did for our recent trip to Texas was so that the kids and I could spend my birthday with family.  And since my dad’s birthday is the day after mine, we could celebrate his birthday too!

My dad and I are birthday buddies.  I was born 30 minutes before his 25th birthday.  Before my mom started pushing, the nurses asked her if she wanted to wait a little while longer so my dad and I could share a birthday.  Want to guess what her answer was after already laboring for 23 hours?!?!

Here are the birthday buddies 28 years ago. (That 23 hour labor thing did a number on my poor little head!)

And here we are now (well, a few days ago, but you get the point).

Oh, and want another fun fact?  My mom and brother are birthday buddies too!  Bradley was born the day after my mom turned 27.

We are a pretty cool family!

Footprint Ghosts

My dear friend Tracy found the cutest little footprint ghosts on Pinterest, and I knew they would make the perfect craft to send to Daddy.

I was planning to do these at the beginning of the month giving the military mail system plenty of time to get my mail to a ship halfway around the world.

Then life handed me two sick kids while trying to get ready for a trip to Texas. 

The ghosts never happened. 

Until today.

 

It’s too late to send them and have them make it to the ship in time for Halloween, but they’ll be hanging on the wall when Daddy gets home!

Hope you like the pictures of your ghosts, Jarrod!  We’ll hopefully do a better job for Thanksgiving! 

This post is linked to: It’s Playtime @ Hands On: As We Grow, Sunday Showcase @ Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Fall Fun at Rocky Creek Maze

Bradley and Courtney came up to spend the weekend at Mom and Dad’s house, and we all traveled out to Moulton (a little bitty town in the middle of nowhere) to get lost at the Rocky Creek Maze.

What a fun time!  We went through the maze (and didn’t even have to call 911 to help us get out!), rode a train, went down the hay slide and a pipe slide, shot the corn cannon, milked a cow, raced ducks, hopped hay bales, jumped on the frog hopper, and took a hay ride.  I think that the big kids had just as much fun as the little kids! 

(Yes, the corn is a lot shorter than normal.  That’s what an extreme drought does.)

We will definitely be visiting Rocky Creek Maze again the next time we are in Texas in the fall!

You Are Now Free to Move About the Cabin

The kids and I flew back to Texas to visit my family.  The last time I flew with both kids by myself was when Charlotte was 2 1/2 months old and was still sleeping all the time.  I was a little nervous about flying with two toddlers!

I bought a Go-Go Babyz Kidz Travelmate for Trenton’s carseat.  It is one of those dolly things that attaches to the carseat and turns it into a stroller.  I had Charlotte, who still qualifies as a lap child, in a front pack, so maneuvering my way through the airport was pretty easy.  Getting through security was easier than I expected too. 

We didn’t have long to wait at the gate before it was time to board the plane.  Trenton was really excited about our plane ride and read his airport flap book during take off.

Trenton also played with train stickers and lacing cards while Charlotte took a little catnap and read books with Mommy.

The first two hours of our flight, I kept wondering how I was so lucky.  Everything was going perfectly.  Security was easy, the flight was good, and my kids were being crazy good.

Then Charlotte threw up…..everywhere….

With the flight attendant’s help, I got our seats cleaned up and Charlotte’s clothes changed.  Unfortunately I hadn’t been able to fit an extra pair of jeans for me in the diaper bag. 

After I got everything cleaned up, Trenton looked over at me and asked, “Mommy, what happened?”.  The kid was oblivious to everything that had just happened!

Less than 10 minutes later, Charlotte was throwing up again.  And I was once again changing her clothes and cleaning up our seat. 

Charlotte kept throwing up until we landed.  I ran out of clothes for her, but luckily I got pretty good with the barf bag. 

As soon as we landed, I texted my dad to let him know that he and my mom would be able to smell us before they could see us in baggage claim!

Hopefully we will all have happy tummies on our return trip back to Virginia!

Salt Art Pumpkin

Trenton and I tried our hand at salt art this afternoon while Charlotte was napping.

I dyed our salt this morning using 3-4 drops of food coloring per 1/4 cup of salt.  I was wanting to make a jack-o-lantern, but dying salt black was next to impossible so I decided on just a plain pumpkin instead.

I used the back of a frozen waffle box to freehand a pumpkin.

I helped Trenton put glue in each section of the pumpkin and then we spread it out with a paint brush.

Trenton spooned the dyed salt onto the glue and then shook the excess salt onto a cookie sheet.

I’ve been sweeping up salt all afternoon, but it is totally worth it.  Trenton’s pumpkin turned out so cute!

This post is linked to: The Sunday Showcase @ Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Made by Little Hands @ Delicate Construction, It’s Playtime! @ Hands On: As We Grow, The Mommy Club – Share Your Resources and Solutions @ Crystal & Co, TGIF Linky Party @ Living Life Intentionally, Show & Tell @ ABC & 123