Today we met up with some friends after school to enjoy the beautiful autumn weather.
It was chilly but the sun felt so nice and warm, and the crisp air fueled my heart.
Apparently, it is supposed to rain tomorrow, so I'm glad we got to sneak in some time outside.
The kids had a pretty intense game of Hide and Go Seek going, but my 30 years of life must be paying off because it only took me like five minutes to find them. :)
Caity- what a sweet big sister. Is it just me or does she look
incredibly too old to be my little Caity?
All speed ahead!!
Simple outings are good for me. I'm so glad we got to venture out this beautiful November day!
We had an exceptionally fantastic and festive Halloween. It really was a perfect day.
I had all these fantastic plans of fun things we were going to do throughout the month of October, but I really dropped the ball. Consequently, I really crammed our actual Halloween with all sorts of Spooktacular (yes, I said spooktacular) goodness. And it was totally worth it! It was a day well spent with my little best friends.
If you have read previous Halloween posts, you know that November 1st always finds a very sappy Mary. And November 1, 2017 is no different. I know these Halloweens-with-young-kids are numbered, and for whatever reason the first day of November always has me drinking in as much of "the moment" as possible before it becomes a distant memory. I mean, it really does feel like just last year I was taking a 2 month old Jack-O-Lantern Caity to all the community events...I was so excited to jump into the newness of motherhood and holidays and here I am NINE years later and so many great memories that I simply cherish. (I warned you...sappy!)
Today I feel a general contentment- what a life!
(see previous post for kids' costumes)
Our table Halloween morning.
The kids' lunches for school: Zombie Juice, Jack-O-Lantern Peaches, Ghost String Cheese, Pumpkin Spice Tortilla Wheels, Spider Oreos. (I feel like I should add, the kids were very lukewarm about this lunch that I was pretty dang excited about!)
Our traditional Jack-o-Lantern Pancakes with Ghost Vanilla Milk.
While the big kids were at school, we read all our Halloween books, watched Paw Patrol Halloween, and I crammed in all my procrastinated Halloween projects so I could enjoy them with the kids in the afternoon.
When Johnny and Caity hopped off the bus, we played in the leaves with our friends, the Osbornes, for a good solid time. I really think leaf piles are on my top ten. It was a beautiful, warm, breezy fall day. We had such a blast. And I am just smiling all goofy just remembering it. It was just one of those unmanufactured moments that you can't explain to anyone and do justice in how special it was. So you just thank God for the beautiful simplicity of afternoons kicking, throwing, and piling leaves.
Also: it's hard enough getting four kids to look at the camera at once...double that? Well, we tried! :)
Next, we came home and had Mummy Hotdogs and made Caramel Apples. While I made the soup for later, the kids decorated Halloween cookies.
....and maybe I ate them, like almost ALL of them. I know: self control- buuuut, sugar cookies- yum.
Next, it was to the back yard to clean out some pumpkins. I just love those kids. This was the first year they completely emptied those gooey suckers all by themselves! Proud Mom/Johnny/Caity moment there. After pumpkins were cleaned out, everyone got into their costumes.
And things got a little crazy...because costumes just have that effect on kids! Am I right?
I froze ice in a plastic glove and put it in the red punch, the boys were pretty enamored by it. I was pretty stoked that for the million pinterest fails- one finally worked. It's hard to tell, but William's crocodile head it trying to get a drink of "the nummy bloooood." Since I spent naptime working on Halloween games, that I swore I was going to finish in September, I was determined we would have time to play them!
We did a cake walk- bad picture- but you get the idea...
And Bingo! Who doesn't love a good game of Bingo?
Dad got home earlier than we planned- Yay!! He helped the boys carve their pumpkins while Caity and I (mostly Caity) worked on the girl's pumpkin. I looked down from my bedroom window and saw the boys crawling all over their dad and I basically just got all the feels- how lucky I am to have John! He is an awesome dad.
Carving Pumpkins...
Oh and hey- there's me. I'm not in any of these pictures, so I thought I'd include the costume picture I sent John.This way, you guys know I still exist and I'm not a robot. I was REALLY creative with my costume this year!;)
Then it was off to go Trick-or-Treating around our neighborhood! We went with our friends, the Mullens. Travis is Johnny's age and Abby is the little sister Caity always wanted.
It was such a fun night being out with all our neighbors running door to door.
Caity found a throne of leaves.
Trick or Treat!!
Caity and Abby
Our whole trick or treating gang! And Pennywise...eek!
Johnny and Travis were insane sprinting all over the place, Matthew demanded to be carried to the door step, William was contently keeping a good pace and didn't say a word besides, "Trick or treat" and "Thank you" the entire night, and Caity just hovered and nurtured Abby the whole way, and Abby let her so it was a win-win.
We got home and dumped out our candy, drank hot chocolate, ate vegetable soup in pumpkin shaped bread bowls and watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas."
Everyone was exhausted, but happy. After scriptures, they all filed to bed and crashed in record time!
Here are a couple of videos I had taken throughout the day:
Every year I just can't get over how cute these kids look dressed up!
They were all REALLY into their characters this year. Consequently, it was always difficult to get a picture...like, this is what they did when I said, "OK, get in a line and smile!"....ooooor howl, shimmy on the ground and karate kick- that works too! ;)
CAITY the PINK POWER RANGER
I know you shouldn't live vicariously through your children...you know, let them live there own life or whatever? Well, sometimes the stars align just so, and your daughter wants to be a pink power ranger. And you find a circa 1995 power ranger costume. And you find yourself fan-girling over your nine year old daughter as she lives out your dreams, because when you were nine years old; your mom had you dress up as Mary Quite Contrary. (For the record, it was a darling Mary Quite Contrary...so there's that.)
I know this picture is blurry, but I just had to capture what our family has been dealing with for the month of October. Mighty Morphin' Ninja Moves everywhere at our house.
JOHNNY the WOLF
Johnny had his Halloween costume chosen about eight months ago. This boy is constantly howling and growling and chasing after his brothers. Ever since we found the vest, Johnny would find a reason to wear it (despite me telling him to wait until Halloween.) Most of the time he wore it shirtless and he kind of reminded me of an 80's rock star. He was thrilled when we found the hat and ever since we've had a regular animorph in our midsts.
WILLIAM the CROCODILE
Willie zeroed in on this costume in a split-second. He saw it at a second-hand store on the rack, and squeezed through a sea of grown-up legs to nab it. I hope I never forget frantically looking for William only to find him grasping tightly to this costume while grown ups milled around him completely unaware of his determined stance. When I spotted him, he was just staring intently at me, willing for me to see him and help claim his costume. It fit like a glove and he was one happy crocodile, (not alligator, not dinosaur, not "some-kind-of-reptile"...for the record.)
MATTHEW the LION
This costume made its debut again. Hooray!!...because it is for real, one of my favorites! I just couldn't get over how sweet Matthew was, growling and giggling all over the place this year. This costume completely blocks out peripheral vision, so there were many times I would find this lost little lion wandering, having no idea what was going on around him. He completed the little zoo we had going this year and I just loved watching him trail his brothers with his big furry mane.
the
Here are they're costumes in action at our community party and at our church party:
Johnny and his "best friend from church," Kate.
William getting ready for the costume parade.
Matthew was so overwhelmed, but Caity faithfully remained by his side.
On our way to the block Monster Mash last Saturday.
Johnny and his Dad playing carnival games.
The lion crossing the bridge. (Over and over and over and over again.)
"Mom, it's a swamp, and I, I, I am going over it."
