Halloween 2013

Well, Halloween this year starts out with a major failure. I had this idea about matching costumes...Sully an Mike, any Princess and Prince Charming, etc. However, Olivia fell in love with a Little Bo Peep costume...so I thought Carter could be a sheep! It would be adorable. However, all sheep costumes have pink as an accent and are decidedly feminine. So I started my first DIY costume...The picture below is how far I got. Alex convinced me to cut my losses and go get a costume from the store before it was too late. He was right...I'm just not that crafty yet!

We had three Halloweens this year, because I love having excuses to get out of the house with the kids cute! The first was the 25th, when Amber's ward had their Trunk or Treat. Alex had to work that day, and Amber + family was out of town, but we didn't want to miss the fun opportunity. Here is Olivia with her first curls, she was so great about it, she just stood the whole time, and they turned out great!

I didn't get any pictures of them together, but we had a great time at the trunk or treat! It was the perfect size, and O just ran around with the other kids making friends and trying to decide what was real and what was fake :).

A few days later, the City of Meridian had a Trunk or Treat. We probably would have skipped this one, but it was a day that Alex had off, so we threw the costumes on again (sans curls) and went out. It was SUPER cold, but it was really fun, and good to see all the local businesses. We are still getting the lay of the land here, but it seems like businesses and the community is so much more active than we have experienced in the past, which is very nice.

The next morning was costume day at dance class. I'm realizing as I type this that we actually had four halloweens...have to get our money's worth for the costumes! I just thought all these 3-4 year olds were adorable lining up for class.

On Halloween, my mom was visiting, and Alex got off work early. Those two factors are the only reasons that pumpkin carving happened. I always leave it for later because of our birthdays, but then we never have time, so this may be our standard procedure for carving. This year was fun because O was so artistic about it, and C just wanted to taste the goop over and over...then spit it out and make a hilarious face :). We tried to warn him after about 5 times, but he was a slow learner.

Alex made an awesome pumpkin with all these fancy tools and things...and then next is Olivia's. She mostly colored, but then had fun telling me the shape of each face item.

We did a little trick or treating, but we had WAY too much candy at this point (we still have some, and it's now February). The funniest moment of the night was Olivia running up to 'Snow White' on the sidewalk, and all excitedly talking, while this poor 5 year old was slowly walking backwards toward her mom...totally freaked out. She talked about seeing Snow White for quite a few days, I'm pretty sure she didn't have any idea it was a costume.

All in all, a very full and fun October! I can't believe it took 5 posts to blog about it all, but I take a few too many pictures, so it's hard not to share them all.

Olivia turns 3!

On October 28th, Olivia turned 3! We had a busy, fun day that started at the Idaho Aquarium. When we pulled up, I was ready to be disappointed (it was a big warehouse building, attached to a bail bonds store). But it was great! Less outside and natural than the Oregon Aquarium, but much more affordable and a great morning activity. 

After the aquarium, we picked Elli up from school, and went to lunch! O was really excited that she got to include Elli in her birthday festivities, and her insistence that she bring a friend made me realize just how old she was getting. We had pizza then headed over to Idaho's only indoor carousel! This was a fun surprise for O, who LOVES the Salem Riverfront Carousel, and misses it lots. The only mistake was that in showing her that Idaho has a carousel too, she wants to go every day!

Goofy face!

That evening we had all of Amber's family over for a little birthday celebration. When she asked, I realized that I hadn't done anything to celebrate my own birthday (25!), but it is so fun for me to celebrate my little girl that I hadn't even noticed. Alex and I always go out for my birthday, and this year was no different. We just like to let O have her special day on our actual birthday.

We loved this cake, which had two layers and looked super fancy, but was actually only a 8" round, so it wasn't a crazy amount of cake to eat. O talked about her princess cake for weeks before her birthday, so I was glad to deliver.

I think Alex took this picture, but we randomly have these great pictures of Kade. He is just a super photogenic kid I think, always giving great faces :)

Alex wouldn't stop taking pictures of me opening my gifts, so I just started doing random poses. Someone should have told me to stop.

Happy Teag!

Here are a few of the pictures from Olivia's 3 yr old shoot. She is such a beautiful girl, and looks SO grown up in these pictures. I think I will have to keep doing her hair up for pictures, down is just too mature looking!

End of October

October gets pretty busy for us, but we really enjoyed this warm fall and all of the activities that we could do! One thing that I meant to do much earlier is help Olivia make bird feeders with pine cones. It's one of those iconic things to make in my head, and was synonymous with being a great mom to me (yes I know this is ridiculous, but everyone has to have something that makes them feel like they are doing a good job). So one morning we got all the supplies out and made these feeders! O was totally in her element, and enjoyed it thoroughly. She made a huge mess, and had to be reminded repeatedly NOT to eat the seeds...they were mostly for birds. I gave up when she started licking the pine cones to get the peanut butter...I just let her do it :).

We put these up on the 24th of October, which is pretty late for any birds. After two days of no activity (and O checking ALL the time), I started to get a little worried, but then the squirrels found them, and I found O crying on the couch because the squirrels were stealing the birds' food...and thus began our first Circle of Life discussion!

Next we have a couple pictures of the kids playing together. I just love that they are finally old enough to have short spurts of getting along. These times don't last very long, and don't come very often, but they are very rewarding!

And yes, Carter has pink pajamas. He needed some more warm ones, and we have bins of girl clothes...

On the 26th, we gave Carter free rein with a bowl of Spaghetti-Os, and this is the result!

Later that day, in a clean shirt, Carter got a mini photo shoot while playing in the leaves with Dad. He was so excited we just couldn't help pulling the camera out.

This isn't Olivia's first dentist trip, but it was the first one that she went back solo, and got through most of the appointment fine before I even got back there! I was so proud of her, and totally surprised that she would let the dentist count and brush her teeth when she gives us so much trouble!