My little monkey jumping on the bed

About a month before Halloween I tried the monkey costume on Hannah to be sure it fit.  I let her play on my bed and she absolutely loved it.  She did not want to take the costume off!!


Where's the monkey?


Reading her favorite book, Five Silly Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

'Nack?

Hannah was such a cutie on Halloween.  It didn't take her very long to figure out that when she held out her big pumpkin bucket people would put "nacks" in there! 


She actually wanted them to hand her the candy so she could put it in herself.  Once when we weren't watching she pulled out a Reese's cup and bit through it--wrapper and all!  She had a death grip on her pumpkin bucket and after a few houses she just wanted to sit in the wagon and eat her 'nacks'.  She LOVES snacks!  

I wish I had had the video camera on her at one house...she held out her bucket to get her snacks, and after the lady put them in, she said, "Thank you" just as plain as day.  The lady was so surprised and thought it was the cutest thing ever!!  We all laughed pretty hard!

At the fall festival she had her very first sucker, and she made a good friend in Mimi!! 

Halloween 2010

There are so many Halloween celebrations (or "fall parties" as some are called), and there are always pictures in abundance!  It's overwhelming to share them all here, but I'll try to summarize.

Aaron was the UPS man.  He was so proud of his costume!



Hannah was a monkey.  This was Aaron's costume when he was her age, and it was fitting for her because her favorite book is "Five Silly Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". 


Claire was a princess bride unicorn. We found the Cinderella wedding dress at the consignment sale, so I thought that was going to be it, but then she discovered her unicorn costume from last year was still in the top of her closet. So she had to do both!


This was the best I could do of all 3 of them together!



Our festivities included the fall festival at church, Claire and Hannah's fall party at preschool, Aaron's class party, and finally Halloween night trick-or-treating at Mammaw's, Granny's, the police department, and our neighborhood. It's enough to wear this mama out!

Here's a slideshow of all the pictures!

Pre-Halloween Fun

I just realized I forgot to post pictures from our pre-Halloween festivities. Since when did Halloween turn into a week-long celebration?

We always love attending the fall festival at church. They have trunk-or-treat, bounce houses, a train, and more. Mostly I just love visiting with people. I used to love to get my little cousin to take before we had kids so I had an excuse to go.

Here are the kids in their full costumes. Aaron is a fireman in a fire truck, and Claire is a princess riding a unicorn.



They like to do sideways pictures to mess up my photo ops.



Claire lost the unicorn pretty quickly as it tripped her up just after this picture. Luckily Mammaw had a Dora band-aid in her purse.

The firetruck was a last minute labor of love. I had known for a full year that Aaron wanted to be a firetruck, after the roaring success of his garbage truck costume last year. Of course I waited until the day of the fall festival to throw it together, but it came out quite nicely! It's two cardboard boxes held together with box rivets, then spray painted and accessorized. It took most of my Saturday to make, but we had a good time doing it.

Aaron kept requesting all kinds of accessories for the truck. This is his water hose, which is rolled up construction paper covered in aluminum foil.


We velcroed some fireman accessories he had bought at Dollar Tree to the sides and back...






There were actually two other firetrucks at the fall festival! What are the chances of that?


Claire is a choosy trick-or-treater.


Isn't my princess pretty?


Hannah happily hung out in her stroller. I never actually got her costume on that day...I had too much other stuff going on.



There was a DORA bounce house!!


Claire and her best friend, the spider!






(Check out Claire's braids...those are her first french braids!)

Mammaw came to the festival for a little while to see the kids...


What a fun day! Here are all the pictures...

Halloween Fun, part II

What we did all in one day on Saturday was enough to wear even the kids out!

After the pumpkin carving and naps for the kids, we got up, got dressed up, and stopped by the gift shop that had sold me the pumpkin. I just had to show them the picture (on my camera screen) and thank them again for their pumpkin!

Then we headed to a double birthday party for a brother and sister. It was lots of fun! We were late because naps had run over, but we had fun nonetheless.

Claire in her princess get-up. She wouldn't wear her unicorn.


Aaron caught in the act...


Me with my little pumpkin, with cold toes because I forgot her socks.




Eating birthday party snacks...


After the party we made a quick stop by the fire station so Aaron could show the real firefighters his super-cool costume.


Finally, we picked up Daddy (who had been hunting and then at his dad's building the zip line!) and headed to a Halloween party with Allie Rae.


They got to do a neighborhood hayride/trick-or-treat, which was so fun! My kids had not done any real trick-or-treating, except for a few houses last year right around our house, so this was so fun for them! They ran and ran and ran from house to house. The squeals of delight just kept me smiling.






One of the sweet ladies who was just riding along volunteered to hold Hannah for me so I could enjoy the evening with the kids...


These next two pictures are at Ellen's house. We got to church with them, and Ellen gave the kids BIG candy bars and told them "These make grown-ups sick." Thanks Ellen!





After that house, Claire and Allie Rae announced that they had one more house and then they were DONE! I knew the kids were wiped out, so we loaded up and came home to inspect our loot and go to bed. Thank goodness for the extra hour we got Saturday night thanks to the time change! We certainly needed it!

And here's all the pictures, if you're interested!

Halloween Fun!

We had the best Halloween ever this year!

Chris was hunting so I had the kids by myself most of the day. We started out with a yummy homemade whole-wheat blueberry waffle breakfast. I love doing big breakfast on Saturday!

Then we headed out in search of the perfect pumpkins. I don't know why I had not bought pumpkins already...but I learned my lesson this year. Do not wait until Halloween day to buy one. The first pumpkin stand we went to had smaller pumpkins, good for carving, but NOT big enough to put Hannah in. And that was the priority. I bought two of the smaller pumpkins, and headed to two more stands looking for large pumpkins. All the other stands were OUT of pumpkins! I couldn't believe it. I started to panic--what if I couldn't get the all-important pumpkin picture with Hannah, like I did with the first two children? That would be a travesty!! I already feel guilty enough about not doing stuff for my 3rd child!

I drove through our Old Towne area to see if the farmer's market was there, although I knew it wouldn't be. I just didn't know what else to do. When I drove by Old Towne Gifts, which is owned/run by my friend Stephanie, I saw two large pumpkins, either one perfect for my picture! I worked up my nerve and went inside. I introduced myself to Stephanie's boyfriend, and told him my dilemma. I offered him $20 plus the two smaller pumpkins I had bought earlier in the day in exchange for one of his big pumpkins. Thankfully, he took my offer! He wanted me to bring the picture by later--he said they might like to use it in an ad or something! Wow! I went back to the first pumpkin stand and bought two more carving pumpkins, and we headed home.

We put Hannah down for a nap, and started to work on our pumpkins. Aaron drew how he wanted his face to look (he was specific about having a trapezoid nose), and Claire wanted to copy her pumpkin bucket.


We started gutting the pumpkins. Aaron really liked the pumpkin guts. Claire wouldn't touch them with her hands--only the spoon.


Aaron got to the point where we had to tell him over and over to STOP with the guts already. He kept putting them back into the pumpkins...driving me nuts in the process!




Then we started drawing our designs and cutting...


Mom was there, so we actually got a picture of me!


The finished pumpkins!


When Hannah woke up from her nap, she ate and got happy, and it was time for her to get in her pumpkin! We had to try a couple of times, but I finally got her legs folded comfortably and she sat and looked around. A couple of times she smiled, and I got the best picture ever!


That was so worth the $27 pumpkin!

She tasted it, too.


And the rest of the day will have to be another post! This one is too long already!