Halloween Celebrations

October 2017

I love fall holidays! I love how developed the traditions and decorations are! Someday when I have more time, money and sleep (so never), I hope to get decor and other items to help make holidays throughout the year big and fun. Not to the point of annoying and kitsch but just so that there is a noticeable change of season and passing of time. I remember the beautiful decorations my mom had in our house for each different season and it just added so much magic to each season - bunnies, eggs and chicks in spring, scarecrows, pumpkins, cats and witches in fall, turkeys and nativities in winter, even crows, sunflowers and watermelons during the summer. Yeah, I definitely want to do more sooner than later. So many good feelings and memories.

Anyway, Halloween is the great kickoff to all the wonderful fall holidays and we celebrated it for practically a week!

Great new toy

Happy girl

I started this costume last year when we planned to be Lord of the Rings characters again with Hyrum and Audrianne who were two weeks old would be Merry and Pippin carried by James as Treebeard the Ent and Abi would be Shelob the spider and I would be some unnamed she-elf. But alas, being totally pregnant with twins and then completely exhausted with newborn twins, the costumes did not happen. Just think, though, of the awesomeness that that would have been! Anyway, Abi still has a huge love of spiders and bugs so I finished the costume this year.

Abi's surprise costume that only took me 13 months to make

And she LOVED it!

"I'm a spider!"

James decided to up our Halloween traditions by making homemade Root Beer. It was actually quite delicious! I don't even like Root Beer that much, but I think it's a winner of a tradition. We just will probably adjust the tradition a little to leave out the part where he quadrupled the amount of dry ice accidentally and sugary soda water sprayed ALL OVER our new, clean kitchen! I could have cried but he was good about his mistake and cleaned it all up nicely. Haha! But Abi's face as the cooler spit soda over and over at her. Haha! Classic! Almost worth the mess!

Homemade Root Beer

We were gifted some hand-me-down costumes which was so lovely because although it's been a year since the twins were born and you'd think I would have my life together again by now, it is not so. Turns out, three kids is much harder than one AND two at once is much harder than one at once AND birthing them yourself is much harder than showing up at the hospital all bright-eyed and bushy tailed AND producing your own milk is much harder than purchasing factory produced milk. Turns out. So, while the light at the end of the twin tunnel is getting brighter, we are still not quite emerged. :) Close though!

All this to say, Hyrum and Audrianne were a black cat and an elephant by default because those were the costumes we had. :) We will get more creative again in the future although our streak is quite bleak right now... All in good time.

Audrianne likes her costume

We were all dressed up and ready to go to our church-sponsored Trunk or Treat which was uncharacteristically cold - like less than 50F which is nuts for October in San Antonio, TX apparently because no one was prepared and we all huddled around each other trying to eat without freezing under the pavilion and then promptly ran around gathering and giving out candy and then hurried home. Haha! Such a weird day. And that's all it was - a day. Then it was nice again.

Hyrum was not amused by his costume

The next day we went to a local pumpkin patch with playground equipment, big hay bale slides, corn-filled sand boxes, animals to pet and feed and more. It was so much fun! The kids loved it! I loved it! And we got adorable pictures! Can't ask for any more than that!

My handsome men

Yeehaw!

Audrianne

Abi on the carnival-style swing set

Driving a tractor

Feeding the Alpaca

Holding twins is seriously a talent you have to develop - or else! Haha!

So at one point, Abi took off chasing this tractor on its way (it wasn't going fast at all) and she caught up and the people aboard thought she had been left behind so they lifted her on and it continued on its way - all while James and I watched as our daughter left us and no one seemed to realize her parents were not aboard and we wondered and hoped someone would be responsible for her. We felt there had to be some fine print somewhere that said, "You loaded that child onto that trailer, therefore you are now responsible for her safety. Please don't let her fall." And she was, of course, just fine.

They made their rounds and we waited for her to finish her ride. As we expected, on their arrival back, there were concerned adults aboard who were looking around for the parents who "lost their child" but duh, we didn't lose her - you people stole her while we watched! Haha! I refused to be shamed by their inquiring faces. We knew where she was the whole time! Anyway, she had a good time. That's all the matters, I guess.

Tractor ride

Audrianne

Hyrum

Abigail

Cutest pumpkins in the patch!

They were more interested in eating the dirt than smiling

This is a fun meal to make at Halloween time. Someday, when I'm supermom, I'm going to have a whole week's worth of fun menus like mummy hot dogs and blood and guts stromboli... that kind of stuff. My kids don't care much now anyway so I have time to develop my super powers.

Traditional Halloween meal

Seriously! This girl smells everything. This doesn't seem abnormal because it's food and we all smell food, but everything! Like, we'll be holding a random plastic object like a comb and she'll request to smell it. Or a letter, or the keys, or whatever. It's really quite hilarious!

She smells everything!

I love carving pumpkins! I wish I had super awesome carving tools but it seems a bit ridiculous to invest in something that is used so seldom. In any case, with so many little ones, we just carved one big family pumpkin this year. And that was a feat we are proud of! :) Abi really enjoyed helping! She's the perfect age to really get into this so we all had fun through her.

Checking out the guts

Cutting out his eyes

"So dark!"

This was a first year for this tradition as there are not Krispie Kreme donuts in the northeast - they prefer Dunkin Donuts - but we are definitely doing this every year! Every customer in costume under a certain age gets a free donut! I don't believe in mooching too much so we bought a half-dozen donuts to support them, all three kids got free Halloween donuts, and James and I and Abi all got a "Hot Now" free donut - so yeah, bought 6, got 6 free! Can't beat that!

Watching the donuts

We have done this for years now! Chipotle does $3 burritos for all costumed customers so we go every year just before trick-or-treating. Amazing! As always! While we were in Chipotle, it poured rain! Yeah... so we were delayed a bit leaving and then we got stuck in traffic so by the time we got home it was 7pm and we had planned to be home at 6pm. Augh! So, Abi was a bit late to the trick-or-treating party and by 8pm most people were shutting down. Now you might be tempted to think an hour is good enough for a four-year-old to gather her own weight in candy but don't neglect the fact that it takes much time to walk from house to house with a four-year-old and two twelve-month-olds especially when Abi gets distracted by the kid in the dinosaur suit and follows him in the opposite direction which is a problem since we are both carrying a baby and can't chase her down or grab her hand super easily. Haha! What an adventure! Anyway, in the end the shortage of time was fine since the kids were all tired, but James and I were a bit disappointed as we had looked forward to this as an excuse to meet all our neighbors. Oh well! Next year!

Dinner at Chipotle

Abi still made out like a bandit because everyone thought she was adorable when, after they would give her a piece or two of candy, she would reach back in their bowl for more. EVERYONE chuckled and let her take another piece. It was cute, though, because she wasn't really going for more as much as she was just going for her favorite - plain M&M's - and since those aren't the typical sought after candies AND we were nearly the last ones making the rounds, everyone let her filter through their bowls picking out the M&M's. Oh boy... so by the time we were at the last house (this is why it was the last house) she just dove into the bowl and wouldn't stop grabbing candy (they had lots of M&M's left) despite my threatenings and the people pulling their bowl back in shock and amazement. So, she picked up some bad habits thanks to generous people thinking she's cute. No more, folks! Be firm with those trick-or-treaters! Teach them gratitude no matter how cute! Haha!