Thursday, October 31, 2013

A very princessy Halloween

The girls all dressed up like princesses for Halloween. They talked Ben into getting them these dresses when we were at Disneyworld in January. At the time we told them they'd have to wear them for Halloween. We got Kara a size too large, so she could grow into it, but it was still too big. Maybe she'll wear it again next year...
I forgot to take single pictures of them, but did get some group shots. Evie dressed as Cinderella, Karalee dressed as Rapunzel (and loved having long hair again!) Kiersten dressed as Ariel, of course. I keep waiting for her to start liking a different princess, but she's been all about ariel since she was 2, and doesn't seem to be getting tired of it yet. 
We went to a party at a friend's house before going trick or treating. It was pretty fun, and there were so many kids running around.
A group shot of all the kids (or at least most of them. there might be a few missing)
Evie kept asking why her friend Tyson wasn't dressed as a price. Not sure why she was expecting him to be, but apparently she thought he would be her prince charming. 
It was raining pretty good, so we all hid out in the garage. 

I thought we wouldn't get many trick or treaters, but as soon as the rain let up, all the kids were out. We didn't have as many as last year, but still enough to keep me hopping.
I couldn't think of a good way to stand to show off my kitty tail, so you'll just have to imagine a furry black cat tail pinned to the back of my pants. 
Yesterday was Evie's costume parade at school. It was hard to get pictures, because I was standing in line, handing out candy. The kids went by super fast. Luckily it didn't rain on us. 


She was really excited to get some cheese puffs, pretzels, and rice krispy treats. She kept asking on the way home if she could have to cheese puffs with her lunch. It gave her great incentive to eat her sandwich right away. 


The girls wanted to make cupcakes last night to take to the Halloween party today. I let Kara get the camera out, and she documented the baking. 


Kiersten took this picture right after I said, "if you take a picture of me, I'm going to insist you stand on a chair so you don't get a horrible angle." Then she just snapped away...
We made 3 colors of frosting. I think I make the best buttercream, but Ben wont acknowledge my prowess. (Kara stood on a chair to take this one)


I let Kara and Kiersten frost the cupcakes, and Evie got to stick on candy eyes. 
Monster cupcakes! I also made a couple of pumpkin ones when we ran out of eyes. 


Sunday, October 27, 2013

Trunk or Treat

I made the girls some fun costumes to wear to trunk or treat this year.
Evie, my little strawberry. She was offended by people thinking she was strawberry shortcake, and wasn't shy about correcting everyone.
Kiersten decided she would like to be a pineapple. It was a challenge to figure out, but this is what I ended up doing for her.
Kara requested a carrot costume. I wasn't sure if it looked much like a carrot, so that's why I made the pins for the front of their costumes.
I didn't want to paint their entire faces, so I just did their cheeks.
Ready to do some trunk or treating!
The girls got lots of compliments, and "fruit salad" comments.
They each won a prize for best home made costume for their age group. They were all pretty excited about that.
On Saturday, Evie had trunk or treat at her preschool. The other girls said they didn't want to go, so I just took Evie. You can see I was not very ambitious about decorating the trunk compared to the previous night.
There were a lot less people, so it wasn't crowded at all. Evie loved all of the games that people had set up for the kids to play.
Pretty exciting to win a cupcake in the cake walk!
She was super excited to get to play this angry birds game!
She did need help to use the sling shot.
She played the fishing game several times.
She had a hard time with this ring toss, but loved it all the same. And she still got a prize, even though she sucked at the game. (great thing about preschool events)
She wanted to try this "lizards in slime" game, but was pretty hesitant to actually grab hold of the lizards.
spider tic-tac-toe.
After we visited all the trunks, and played every game, we had chili dogs, and then she said she was ready to go home. Not a bad way to spend an hour :)

Friday, October 25, 2013

Hay hay hayride and Halloween fun

We took the girls to a Halloween event at the Disney store. They got to dress up in princess costumes, and parade around the outlet mall. They got to make a Monster's Inc bag and go trick or treating throughout the store. Kara seemed a little upset that they got other stuff besides candy, though I was pretty happy about it. 
Evie was a little offended that her sisters crashed her daddy-daughter date. She couldn't get rid of us fast enough. 
Of course Ben let them each pick something out to buy. (as if he could walk into a Disney store and come out empty handed...)
But who could say no to that face?
On saturday evening, we took Kiersten and Evie to a hayride. Karalee was at a slumber party that night. Kiersten has been going through a stage of trying to act tough, and refuses to admit when it's cold. We've been having a hard time keeping her hat and jacket on, even when it's below 50° outside. 
Ready for the ride. Evie was crying earlier in the day, and saying she didn't want to go. The reasons she gave were that she only likes cruises, and that she was scared. Ben talked her into being excited about it, and I was really glad, because she ended up loving it, and was so happy. 
proof that I was there
We ate hot dogs, chili, donuts, and hot chocolate. 
They had really short sticks to roast marshmallows with, so the girls had a hard time getting their marshmallows close enough. 
They quite enjoyed eating their s'mores! They had run out of chocolate by the time we got the marshmallows toasted, but I was able to grab the last 2 graham crackers.
There were 2 guys performing, and Kiersten had to dance. Another kid had a flashlight, and held it on her for a spotlight for about 10 minutes. When she came to sit down, I asked, "so you really like this band, huh?" and she said, "well, I like how they play guitar and sing like Papa". So I made her go tell them that she liked their performance, and Ben gave her a few dollars to put in their jar. Notice she had her coat off. I was sitting there freezing and shivering. On the walk back to the hayride to get back to the car, her hands were like ice. 
Last night we finally got around to carving pumpkins. We have just been so busy, and it kept getting put off. I really didn't have time to do it last night, but decided to do it anyway, and I'm glad. The girls had so much fun. 
Kiersten drew the face on hers, and Ben helped her carve it out. I love how it turned out!
Kara designed her own face, and got to carve it herself this year. She is so proud, and so am I :) The little one is Evie's. She also carved it herself. (just kidding, Ben helped her)

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Field trip that wasn't

Evie had a field trip to the pumpkin farm on Tuesday. Because it was pouring rain, they ended up closing the pumpkin farm and playground, but the animal farm and market were still open. So the kids still got to check out the animals. They refunded everyone, and still sent a pumpkin and activity book for all the kids with the school coordinator so they can have a little pumpkin patch set up at the school on a nicer day. 
Evie was super excited that this pig was named "bacon". She kept telling all of the other kids about it, and giggling. 
She was really upset about not being able to go over to the playground. She kept begging and promising not to get muddy. I'm thinking of possibly taking her and Kiersten back over one day when Kiersten doesn't go to school til after lunch. 
I bought her a caramel apple to try to notch down her devastation. She got the last one with sprinkles. (the rest had nuts)  I felt a little bad after, because some of the other kids saw her with it, and started begging for one too. So I walked her over to the lunch area to finish eating it more out of sight. 


I got her this little pumpkin, even though she'll be getting hers from school next week. She just couldn't stand the thought of going home without a pumpkin. She started crying when we left, because I wouldn't let her run over to the playground. She calmed down, and was actually trying to smile for this picture, but couldn't disguise her dismay. 
She hasn't painted her pumpkin yet, but we did have some really little ones that I let the girls decorate with sharpies. Kiersten just scribbled all over hers, and then was jealous of the cute faces Kara drew. She wanted to erase hers and start over, and was disappointed that the marker wouldn't come off. 




We had a pumpkin for Ben to decorate as well, and it was like pulling teeth to get him to decorate it. He finally drew a bat on his. I bought some big pumpkins at Sam's club (which is where I ended up going when the field trip was rained out) so hopefully we'll be carving those this week. I do love how they look already, just sitting on the porch.