Halloweekend

Ben's Mom and his sister Nancy and her husband and kids came to visit us for halloween. They arrived thursday evening. On friday after the girls got out of school, we got started on making treats for a halloween tea party.
the girls set the table and made place cards for everyone.




Evie suddenly loves her animal train again now that her cousin Tommy came and likes playing with it.

Kara did really well at her soccer game saturday morning. It was really muddy and cold, so she and some of the other kids were upset by the end of the game. Later that afternoon, we went to a halloween party hosted by Ben's boss. It was really fun, and decorated super cute.

I made costumes for the first time this year. We were cavemen with a cave baby. You can't see the picture very well, but Evie had a cute little bone on top of her head. I loved her costume the most.

Vicky forgot to bring a costume, so luckily we have this cow costume she was able to wear. Here she is indulging in a little snack.


and...planking?...
my lovely princess peach and Halloween princess. I'll have better pictures of their costumes when they go trick or treating.

all the kids at the party. It was sure a lively group of kids, and hard to get a picture with all of them looking.

Evie fell asleep about 5 minutes into painting pumpkins.

Kara and Kiersten both worked really hard on their creations.

Nancy and I decorated a halloween gingerbread house with the girls. it was fun, though there were a few mishaps. We also made halloween suckers for the kiddos to take to their class party the next morning. It was a projecty day.Be on the lookout for cute trick-or-treating pics in the next day or two!

pumpkin palace

Evie and I got to chaperone the girls' field trip to the pumpkin palace in Orting, WA.
The big girls were so good, and stayed with their buddies the whole time. Evie was teething, and cried pretty much the whole time.

Kara is almost 4 pumpkins tall.



The kids were excited about lunch.

Mrs. Wright tried to get the kids lost in the corn maze, but Kara's sense of direction was right on, and being one of the stronger personalities, she kept getting them to the end, and Mrs. Wright would lead them back into the maze.

The kids love playing on this giant woodchip pile. Even Evie cheered up a little.

They had a few running races before we left. I though Kara would be exhasted for soccer practice that evening, but she was energized as ever.

October projects

After we made the paper pumpkins last week, the girls were very excited to put out halloween decorations around the house. When we were done, Kara said she thought we had more decorations. I thought so too, but I couldn't specifically remember anything that was absent. I decided we should do a few decorating projects to halloween the house up a little more. Kiersten found these wooden peanuts halloween magnets when we were at the store getting fabric for her halloween costume. She picked one out for herself, and each of her sisters.

As usual, Kara took a really long time trying to get hers just right.

I colored Evie's first, and then gave her a crayon to do some scribbling over the top.



Here they are proudly displayed on the refrigerator. The girls love rearranging and playing with them.

I've had this fabric sitting around for months, so I decided to sew myself a skirt. I made it one size too small, to encourage myself to keep losing weight. That's why it's so tight in the picture. I thought it turned out pretty good, and I only had to do the buttonhole once, which was great.

We found a foam jackolantern kit in the halloween box. i must have bought it on clearance last year after the holiday. The girls had fun creating their faces. I let them each decorate 3.



I also had a foam ring that I bought and never used. So I decided it should be turned into a halloween wreath. I just got some fun colored ribbon, and tied it closely together all the way around. This is how it turned out. I really like it, but Ben said it was weird. I guess that's okay for a halloween decoration.

I also bought some cheap-o window clings that look like little green goblins looking out your window. Yesterday, the girls didn't notice them, so today when we got home, I said, "It looks like someone is peeking out the front window." The girls both freaked out! I thought they would get that it was a fake decoration, but they both got upset and thought there were bad guys in the house. Kara refused to go in the house until I went in to make sure the monsters really were fake. (even though I'd already told her they were, and that I'd put them there.) We came in and I pulled up the blinds for the girls to see and touch them. Kara refused, but finally believed they were plastic. She said, "who would want to scare kids with pretend monsters in their house?" I felt pretty bad about it, so they might have to go. But I think for now, they are not scared of them anymore.

fall cupcakes and sprinklers

This was our last week before the girls start school, so we've stayed pretty busy. Kiersten has been begging to make cupcakes, and on wednesday, she cleaned her room, and talked Kara into helping clean the playroom too. So I went through a cookbook with them to pick out a flavor. They ended up choosing a yellow cake, which was good for me, because it was a simple recipe.

They took turns putting in ingredients and turning on/adjusting the speed on the mixer. They both still complained that the other was getting to do more or better ingredients.

Evie really wanted to be involved, so I let her down from the highchair to participate. She didn't get too many jobs, but she still felt like a big kid helping out. the other 2 were going crazy over who got to put in the eggs, so Evie ended up getting to do that part. She almost smacked away the measuring cup I'd put them in for her, because she was clapping so wildly for herself.

They looked through my hello cupcake book, and chose to do pumpkins. there was a template for the faces, but being a little lazy that day, I just melted down some colored chocolate and free handed the faces. They are on that wax paper to Kara's right. I didn't have any yellow, so I used a neon green to look like they were glowing, then I outlined them all in black. In retrospect, they would have probably looked a lot better had I just used the templates, and it probably wouldn't have taken much longer, but owell, too late now.

We made a vanilla buttercream, and colored it orange. Then I piped that onto the cupcakes with a star tip to make it look stripey. Then Kara's job was to put the faces on. I kept reminding her to keep the stripes vertical, but she did several of them horizontally, and they didn't look too bad.

I happened to have some chocolate covered sunflower seeds, so i decided we'd use those for stems. That was Kiersten's job. she kept saying she wanted to make them girl pumpkins, and asking if she could put bows on their stems. I told her no several times, but she ended up doing it anyway on most of them, and they actually looked kind of cute, I have to admit. Both of the girls only wanted to eat the boy pumpkins, though. Maybe they were trying to keep the girl ones around longer or something. Some of them got named, but I can't remember the names. See what I mean about the faces turning out a little sloppy? That's what I get, I suppose for being lazy.

I made enough faces to decorate 15 cupcakes. Even though I cut the recipe in half, we got 32 mini cupcakes out of it. So I sent a bunch of them to work with Ben to share. They are certainly not perfect, but good enough to make the girls happy. Kara also had a few issues with the spacing of the faces, but I guess it doesn't matter.

They were very proud of their creations. It was torture for them to have to wait until after dinner to eat any.

Since only 15 got to become pumpkins, we made some chocolate frosting for the rest. I also let them use the sunflower seeds to decorate the chocolate ones. They turned out very...interesting... and artistic...

Today was super hot, so after we got back from grocery shopping, I got out this sprinkler beach ball for the girls. Kara picked this out weeks ago, and this was the first time they've gotten to play with it. We've just been so busy for the past month.

She kept trying to run and jump over it, but she'd just end up hitting the top and bouncing back.

Kiersten complained a lot about getting wet. I don't think she had much fun. The only reason she kept getting back in the water, was to prove Kara wasn't having more fun than she was. She took a nap when we went inside, so I'm sure she was just tired and grumpy.

Ben went grocery shopping the other day at sam's club, and came home with this cute little picnic table. It's perfect for the girls, and they are always asking to eat in the backyard. When we had people over on monday for burgers, Kara took her plate out here, and sat by herself to eat.

finally carved pumpkins!

I got the girls all cute halloween shirts. This one says "daddy's little monster", so I had to get it, even though it isn't very girly. so I clipped a bow on her hat. hanging out with Kiersten. This is the day Kiersten started getting a runny nose, and Evie started coughing. We have all been sick the rest of the week, except for Ben and Kara.

Kara cleaning out her pumpkin brains. it took her a really long time.

I was so sick last night, so Ben did most of the carving. I did help a little with Kara's pumpkin though. This is the first time we have used templates for the faces. The girls picked which ones they wanted to do.

Kiersten's creation. silly girl, she just wanted hers to look happy.

and Kara loved her spooky one.

glowing on the porch for all the neighborhood to enjoy.

Kara got to wear her costume to school today for their halloween party. She really wanted her hair curled, but I woke up late and didn't have much time, so I didn't do that great a job. It will probably be flat by the time she gets home. But she was super cute and super excited this morning.

Evie finlly fits into Ben's FAVORITE baby outfit!!! hooray!