Trunk or treat 2014

The girls school held a trunk or treat tonight. This year we went with a candy theme. Kara's costume took me the longest with having to cut out the letters and ironing them on. It was a pain, but turned out cute. She was excited to wear it.

Kiersten was such a cute little tootsie roll. Her costume was the easiest and quickest to make. I think it took me about an hour and a half from start to finish. I should have made the tulle on the top half stick up more, but oh well. She kept asking if she could eat the tootsie roll on her hair bow. She got lots of tootsie rolls tonight!

Evie is so in love with her costume! She told me she wants to wear it every day. I said I was glad not to be crocheting anything this year, but decided she needed a hat to go with it. I'm glad I made the hat, because it completes the look. She was a little worried when I put it on her that her friend Colbie might not recognize her.

Is that a sweet picture or what?

Ben refused to wear the halo I made for him. I was going to tape it to a hat, but he was a stinker. I still made him pose for a picture with it before we left. So here we are, dressed up like each other...

Kara got to run off with her friends, and was really excited about that. Kiersten also found some buddies to walk around with.

ready for the costume contest! There were so many kids!

Kiersten and her friends. She's got a lot of them. I feel like the first grade was a hard group to judge, lots of cute costumes.

Evie was beyond happy that she won "best homemade costume". I guess I can take that as a compliment as well. There were a few tears in the preschool and kindergarten groups when the winners were announced, but overall, the non-winners took it pretty well.

Kiersten was disappointed to not win a prize this year. Maybe next year!

Kara didn't win anything either, but didn't seem care too much. She decided she would have won best homemade, but the judges couldn't tell her costume was homemade. I'm just that good, I guess. Whatever makes her feel better. She was planning to wear this same costume to her ninja party tomorrow, but couldn't walk well, so I don't think it's a good idea. I think they're going to be running around, doing kicks, and stuff.

It was a super fun night, and went pretty smoothly. The best part? We get to do it again tomorrow with Evie's school. :)

Pumpkin time of year

Evie's pumpkin farm field trip was last week. She was excited to find her besties there when we arrived. These girls have been together since they were in the "2s" class, so they just love being together.

The majority of the morning was spent exploring the hay fort. They went through it 7 or 8 times. They were also thrilled that they all happened to have the same flashlight.

We also took a hayride.

This is the little boy she has been calling her boyfriend for months, until a few weeks ago, when he told her they are just friends for now.

They all just love their teacher. She is great. Kiersten had her as well, and still misses her, and loves to see her when she gets the chance.

She really loved this spider, but her friend was too scared to pose next to it. She felt like a pretty brave girl after that.

Almost 4 pumpkins tall.

She picked out one of the smallest pumpkins. She grabbed it immediately, and announced it was her baby, Jewel. She checks on her every day on the porch to make sure she's doing well out there, and even buckled it into a carseat on the ride home from the pumpkin farm.

Ben got some large pumpkins to carve with the girls.

Kara was determined to do hers all by herself. She didn't want any help, until it came time to scrape out the yucky stuff. But we made her do it herself since she'd been going on and on about doing it by herself.

Evie wanted a sad pumpkin, so this is how hers turned out. We had some KC chiefs templates, so we did a chiefs picture on the back of each. At first Kara said she didn't want one, but after she saw the others, she asked me to do one of the football pictures on the back of her pumpkin too.

The Chiefs side of the pumpkins.

Ben helped Kiersten with the face side of hers. After it was done, they thought it looked like Kara.

The other side of Kara's pumpkin. It is a cat. We kept telling her not to make too large of a hole, but she didn't want to listen, and did her own thing. I think she learned a lot, and will do even better next year.

Kiersten had a homework project to decorate a turkey wearing a disguise. The whole family is supposed to work on it together. She wanted her turkey to dress up like a rose, so this is what we ended up with. She is very excited to turn it in at school today.

Evie wanted me to help her paint Jewel. She has been saying all week that she wanted her to have blue eyes, but that was all I had to go on. I let her paint the pink hair on first, and then I did the face. She sat looking over my shoulder, and telling me how she wanted it. She did keep bumping me, so I had to redo it a few times.

This is how Jewel turned out, with her pink hair, blue "girl" eyes, rosy cheeks, and "scary pointy" teeth. I also glued a bow on top that was a reject from Evie's trunk or treat ensemble. She was pretty pleased, and asked if she can tell everyone that she painted the face. I told her to say that she designed the face instead.

Kara tested for her yellow belt in Tae-Kwon-Do. She was definitely trying not to act nervous when we arrived. She kept reminding me that her instructor said she was more than ready to test.

She passed, and was a little embarrassed when the instructor stopped the class, and had everyone watch her being awarded with the belt. I was a very proud Mom. She told me that she definitely wants to be there on test day when she's ready for the next one, so she doesn't have to do a makeup test in front of everyone again.

Future black belts!

St. Kitts

Our last stop was in St. Kitts. But we weren't in port til lunchtime, so we spent the morning on the ship. It was nice to sleep in a little later that morning. Ben took Kiersten and Evie to breakfast while I packed our suitcases, and Kara slept. When she woke up we had a nice late breakfast together.

Kiersten and Evie wanted to go to the pool, so that's how we spent a good amount of our morning.

This little pool is fun, but crowded most of the time.

Evie was the only one that played on the splash pad.

The kids put on a little performance for the parents. Kara decided not to participate, but Evie and Kiersten were very excited about it. There's Evie to the left in her Pirate Fairy dress again.

They got to dance on stage with Mickey and Minnie. You can spot Kiersten to the left in a sea foam green skirt.

Kara wanted her picture by the spiderweb window.

Kiersten and Evie got to meet Doc McStuffins. I hadn't realized Ben took them to breakfast with such crazy hair.

Ben and I went up on deck to see St. Kitts as we came up to it.

Suddenly, Mickey came wandering over, and posed for a picture with me. The girls were jealous when I told them, because I had already gotten to ride in the elevator with him earlier in the week. Kara said she thought he was avoiding her. Ha!

We decided to do some exploring by ourselves while the kids were still in the Oceaneer club. I was thrilled to meet these little monkeys as we were walking around. Our server at dinner had told us about the monkeys the previous night, and warned us that he wouldn't hold or touch them, but we might want to get the kids photos standing near them. Ben knew as soon as he mentioned it that I'd have to hold some monkeys, and he was right. They were just too cute.

We walked over to this church/tower. It was a nice walk over to it, and the grounds were kept so nice.

The lady working there opened the tower so we could climb up. The staircase was pretty narrow and steep.

We didn't realize there would be 7 flights of ladder-like stairs to climb! But I ate a lot at breakfast, and was kinda glad to burn some calories.

We finally made it to the top, and it was worth the trek. We had the most amazing view.

I was glad we left the girls behind, because there is no way we could have gotten all 3 of them to climb all the way up. It was one of the highlights of the vacation for me, even though I had some sore legs the next morning.

There were lots of fun fish and jelly fish right up by the ship. I wish the pictures had captured them better.

The girls were excited to get off the ship. Mostly because we told them about the monkeys.

We found the same monkeys I had held earlier. The girls just loved them! Evie was ridiculously happy about their little diapers. She's still talking about that!

Kiersten was a little hesitant, but once she had the monkey, she was pretty thrilled.

We didn't book anything in St. Kitts, so we just wandered around for a bit and did some shopping.

We met another monkey on our way back. This one was a little bigger, and it didn't have an outfit. He was a fun little guy.

Ben had to buy a new shirt, because it was so hot that he completely sweated through his first one. It looked like he had jumped in a pool. It was really hot, but the shop owners insisted it was just a pleasant, warm day.

The girls loved dessert that evening. It was decorate your own cupcake night.

We all got to draw a stick figure, and at the end of dinner, they all danced on the screen. The girls got a kick out of that. Kara's stick figure is the one on the left.

Kiersten's is the far left, and one of those might be Ben's, but I can't remember what his looked like, oops!

And at the end, we got to see our signatures on the screen, so that was fun.

Kara got to stay up late and go watch "Alexander's bad day" (or whatever it's called) by herself. She was proud of her independence and loved the movie. The other girls went to sleep early while Ben and I went to some of the adult entertainment. We had a fun last night.


It was a super fun cruise, and it flew by with having so many ports to stop at. We were sad to leave when it was over. The girls were the best behaved that they have been on any vacation. We really just had no problems with them, so that was great. I am looking forward to our next cruise, and we'll only have 2 stops, so we'll have more time to do stuff on the ship. We actually booked our next 2 cruises, so if anyone wants to go in May or December next year, we'll see you there!