Kid Conversation

Hazel has this habit of knocking half her food on the floor while she's eating and then being done (**clap clap**) right after I sat down just long enough to have a couple bites...

So I get her out, wash her hands, and set her down in the next room to play while we eat.

She then crawls in and eats the stuff she threw on the floor earlier.  (which hasn't been cleaned up because I'm desperately trying to eat my food before it's completely cold)

Do you remember this?  Okay good.  Enough back story.

The Frog was sitting by the front closet, putting his shoes on for preschool.  Hazel crawls over to him, clutching some floor-toast.

Hazel: (opens big) aaaaaahhhhhhhh aaaaaaahhhhhhhh
The Frog: (copying her)  aaaaaaahhhhhhhh  aaaaaaahhhhhhmfrg
The Frog: (laughing) Mom!  Hazel just fed me some toast!

Halloween!

I'm feeling a bit scroogey...  I didn't let Hazel go trick-or-treating this year because she had a cold.  But I was really excited about a bee costume a friend loaned to us, so I got her all dressed up long enough to take a picture and go visit said friends when it was still too light out to go trick-or-treating, but still after dinner.

It took her some time to get used to the hood...

I confess... I also didn't let Peach go trick-or-treating because she wouldn't take a nap that day, which was weird because she always takes a nap!  I told both of the older kids that if they wanted to go trick-or-treating, they both had to take a nap (because there was no way they were going to make their 7pm bedtime...) and The Frog took one no-questions-asked, whereas Peach, all of a sudden was adamant that she would rather stay up and play over trick-or-treating that night.  "I already had enough candy last night" she said.

ok...

And she didn't fuss about not going either.  weird.

So, The Frog and I embarked, pillow-case in hand, on our trick-or-treating adventure.

Much to my surprise, he wasn't planning to go to every house, as I always did as a kid.
me: "ok, so should we go to so-and-so's next?" (pointing next door)
The Frog: "nooooooo, I want to go to the blah's house." (someone several houses away... even though we know everyone between here and there.)

So, even though we walked by 30 or 40 houses, he only came home with about 6 pieces of candy.  and was perfectly contented.

wow.

And he ate all of it (minus 1 sucker and a few m&ms he shared with Peach) the next day.
which was fine with me.

Something else!! Every year before this one, I would buy the monster bag of candy from Costco and we would hardly put a dent in it.  This year, however, I decided to just get 3 bags (my 3 favorite fun-sized candy bars) and call it good.  And guess what... we ran out! I couldn't believe it!!  It's my fault for telling Jay to give everyone 2 and for eating 3 almond joys and a reese's earlier that day.... **blushing**  luckily, we only had to apologize to one family, but I still feel quite guilty about it.  I should have given them an apple or something.

Anyway, all-in-all, I felt this Halloween had all the benefits (costumes, excitement, candy) with very minimal costs (sleep-deprived, cranky children, too much candy)!  Woo hoo!

Ward Halloween Party

So as I've mentioned before, I'm in the Young Women's organization at my church, and every Halloween, the youth put on a Halloween party for the kids.  Unfortunately, it didn't start until 6:30, which is after Hazel's bed time AND she was sick (and really close to our other kids' bedtime, but we decided to be nice and let them go.  Just this once, mind you...) so she didn't get to go.  BUT I really wanted to have her try on the tinkerbell costume I made for Peach 2 years ago since the only thing I made this year was:

What, you didn't see that a.ma.zing. tiara on Peach's head?  That's right... my pipecleaner sculpting skills even surpassed my own expectations.  Turns out, it was actually a good idea (and not just a cheap, use-what-you-have-on-hand idea like I had intended) because the pipecleaner kind of acts like velcro and stays put on the head really well.  I'll have to store that little nugget away for future use.

Yes.  I gave in and bought a muscle suit for The Frog.  It was just THERE at Costco.  He was begging... I knew I could never make anything that awesome.  I knew I wasn't really going to have time to make anything this year and the price was right, so I totally gave in.  And it was worth it because The Frog pretty much lived in this costume for most of September and all of October.

Here's Peach in her self-designed princess costume.  (more on her extreme independence later...)

Hazel being cute in the Tinkerbell costume.

Hazel getting attacked by the Tinkerbell costume...

Look at these cute kids!

Peach ended up not making it to the toilet in her princess costume before the party, and had to change into something else.  Luckily, we just so happen to have about a billion tutu-ish skirts.  (how else would she be able to don 3 every day?)

Now we're actually at the party.  She wanted a spider on her cheek.  Looks a bit smudged already...  She spent most of her time sitting on one of our neighbors laps at the dig-through-the-hay booth and didn't get very much candy.  (and i'm glad)

Turns out, we had all the avengers there, in toddler form.  Awesome, eh?

The Frog loved the "ghost busters" booth, where they shot at stacked cups with nerf guns.

donut on a string.  classic.

Peach, hoarding her cupcake from the cakewalk.

I dressed up as Mario, but I forgot to take a picture of myself...  But you can probably imagine what I looked like if you just picture a face swap here.  (if only I knew how to use Photoshop, I could recreate it for you.)

We're not done with costumes and Halloween fun just yet...

Parent Conversation

MAN, I've been doing a terrible job at posting...  things have just become so busy and I've allowed myself to sleep in until the kids wake up to get over this darn cold, so I am just perpetually behind (says the laundry that sat unfolded in a bin for 4 days).  To give you a feel for how things are going around here, this little incident occurred yesterday:

Me: (on my way out the door for a Young Women leadership meeting)  Jay, can you just make peanut butter sandwiches for the kids for lunch?  I'll see you at church! Thanks! Bye!

Jay: (via text message 10 minutes later) we don't have any bread.

I can't believe I still haven't reported on Halloween...

Busy Busy!

Last week (the short version):

My week for Peach's preschool + drama at Jay's work + helping with the Halloween carnival at church + YW Presidency meeting + Halloween + Hazel is sick and then I got sick + Dine-O-Round at my house = no blog posts.

And I'm still tired from it all.  Will try to catch up this week.  I finally have something to write about!