Category Archives: Halloween-y

Crafty Tuesday

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I know you all have great Crafty stuff to show today with all the Halloween costumes running around last night, so let’s get started here…

Before we trick-and-treated, we did have to pay a visit to our little new baby friend, who just isn’t so “little” or “new” anymore. But we finally got our baby gift over to the new baby Lacey.

A version of the pillowcase dress, but made out of one of my favorite fat quarters, not a pillowcase.

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And we got some new labels and tags.

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And then it was time for Halloween. Vic guessed Em’s costume correctly last week. After reading Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while we were in North Carolina last month, and then seeing the (very trippy) movie, Em decided that she wanted to be an Oompa Loompa.

And I gave her what she wanted.

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I think it turned out really great – and she got tons of compliments, although some younger kids had no idea what she was…but with the green hair and orange face, they were a little frightened of her, I think.

This was actually taken before Halloween because we went to trick o’ treating at J’s office, so we made some adjustments to the costume because Em was studying the video and…Hey! They also have stripes on their arm cuffs. And pom-poms on her shoes! So we added all of these to last night’s attire. She is a bit of a perfectionist, I can’t imagine who she got that from.

And Addie wanted to be a Monarch butterfly. Not just a butterfly, specifically a MONARCH butterfly. And she was. And it was the easiest costume ever. But I figured I deserved an easy one.

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What Halloween goodness do you have to share today?

Crafty Tuesday ~ Halloween Edition

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Here we go…all of the Halloween photos have been downloaded. And I am going to do costumes, pumpkins, and Halloween all-in-one today. Then tomorrow…on to the next season!

We didn’t get a chance to do our pumpkins until Friday afternoon. Nothing like cutting it close. Em was pretty excited about “gutting” them this year. Addie wanted nothing to do with them.

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Em also drew her face on the pumpkin and Daddy cut it out exactly the way she drew it. Hers is the 2nd one from the right. Addie wanted a heart nose (like hers!), so that one is hers. The surprised pumpkin was mine and Daddy got all artsy with the black cat on his!

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Then…FINALLY it was time to don the costumes on and get to trick-o-treatin’! We started pretty early, so we got to be home for the bulk of the kids. We just went around the block which is still more candy than they can (or will!) eat until well after Christmas.

There was one house, I guess the guy works on special-effects in the movies and his house is always terribly scary. When we walk past it to go to Ad’s school, Em always calls it the “haunted house” but it is also the home of one incredibly friendly little kitty who runs up to the girls to get love whenever he is out. It’s a tough dilemma…gory body parts….or cute cat? Most of the time the cute cat wins out. But on Halloween night they had the fog, the scary music, nothing but candlelight – the whole works. Em refused to go up to the door. Even with promises that we would go along.

Addie, on the other hand, had figured out that you had to make it to the door to get the goods! She marched up there (making sure I was at her side, of course) and the guy who lived there kept telling her that she was so brave so she should get extra. I think he put five handfuls of little candy bars in her bag.

Of course, when we were walking home from church on Sunday (and various other times over the past few days) she reminds us all, “I was so very brave at the haunted house, wasn’t I? Emma didn’t want to go up there, but I did and got LOTS of candy!” Stinker.

So, the girls liked getting the candy, but REALLY liked getting to hand it out, as you may have seen in my BSM yesterday. The loved to see the costumes and some of Em’s friends from school came to the door, too. That was really fun.

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And now for the costumes. I loved how Addie’s turned out. It looked really cute on her. She loved the wrist loop that allowed her to hold her tail and walk at the same time. But she ADORES the seashell “puwrse.” She used it as her candy bag. I should have shot better closeup photos so you could see the sequins, or “sparkles” as she calls them, on her top and on the seashell.

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I’m glad we just borrowed the Ariel wig from a friend, she had it on for maybe 10 seconds. Then it was tossed aside and I couldn’t get her to put it on for anything. So Ariel was blonde in our house for Halloween.

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I liked Em’s costume and everybody knew that she was Alice in Wonderland right away, but apparently I think my girl is about 2 sizes larger than she really is. The dress was pretty big, but the apron sort of “held” it on. Addie’s was a little big, too – but I was (in my infinite wisdom) really just making sure they could use them for dress-up for the next year. Yeah, that’s it!

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She had to carry that metal bucket as her candy collector. I think if we had been out for longer than once around the block it would have been too heavy, but she even offered to carry Addie’s bag at one point, so she did alright.

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(See how big the sleeves are on her little weenie arms?)

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Once we got all of the material and supplies, and got it all cut out – the sewing went fairly easy. Although slippery satin is definitely not my first choice for fabric, I might be talked into doing costumes again next year. We’ll see. Although if you ask them, they just want to be Alice and Ariel again next year. So maybe the costumes will still fit??

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The Waiting Game ~ Best Shot Monday

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Seems like we are doing a lot of waiting lately.

The girls are always waiting for me to take them to the park – just let me throw in one more load of laundry or start the dishwasher.

I am always waiting for J. to get home and help takeover on “girly duty” – please, just get them through the baths and into bed?

And all of us are always waiting for the weekend – isn’t that when all the fun things happen?

So it is pretty fitting that my Best Shot Monday this week is Ad waiting around to give out a treat. (Or a trick, maybe?)

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I know some of you are waiting for real Halloween photos and the unveiling of the costumes(!), but while I try to get my stuff together over here, why don’t you go visit Tracey.  I’m sure there is a Halloween photo or two over there, and no waiting required.

Where are all the lows?

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Our life is usually a little, gently sloping rollercoaster, some highs, some lows. Apparently we are heading for one doozy of a hill because we have been on nothing but a high, all week long.

To start the week off the girls and I were on a “Daddy high” when he safely arrived back home from his week + of travels. It was a serious love-fest around here Monday night and has been the rest of the week, when Daddy is not passed out from sheer exhaustion. It is so nice to have him home and I have returned Emma to her own bed and J’s cricket bat back to his closet. (A few crazy noises one of the nights while he was gone, had given it a premier spot within arms reach of my side of the bed.)

The middle of the week sent the girls into a serious “sugar high” with all of the Halloween festivities and candy. Candy. Oh my word – do we have candy. We got all dressed up. Mommy and Daddy, too. Emma was insistent on me having a costume, so while we were in Target the other day (and their costumes were all on sale!) I told her she could pick one out for me. Her first attempt was a bar wench costume, with the shirt cut down to here, and the skirt cut up to here. She said, “it is like a girl pirate, Mama!”

I told her they didn’t have my size (thankfully they didn’t) and she tried again. The second time around she picked out a queen costume. Nice long skirt, super cheap. Ding, ding, ding. We had a winner.

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It was fun to get dressed up with them and yes, that is glitter that you see on every inch of each of us. Apparently queens, princesses and fairies all are very glittery. I was not aware, as I’m sure you were not. But now we all know. And we also know to put the glitter up, far, far out of the reach of little 2-year olds. Yeah. She still has glitter in her ears, and I still have about an inch of glitter covering my house. At any rate, we had a good time and Em and Ad got a little prize at one of our neighbors’ for being the “best dressed.” Very cute.

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And Daddy was a pirate, of course. We trick-o-treated around the block and the girls came away with quite a load of candy. They have each had maybe 2 pieces of it. I just threw our Easter basket candy away, so I’m guessing that this batch will last us til next Easter, at least.

Addie totally caught on to the whole routine and even had her “Trick Or Treats” “Thank Yous” and “Happy Halloweens” at all the appropriate moments. It was so sweet. But their favorite part of the whole night was when we got back to the house and they got to hand out candy. They loved that part and both wanted to give away handfuls to all the kids. I had to keep telling them “only 2 pieces for each kid.” And then Emma would say, “or three, right Mama?” It is hard to say no to them being so happy to give to others.

So no naps, and a late night led to a little bit of an off-kilter morning yesterday and then the chin-splitting incident. Which all just pushed everyone into a little bit of an “adrenaline high.” We went to the gym, lunch and were on our way to Trader Joe’s for some groceries and Addie had those “sparkly” shoes on from Halloween. She had already tripped two or three times before we even got to the store, I am not sure what the problem with them is. She was sitting on the bottom shelf of the basket while I was picking out some groceries and she tried to get up, tripped over her shoe and face-planted right on her chin.

At first it didn’t even bleed. She cried for a few minutes and then I realized it was bleeding, and then gushing. So I got it to let up, put a band-aid on it (first-aid kit in the car, so handy yet again!), and we finished shopping. She was smiling, all seemed ok. When we got back to the car with the groceries, I peeled the band-aid off just to see how it was doing and it started bleeding again and I realized, it was a bit of a gaping hole. So I decided to take her in just to make sure she didn’t need stitches, or get them if she did.

Luckily Michelle was with us and took our groceries and Em back to the house to stay with Denise, and Ad and I trekked to the ER. Like I said, 3 hours later, they basically super-glued her chin together and she was/is as good as new. She was fantastic at the ER, though. I really can’t believe that kid sometimes. She hung out, got stickers from all the nurses and was completely cooperative. One male nurse came in and was checking her chin (and her puppy’s chin, he got a band-aid and boo-boo, too!) and she just looked at me and said, “I’m gonna be ok, right Mama?” I don’t know if she was trying to convince herself of it or trying to tell the nurse she didn’t really need to be looked at. She was not as fond of the doctor since he was a formidable fellow and a little gruff. But she still did great. I’ll have to try to take a pic of our first trip to the ER for Addie. I had forgotten that it isn’t our first ER trip, Kim reminded me of Emma’s first flesh wound incident when was attacked by a bird at the Playboy Mansion. (Yes, it truly is as bizarre a story as it sounds!) She was only 18 months old and that was our first official trip. Ha!

You know when it seems like the week is going by in slow motion, but then you look back on it and it seems to have gone so fast and you did so much? That is kind of what this week has been like. So I’m really hoping for a low-key weekend. We really need it. A little recuperation, rest and hopefully a good showing from our football team tomorrow. That would be the perfect ending to our week of highs.