Happy Halloween!

Off to school for things 1 and 2! M said the wig turned out to be a bit of a problem at recess as the wind would blow blue feathers behind her in a trail. They were pretty proud to get to wear them though!

The littles and I then headed over to Story time at the library. A can't-miss for us these days. Smile guys (why does that never work??)!

Tad windy outside. I think we'll stick to the indoor events for the rest of the day!

 The highlight of the night was to be found at DSU's "Boo"Hawks (they're the Blue Hawks) Treat Street, although this particular part was traumatizing to G. It took her at least 20 minutes to recover from being so near the giant bird who's feathers we probably stole and glued to her head. To her, he looked angry. And she was terrified. 

And this is why it was the highlight. All the candy they got from the different offices and departments was great, the game rooms were fun, but the band room? They let things 1-4 loose on their instruments in the "Instrument petting zoo." It was awesome!

The only one that got dude to break out of his serious face he'd been wearing (I think due to the over-stimulation) was the trombone. He thought that was pretty sweet. A band student blew on it and he got to move it back and forth. Everybody else really liked the drums, gong, and xylophone.

But mustn't forget the girls' karaoke at the pizzeria. Epic.

 And here we are! A rare family shot! Is it just me, or does it look like Cooper's hat was photoshopped on? It was real! And perched atop a lovely headband of cat ears :) Such a good sport.

And yes, that is an announcement posted across my growing belly. Thing 5 coming soon! Sure seems like a lot when you number them off like that :) Hilarious to watch people count them off all night long, and then read my shirt and laugh out loud. Not sure if they're laughing with us or ...

Happy Halloweenie!

So sometimes I'm guilty of including way too many pictures in a post. This would be one of those times - but Halloween is just too fun and dressing them up is too cute! Somehow, despite talking about which princess they were going to be for Halloween ever since the 4th of July, they ended up being a frog and a rather glamorous bat (which she chose to be when Jell decided she liked the hand-me-down frog costume. She said, "Jell will be a frog and I will be a bat" as if there were some logical connection between the two). They ended up very happy with the arrangement.

Then, as I have been told, Coop and I chose to be the nerdiest thing we could've possibly chosen to be. I won't insult your intelligence by assuming you need an explanation. If you're still wondering, notice his ear, or the place that used to be his ear is bandaged.
Some of the fun of Halloween is that we get to go show our costumes to lots of grandparents and Aunt Patti and Uncle Jim. Here's a few pics with them:

It's that time again ...

They've only been wanting to dig into our pumpkins for like three weeks now. We finally did the other night while Daddy was in class.

Jell refused to ever touch the stuff, only willing to scoop it out with a spoon. Meri, on the other hand, got nice and dirty - I love how she's up to her elbow in one of our smaller pumpkins!

I think it's tradition now - we had it out and glowing for the Blazers' opening night again this year and it helped them to a win :) Course it was lit last night too, but we won't talk about that.

Then Jell absolutely insisted we make one into a witch, and after her not liking any designs we could find online, I made up this one while she slept and she loved it in the morning:

I can't take the credit here, this one did come from the internet, but it was so funny (Jell didn't stop laughing hysterically for like a minute straight) that we had to have our own Cannibal monster pumpkin. "Poor, poor baby pumpkin" she kept saying after she stopped laughing.

Now we're finally ready for Halloween, come rain or shine! And from all indications, come rain it is!

Pretend ghosts

As we've been seeing Halloween decorations everywhere, we've had quite a lot of discussions about what's real and what's pretend, and how pretend things aren't scary. They're just for fun and often silly. So here's our pretend hands/feet ghosts! We love the end product, and they loved the process, however mom was a little stressed about keeping the white paint from getting everywhere!! I'm giving myself a pat on the back for being a good sport and letting them do it in the first place :)

And that was the end of the sprinkles

Jell dumped basically the whole sprinkle jar onto one cookie. Oh well, right? Maybe she was trying to make him feel better after she busted his arm off ... before she ate him.

The Witches Ball

Ready to go party!

The whole witchey crew

Witches in trainingMama Witches - even Moms have fun dressing up now and then