Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Happy Halloween from

Glinda the Good Witch, Dorothy, Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, and the Scarecrow!

It turned out to be an extremely warm day for Halloween - getting up to 72 degrees! This made Halloween night absolutely perfect for trick or treating!

We went around the neighborhood with our next door neighbors (Mark, Donna, Lily, and Abby). Lily and Peter lead us to most all the houses while Natalie did her best to keep up. There were a few houses that Natalie wouldn't go up to - the ones that were "too scary". A piece of candy just wasn't worth the scare for her! Luckily, not every house was too spooky and the kids got their treats.

Elaine seemed to enjoy her first Halloween as the Lion (despite her unhappy face in the group picture). Her costume kept her nice and cozy while she liked being strolled around and looking up into the stars!

Unfortunately, we have quite a bit of leftover candy. I can never get it right. We either run out or have too much! I guess it didn't help that we went trick or treating for about an hour before getting home to hand out our own candy. I'm sure Peter and Natalie aren't too upset with the excess of candy. They had lots of fun sitting on our driveway eating their candy with Lily and helping hand out candy to trick or treaters. It was obvious that Natalie had too much candy tonight. She was getting all silly crazy while getting ready for bed, giggling and running around in just her diaper. It was very amusing to watch, and know every sugar high will have a crash. Fortunately, the crash happened right when we finished our bedtime prayer and songs. Next time, we should probably put a limit on candy at night. It was just hard to say no to my little cute "Dorothy".

Sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I am so proud of our costumes this year. I surprised myself that it all came together. Most of the items got done last minute - literally, as my crown was made 5 minutes before we hit the door - but we got nice comments tonight about our costumes. Althought I'm happy never to wear that pink dress I made ever again (it makes me look 20lbs heavier), I'm a little sad that Halloween is over because I really enjoyed seeing Natalie in that Dorothy dress...maybe I'll let her wear it around the house just for fun!

Gearing up for Halloween!

It's due time for us to dive into holiday decorating. With the exception of Christmas, I've been a minimalist when it comes to holiday decor around the house. I feel the need to get into all the holidays for the kids to enjoy them and get that experience.

So, here's it starts with Halloween! I was inspired by the ghosts hanging in the windows at Peter's preschool to do this craft project with the kids at home. It came together really quickly. I just grabbed some white, black and orange paper from my plethora of paper supplies, made some cut outs, and handed out the school and stick glue to the kids. Look what we made!

We made a pumpkin and a ghost for each family member, including Sydney. I then let Peter and Natalie put them up on the windows around our dinner table. I think it adds a lot to the room and they love them!

Notice how Sydney's pumpkin and ghost got whiskers and ears!

Peter made Elaine's ghost and Natalie made Elaine's pumpkin.

Finally, from left to right, we have Natalie's, Mommy's, Daddy's and Peter's!

ZTA 5K Walk/Run (or stroll)

We participated in the ZTA 5K Race today. Our babysitter Dominique's sorority was putting it on, and it was for a good cause, Breast Cancer Awareness. It turned out to be a beautiful and very windy day, perfect for the race - especially since it'd been raining for the last couple days.

Here we are waiting for the race to start. We got our numbers 76, 76, 77! For whatever reason, Peter was being anti-camera for this shot and Elaine is in the single stroller.

I was overly excited to get my "Think Pink" ribbon pin.

Luckily, Elaine slept through the entire race...all nice and cozy warm in her car seat.

I didn't get to catch Peter crossing the finish line because he'd ran off quicker than I could keep up, but he did get a lot of cheering to finish off the race, just like Natalie's reception to the finish line.

Here's their finish photo with the finish line of balloons behind them. It was sort of cute that each thought they won the race - as we told them, they did win...in their division.

Peter's favorite part was the race. Natalie's favorite part was 'the wind blow [her] hair away'.

It was a nice run and we had a great time doing the race as a family. We got a lot of props from other runners and organizers for bringing out the kids for the run. We felt happy that we did it...and now my legs are SORE!

As promised after the windy day out, we had hot chocolate back at home

...through a straw, nonetheless!

Whatever makes them happy!