Halloween - Part 2

Never one to reveal the girl's costumes before Halloween, this year we bring you the expected and the not so expected.

Expected: Bea choosing a kitty costume.


She really wanted to be a pumpkin, but there wasn't one to be found for the "over 2" crowd. I wanted to make one, but there just wasn't enough time and I wasn't sure where to begin. Maybe next year.

Not so expected: Olivia as a ... power ranger? Yes.


We really thought she would choose one of her many princess dresses for the festivities, but no. The day she told me she wanted to be a power ranger I just looked at her with a question mark on my face and asked, "Really? How do you even know what that is?" But she was certain that is what she wanted to be. A quick trip to Target and it was fate...for we got the last one in the store, that just happened to be in her size, and it was the correct power ranger color.

Also, they insisted on taking a few hugging photos...I couldn't resist this:


And then they did their best feisty pose for me:


Happy Halloween! And a very happy anniversary to my parents on this day, too!

Halloween – Part 1 of 3

At least, I think there will be 3 parts to the Halloween post. And, you might be seeing Part 3 right around Christmas if you’re lucky, which is par for the course on my blog updates lately.

In any case, I’ve always liked Halloween and Fall is my favorite time of the year. I had no idea how much more exciting Halloween is once you have kids to enjoy it with. The past couple of years have been a lot of fun, but I do have to say that this is the first year where there has been actual excitement building since the beginning of September. First, it was all of the talk about the candy that surrounds the occasion and specifically, candy corn and how WE MUST HAVE SOME BY HALLOWEEN. This was said by someone under the age of 5.

Then, it was all talk about going to the pumpkin patch and picking at least 20 or so pumpkins (if they could have it their way). We ended up with 11 total – four of those are large, another four are fairly small and are on the borderline of not being sure if we should carve them or not, and then two of the smaller deep-ridged thanksgiving-style pumpkins. We also acquired one of the small ones in white, which I have declared mine and no one can touch or carve into it.

And then it was the costume decisions.

Now it is the roasting of the pumpkin seeds and the carving of pumpkins and the Halloween decorations (MOM, WE NEED MORE DECORATIONS!).

Well, somewhere in between all of that, we all had a big bout with the flu, and since we’ve had our flu shots we were thinking that we had that “other” flu...I forget what it’s called. And on one of those Sundays not too long ago, three of us were feeling better and so we made Halloween cookies for the first time ever. I made the dough, bought cutters and icing, and we were good to go.

Here’s a few of my creations:


Here’s some more. We had so many cookies that I ran out of ideas of how to make them different and that is why there are names on some of them:


These are Olivia’s creations. There is a reason they look the way they do. She put the icing on them and decorated them, but then she licked the icing all over the cookie and then declared them finished:


Guess who’s these are:


I have to say that I am enjoying this time of the year more and more! Happy Halloween!