Halloween 2016

Hi, friends! Last Monday was Halloween and our first time trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood. And O M Goodness. What fun the girls had and what an impressive candy haul they brought home! (Thanks, girls!) Cece wanted a mermaid costume this year and Rosie was excited to be Elena of Avalor. The girls let me put long sleeve shirts under their costumes without any fuss which I considered a major win. (I remember being devastated to wear a turtleneck under my princess Jasmine costume one year. I just really wanted to freeze and my mom wouldn't let me. Sigh.)

A few more photos from my phone below:

I can't remember if I've ever mentioned this, but I truly hate carving pumpkins. Like, everything about the process. Fortunately, the girls were happy to just paint their pumpkins this year. Again, thanks girls!!

We started out trick-or-treating by cruising around the neighborhood in our fly new ride. However, the girls ditched the car when they realized it was way faster to run from house to house.

To say our neighborhood was filled with trick-or-treaters is a serious understatement. I had never seen so many kids and parents out celebrating Halloween. It really was a blast and we had a great time with some of Cece's friends from school. I think we stayed out for about an hour and a half and then came home to warm up with hot chocolate, bath time, and the Vikings game ; )

Cece and Rosie also got to hand out candy for a little while after they came home and I think they enjoyed that almost as much as trick-or-treating itself!

Cece has already been asking how many days until next Halloween. I don't blame you girl, this was a great one!

Halloween Candy Houses

Happy almost-Halloween! Cece recently had a four-day weekend and we kept busy for most of it. However, on Monday we relaxed around the house and I managed to facilitate a small Halloween project for the girls.

During the Christmas season, making gingerbread houses is one of our favorite things to do. I figured we could start honing our skills and put a Halloween spin on the candy house idea. Really, all this meant was that I bought some candy corn and dark chocolate frosting. And I then quickly assembled simple structures from graham crackers that we already had in the pantry. (Joe called my construction skills too simple and "Ted Mosby-like" but I don't care. The girls turned them into masterpieces!)

I tried to monitor the candy-eating and frosting-licking, but as you can see, Rosie is totally guilty of sweet consumption (and so stinkin' adorable!). Cece could work on a project like this literally for hours. She was so sweet and thankful that I set this up for them!

I also love how Rosie's house's door is a nod to Olaf the snowman.

As you can see, the girls had a lot of fun and these masterpieces are now centerpieces on our dining room table. (Of course, the smell of frosting was making me crave cupcakes... so I might have baked a whole batch of cupcakes today... whoops.)

Anyways, thanks for checking out our cute candy houses!

Back on Halloween...

Before the whole world boards the Christmas train, I need to at least post about Halloween (which was almost two weeks ago now!)

I made the last minute decision to run the Monster Dash half marathon the morning of Halloween. (By last minute, my sis-in-law had offered her bib to me a week before the race and I agreed.) This was unwise for so many reasons. One being that I'm not a runner. I haven't run at all lately and it was too late to train. Secondly,  it was wet and super cold that entire morning.. But, thanks to adrenaline and sheer will, I finished. I was drenched, freezing, and my body was all kind of unhappy with me. 

 However, I did complete it and now I can check off another before-I-turn-30 bucket list item. And I got a sweet-zip up. So, I am proud.

Post race, there was a nap.

Post nap, we headed out to a small Halloween Party. Cece was loving her "Office Girl" costume as was everyone else. We attempted to find an Elmo costume for Rosie, but waited until the last minute, so she was a generic pink monster who didn't really want to wear her monster hat, but that's OK. Joe and I are not big into dressing up for Halloween, but this year, we managed to represent ancient Rome and the roaring twenties, which is more festive than just eating all the Halloween candy wearing sweatpants (not that I've done that before or anything.)

The bigger kids were able to go trick-or-treating as the weather did get a little better in the evening. I was quite happy that there was a substantial amount of chocolate acquired by Cece. (Not that I'm always picking at her Halloween candy, just sometimes...)

Hope you stayed somewhat dry and hope your Halloween was spook-tacular!

Halloween 2014

 

 

 

 

Howdy! I hope your Halloween was filled with all good things. (As in, I mean I hope your treat bags were filled with Kit Kats and Reese's. And not a bunch of candy corn.) This certainly wasn't the warmest Halloween on record. However, we managed a few outdoor photos of the girls in costume. I did have to bribe Cece with candy to smile. She was quite distressed that Rosie kept wanting to touch her dress.

 

 The costuming ended up being easy this year. Cece wanted to be a princess and we happen to have just a few great princess dresses on hand. Rosie got the monster costume I bought for Cece's first Halloween that I've been dying to put on another baby (#second child problems.)

 

Although it was chilly, we still did some family trick-or-treating. I brought Rosie home after just a few houses, but Joe and Cece stayed out together for awhile and returned with a decent bag of loot. For the rest of the evening, Cece got wildly excited to hand out candy every time trick-or-treaters rang our doorbell. And shockingly, I didn't see that many Elsas out there.

 

 

So there you have it, Halloween 2014. Hope yours was spooky and spectacular.

(Now onto CHRISTMAS!!!)

 

P.S. I enjoy looking at holiday posts from years past. In case you do too, here's Halloween 2013, Halloween 2012, and Cece rocking that monster costume during Halloween 2011.

 

A Teeny Halloweeny Party

Cece and I have a shared love of holidays, decorating, chocolate, and getting our friends together. So I decided to host a small Halloween party yesterday morning. We squished our friends in our house like sardines in a can and made them have fun with us. (Literally squished. Five toddlers, five infants, and parents. We'll get a bigger house someday! At least we hope so!)

 

 

 

 

^^^ My one takeaway from Pinterest. Haha! ^^^

 

 

 

 

Our one activity was decorating gourds with glitter and gems. Masterpieces.

 

Cece was just thrilled to have both Michaela and Penny at the same party (and both dressed as Princess Anna!)

 

 

We also calmed down all of the little ones enough to do a semi-circle time and read one Halloween story. (Do I look like a legit preschool teacher or what???)

 

 

 

 

But let's be honest. The kids' favorite part of the party was just running up and down our hallway like maniacs. Thank you Luke for helping take photos as Rosie wanted to be held for pretty much the whole party. And thank you everyone for coming! Have a safe and happy Halloween today!

 

Halloween 2013

 

 

 

 

  

I'm slightly embarrassed to share that I wasn't overly into Halloween this year.  I didn't even carve any pumpkins (so I had to take photos of other people's amazing pumpkins). BUT Cece and I did have some fun by having friends over during the day. We painted gourds and baked cupcakes. Cece was in charge of sprinkle-distribution and did a fine job, I would say.

The day before Halloween, I came across this mermaid costume on clearance for less than $5 and I couldn't help myself. I let Cece wear it around the house during the day and she was happy to change into her cowgirl motif when it came time for trick-or-treating.

C enjoyed the brief trick-or-treating we did last year and definitely thought it to be even more awesome this year. In fact, she has wanted to go trick-or-treating everyday since Halloween. I told her that it's cool to wear her Halloween costumes as much as she'd like, but we really can't go around mooching candy from her neighbors ALL year long (which is too bad, really).

Hope you had a fun (and chaos-free) holiday!