Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

Before we get too far into November I think I should write about Halloween. I'm already behind on other things I wanted to blog about.

A few months before Halloween Taylor said she wanted to be a plain ol' Strawberry. I was so happy we found a Strawberry costume for her. Old Navy has GREAT kids costumes. They are warm enough to trick-or-treat in Colorado without having to wear a coat.

This year we did lots of Halloween activities. . .

We went to the Pumpkin Patch with some friends of ours

Boofest at school . . .

We LOVE her teachers!!

She even got to teach Daddy how to do the Macarena dance

We went to a trick-or-treat street at the school Grandma works at. . .

The night before Halloween we 'scarved' pumpkins at home. Taylor insisted on cleaning out all of the pumpkins by herself.

She even wanted to 'scarve' her pumpkin without any help. We compromised and let her poke the holes in the design. Mommy did the actual carving. 

I think they turned out pretty well this year!

Taylor tried to be so patient on Halloween. She wanted to put on her costume the second we got home from school. To keep her preoccupied and to stop her from asking if she could put her costume, DJ and her acted goofy for a little bit. . .

We had our traditional chili and chili cheese dogs for dinner. We even made Witches Brew. So yummy!

We got lucky this year and had lots of family join us. Grandma, Uncle Joel and Aunt Ranee and Ranee's brother and his two boys came too! 

After we got back home from trick-or-treating Uncle Joel and Taylor were wrestling around. I know Joel feels horrible about this but. . . She was choking him out from behind and he went to pull her over his shoulders. Her elbow popped out of place and we made a late night Halloween trip to the ER to have it set back in place. She was so brave about it all. But I thought it was super cute when we were driving home from the hospital. She was sitting in her car seat and excitedly yelped "I'M GLOWING!!" The bones on her pj's glow in the dark and she was so excited about it. It was a pretty cute way to end a visit to the hospital.  

We had a great Halloween and Taylor will always have a funny Halloween story to share! 

Halloween 2011 Cont. . .

Halloween was very exciting around here because this is the first year Taylor really understood it. Life around here has been very crazy the past few weeks (more on that later) so we weren't able to partake in all the normal Halloween hoopla like we usually do. We missed going to a pumpkin patch this year and it's the first year I have bought our pumpkins at a grocery store. It made me a little sad. But what made me really sad was finding out while we were pumpkin shopping DJ got called to work. That left Taylor and I to carve pumpkins by ourselves. It just wasn't the same as doing it with DJ. We've been carving pumpkins together for the last 6 years. Even in our first apartment I think I made him help me carve like 6 pumpkins. He might tell you otherwise but I think he had a lot of fun that year. :o) Anyways, back to this year . . .

Sunday Taylor and I carved our pumpkins. Aunt Jess bought Taylor a really cute Mickey set that Taylor was able to do all on her own. Cleaning out the pumpkin wasn't required but we did it just for the seeds :o)

It's so much easier to carve pumpkins with a half naked baby. Her clothes would be stained orange otherwise.

I love that she isn't afraid of cleaning out the pumpkin guts. Usually I'm the one doing all the cleaning out.

Taylor was so proud of this little guy. When DJ brought them into the garage Halloween night she made him bring Mickey all the way in because she didn't want him to get "frozen and you know, all soggy and just gross".

Taylor got so much candy. Saturday night we went to a trunk-or-treat event, Sunday we went to the gymnastics Halloween party. She won cutest costume again. I don't know where my camera was but at least we got pictures with my phone. . .

Monday she started getting sick so we didn't get many pictures but Grandma got this picture while we were going around our neighborhood. I was so happy DJ wasn't working Halloween night. He and Grandma took turns going around with me and Taylor and then handing out candy at home. We had so many trick-or-treator's - we went through 5 bags of candy!

She was so funny to watch going door to door. I swear she rang one 'ding bell' like 5 times! It's a good thing she's so dang cute. She had a blast Halloween night. 

Snowed In

As many have heard, Colorado got a huge snow storm Wednesday afternoon. All state offices, including mine, closed at 3:45 Wednesday afternoon and didn't open until 10am on Thursday. Most schools had a snow day. Lucky for me, Thursday was my day off this week so I didn't have to venture out into it.

I had so much fun staying home with Taylor. Days like yesterday really make you want to be a stay at home mom. We woke up with DJ before he left for work, made scrambeled eggs for breakfast, baked brownies, played games, did laundry and cleaned house. I thouroughly enjoyed myself all day. DJ came home around 3pm and we just vegged out. We drank some wine, watched a movie (The Proporal) and I finished making dinner.

Last night DJ's family joined us for pumpkin carving. Obviously Taylor was too young last year to partake but I did carve a pumpkin for her last year, just as I did this year. It was fun but I am glad pumpkin carving only happens once a year. The process is long, the mess is big and it makes your skin feel really nasty. My favorite part was having Taylor feel the slimy pumpkin seeds. She didn't like it and was a little afraid.

Taylor's pumpkins are both on the outside, mine is in the middle on the left and DJ's is in the middle on the right.

More costume pictures

She slept, It Snowed

Yesterday we took Taylor to a local high school for "Trick-or-Treat Street". It was fun. Our friends Joey and Dom met us there with their kids Joey, 18 months, and Carmen 1 1/2 months. Taylor was so cute in her costume. She was a monkey that had a banana in the pocket and a curled tail. Joey was a dog and Taylor was glad someone else her size was there. We walked around to the different tables and she got lots of fun stuff - balls, spiders, pencils, stickers, rubber duckies and tooth brushes. She makes an adorable monkey.

Today the plan was to go to the pumpkin patch. We went but on the way there Taylor fell asleep and it snowed. The pumpkin patch we go to lets you drive through the patch, park on the side and cut the pumpkins from the vine yourself. Since it was snowing and Taylor was sleeping we didn't stay long. We grabbed a few pumpkins and came back home. Taylor missed all the excitment. But she did get excited when she saw what we had at home for her.

Thursday night we will be carving the pumpkins. I plan on letting Taylor stick her arm into the pumpkin and squish the seeds between her fingers. I will let you know how that goes! 

The Finished Product

Yesterday DJ's mom Carrie came over and helped me finish the cute Winnie the Pooh wall hanging for Taylor. It only took us two tries but this time there were no big ink filled messes. And it turned out pretty good. I need to find a picture of her that is small enough for the frame though.And to follow up for Halloween. . . this may be a crazy new mom thing of me but I felt I had to do it. No one was able to get a very good picture of Taylor for Halloween because she was not very happy all night. So I dressed her back up in her costume the other day to get a good picture of her as a lady bug.

DJ has been working the last three days so I had him go through the pictures I had taken in the recent days while he was at work. (I liked taking a lot of pictures before Taylor was born anyways) As he was going through the pictures he looked at Taylor and said, "Everyday here is picture day!". Am I being a crazy new mom?

Happy Halloween . . . Late

I'm a little behind. . . ok by about a week. I always feel like once I get something started it never gets finished. . . the laundry, the dishes, doing my hair in the morning. So maybe I will get this done. :)

Halloween was a lot of fun. DJ and I carved pumpkins the night before. He laughed at me because I am just like a little kid. The skeleton was DJ's, the spider web was mine and we did the cute little face for Taylor.

For Halloween we dressed Taylor up as a lady bug. I don't think she liked it too much based on the picture. We hung out at Carrie and Paul's and saw a bunch of cute little kids Trick-Or-Treating. The weather was great so the little kids didn't even have to wear coats over their costumes. I can't wait for Taylor to get old enough to go door to door.