October 31

What a LOOOONG day!

Today was a preschool day, so the girls and I dropped Caleb off at school. We came home, put Lily down for a nap, and I got to work carving Daisy's pumpkin. 

Today also happened to be Caleb's fall party at preschool, so my mom came over to watch the girls so that I could go be with Caleb for the party. It was so much fun to see him interacting in his separate little world!

I didn't think much of this picture when I took it, but I just realized the sweetest thing that melts my heart: for his snack of a chocolate chip cookie and cheese puffs with a Capri Sun, my boy placed his napkin on his lap. We spend so much time at dinner trying to teach and enforce manners (and get him to eat) that this nearly brought me to tears. Nobody was watching, nobody told him what to do, and no other kids did it, but Caleb put his napkin on his lap. What a good boy he is!

This "pin the nose on the pumpkin" game was his favorite. In his words, he played it "like a million times".

He could see under the blindfold and kept putting the nose on the eye, which he thought was really funny.

(His class wore pajamas today instead of costumes. He has been planning to wear these rocket ship jammies for the past three weeks.)

Caleb with his teacher, Mrs. Amy.

He kind of loves her.

The kids went down for naps, Chris came home (he took a half day today so that he could be a part of the festivities), and I got to work carving Caleb and Lily's pumpkins. When the kids finally woke up, we got dressed and headed for some Main Street trick-or-treating... in the rain.

Boo!

But we didn't let the rain bother us. My friend Jen and her kids were there, and my mom had a work meeting nearby, so she met us there, too. 

Caleb and Daisy were so excited to show Grandma their costumes!

(Boy, I wish that this photo was in focus! I think I'll blame it on the rain.)

Our family costumes. Funny, huh? Those ear poofs were as close as I could get to Leia buns, and Chris rocked his running tights and shirt as Luke Skywalker. For better pics of the kids in costume, look at yesterday's post.

Miss Chewbacca in her native habitat. I think her two-year molars are finally coming in, because most of the pictures from today show her gnawing on her finger.

Luke and Chewie, snuggling together.

The kids were entranced when they saw Big Bird and friends. (However, Daisy informed me later that she did not like Oscar.)

I love that Daisy was totally enthralled by Minnie Mouse, too. Isn't she cute? And Caleb is giving Minnie a handshake... too funny!

We only lasted about thirty minutes in the rain, and then we headed to the grocery store to say hello to Grandmother, who was working. Then we went home for a late dinner, and while we ate Chris threw the costumes in the dryer. They needed it. After dinner was done, Chris took Caleb and Daisy trick-or-treating up and down our street while I put Lily to bed.

All in all, long, but fun.

Our pumpkins: 

The back of Caleb's.

The back of Lily's. Somehow, I forgot to take pictures of the back of Daisy's.

But here are the fronts of all three: Yoda, Darth Vader (with a real glow stick for his light saber!), and Chewbacca. Not bad for last-minute pumpkins!

Thank goodness Halloween only comes once a year!

October 30

It was 74 degrees out today and the Halloween costumes were officially finished, so I decided to take the kids somewhere fun and take their pictures in their costumes.

It didn't quite go how I had hoped. 

Lily fell asleep in the car on the way there.

The downside to 74 in October was that everything was sopping wet from the humidity.

Getting a picture of all three children in costume was nearly impossible.

Still, it was fun.

I dressed the kids in cute normal clothes, hoping for a pre-costume photo opp. Only Caleb cooperated.

Doesn't he look like such a big boy here?

He was really in a mood today - such a goofball!

Poor Daisy still has a cold. At least there's no snot in this picture!

I love this.

When I realized that cute pictures weren't going to happen, I got out the costumes.

First, we have Darth Vader: 

The light saber was the gift that started our whole costume plan.

I ordered the cape and mask online for $6, then modified the cape to be shorter and hooded.

I found the bodysuit at Goodwill for $1.50. Score!

Next we have Chewbacca: 

I think I spent $8 on a yard of faux fur, $1 on 1/4  yard of silver material, and $2 on a men's XL polo shirt to create this ensemble. I hot-glued fur to some brown pants Daisy already owned and to the sleeves of a brown shirt she had outgrown. Then I created a fur vest and used part of the polo shirt to make the hood. The bag is one of the polo sleeves, plus a strap.

Daisy's opinion?

She loves it!

(Remember last Halloween? I still think one of the best pictures ever was Daisy's face after she looked in the mirror and saw her costume for the first time. The fact that she's making a similar face here tells me that I got it right.)

I think I wrote here about how I initially wanted Daisy to be Princess Leia, because her costume was easy. But from the get-go, Daisy said, "No, Mommy. I Chewbacca." I'm just glad that her costume turned out alright!

Can you tell how happy they are? I love it!

But we're missing one key piece:

Yoda! 

Lily's Yoda outfit is a $1 pair of pants from Goodwill, a $2 green fleece from Goodwill that I crafted into a Yoda hat, a $2 piece of new fleece for her jacket, a white onesie, and some hand-me-down Uggs. It's actually the perfect Halloween outfit for a baby - warm and comfy.

I love Lily's face in this one. It's like she knows how ridiculous the whole thing is. Or she's being Yoda and using the force to get me to stop taking pictures.

There - now you can see our happy Darth Vader!

Chris and I have costumes, too: at Caleb's request, Chris is Luke Skywalker and I am Princess Leia. Hopefully we'll get a family photo tomorrow.

After photos, we explored, played, and visited my mom because she works nearby. I brought a picnic lunch for us, and we sat down in a gazebo to eat... until Caleb noticed the ice cream shop nearby. I had noticed it, too, and was planning to get the kids ice cream after lunch. But it was late, and they were being slow, so I just decided to let them have ice cream for lunch.

I don't do things like that often. Ever, really. But it was really fun.

Then the kids turned into little monsters because it was past naptime and I'd just fed them ice cream for lunch. Lesson learned. I got them home and to bed, and breathed a sigh of relief. When they woke up, we headed out to the front porch to attempt to carve pumpkins.

After I cut the "hat" off the first pumpkin, Caleb and Daisy were very curious about what they'd find inside.

Caleb tried to scoop the guts out on his own, but he thought the spoon was too hard and the guts were too slimy to hold, so he lost interest pretty quickly.

After dinner, we headed out to our very first Trunk-or-Treat at the nearby high school. I'll probably give away most of the candy the kids got, but it was fun to give them another chance to wear the costumes I worked so hard on.

We got lots of comments. Everyone seemed to like the family theme, and Yoda was a big hit. Caleb loved telling knock-knock jokes to get his candy. The two he used were:

Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Boo.

Boo who?

You don't have to cry about it; it's only a knock-knock joke!

and

Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Oink oink.

Oink oink who?

What are you, a pig or an owl?!?!

Then home to watch the Cardinals lose the World Series and eat two pieces of candy each.

I let Caleb eat a Blow-Pop unsupervised, and Chris was pretty annoyed that I let him have candy with gum in it. Oops. Caleb chose that and a fun-sized Snickers bar.

Daisy chose a Dum-dum and some crazy new Butterfinger/Snickers hybrid? I don't know, but she loved both of them.

I never did finish carving the pumpkins; I only managed to hollow out all three. Perhaps tomorrow. i knnow for sure we'll be doing trick-or-treating at a local  business area, then our neighborhood Halloween party, and maybe trick-or-treating at a few of our neighbors' homes. And I will be so glad when it's all over!

October 29

When Daisy got dressed this morning, I suggested that she choose her skeleton shirt (you know, since Halloween is the day after tomorrow). 

Then Caleb saw that she was wearing her skeleton shirt, and put on his skeleton shirt. (Both were Goodwill finds. Love that store!)

Then they were so cute in their matching outfits that I had to run down to the basement and pull out the skeleton outfit that was Caleb's first Halloween costume, four years ago. (Pretty amazing that I was able to find it quickly, right?)

Then I spent the rest of the day trying to take a picture of them.

(No parenthetical thought for that one. It's just life with a 4-year-old, 2-year-old, and baby. But don't you love all of these parentheses?)

By bathtime, I knew I had to just go ahead and take the darn picture. Daisy refused to cooperate (she has another cold, and is in stinker mode right now.), so it was just Caleb and Lily.

Luckily, they were both so cheerful about picture-taking that I hardly miss Daisy in this shot!

Two goofy grins. Aren't they cute?

Then Caleb insisted that we take a picture with his "project". He said it was a starship with two sets of wings. At first, Lily feigned interest out of politeness.

But when he kept blathering on and on and on about all of its fascinating attributes, she soon lost interest and wished she had never pretended to care.

Finally, we turned out the lights and tried to take a picture of their glowing bones. The glow ended up being too faint to photograph, but I was able to capture this elusive creature's image: 

My sweet little Halloween-ers. Gotta love them!

October 28

We spent the morning at a park playdate with some MOPS friends, but I didn't bother with my camera at all. Then the kids napped all afternoon and I worked on Halloween costumes (Caleb's is done, Lily's is done, Daisy's is mostly done, Chris' should be really simple, and mine... well, if I don't have a costume, things will be fine.)

Since I didn't take any pictures all day, I grabbed my camera at dinnertime.

This is pretty much what every night looks like. Lily sits in her high chair at the table with us, even though she can't eat yet. Chris felt bad that we were all eating dinner and Lily had to sit and watch, so he gave her a spoon. (Do you see all those random chairs behind the boys? We got new dining chairs a few weeks ago, and I haven't yet figured out how to dispose of the old ones. I need to just do a curb alert on Craigslist, but a mama can only do so many things in one day! Also, I'm a little bit worried that no one would want them, and that would be embarrassing.)

Daisy's hair looks like that because she had just woken up from her nap. 

At 5:30.

I think it was a combination of having a cold and being goofy about going down for her nap. 

And there's Lily, with her spoon! Daddy changed her diaper and forgot that she had been wearing pants. Ha!

And now the kids are sleeping and we're cheering on our Cardinals in Game 5 of the World Series!

October 27

As I type this, the Cardinals are playing in Game 4 of the World Series. We love to dress up to cheer on our beloved Cardinals, so while the big kids napped today, I put Lily in her baseball diaper and took a few photos. 

Remember Caleb and Daisy in these same diapers during the 2011 World Series? (You really should click through to that link. Those photos are ridiculously adorable!!!)

Here's Lily's take on the baseball diaper:

She's still working on the tummy time thing, but she's getting stronger every day! 

We served in our church  nursery today, and there is a pair of twin girls who are a month and a half older than Lily. They were rolling all over the place, and - I confess - I was a little bit jealous. I cannot wait until Lily starts rolling! So I am now making a commitment to be more dedicated about tummy time. I figure the stronger Lily gets, the sooner she'll start rolling.

Maybe I should put her on a weight lifting regimen, too?

Those rolls! I realize that they're nothing spectacular compared to other chubby babies, but compared to Daisy, they are downright miraculous. Also, you can just barely see Lily's cherry hemangioma in this picture. It looks like a red speck on the side of her belly/rib cage, near her elbow. See it? Up close, it looks like a pin prick or a scrape, until you realize that it isn't actually an open wound. Her doctor told me that it's pretty common and nothing to worry about. It may stay the same, or it may get larger, but it should go away by her second birthday. Interesting, right?

I adore this picture of my sweet girl. It just makes me laugh!

Let's go Cards!

October 26

What a busy day!

I worked the ACT this morning, so Chris was in charge of all three children by himself for almost seven hours. The amount of time only matters because someone (*ahem* Lily...) still won't take a bottle. But she did remarkably well, choosing to sleep most of the morning instead of being awake and fussing because she was hungry.  I got home just in time to nurse her, eat lunch, and pack things up for our next outing: a visit to a park to take family pictures for our friends Dan and Jen and their kids.

While I snapped photos, Chris entertained all three children. After I finished with Dan and Jen, I handed Chris the camera so I could feed Lily. While Lily ate, Chris took some pictures of our kiddos. He's a keeper, that husband of mine!

It was a beautiful day, and Daisy rocked those sunglasses of hers!

When I saw this picture, my heart melted. I love that Daisy and Hannah love each other!

You can't tell, but I'm pretty sure the girls were comparing shirts here. Hannah's had little pockets on the front, and Daisy's had polka-dots. I can just imagine their little conversation!

Caleb, playing the protective big brother. I love the look in Hannah's eyes!

These sweet girls! 

This time of year always gets me reminiscing... it was five years ago, almost to the day, that we found out that we were pregnant with Caleb.

Two years ago - again, almost to the day - we saw our house for the first time and met Dan, Jen, Caleb and Hannah. God has really blessed us with good friends and neighbors here!

The Calebs, racing down the slide while Dan supervises.

I love this one!

My husband is probably a better photographer than I am. It's a good thing he's so busy. Otherwise, he might take over photography duties and I'd be left twiddling my thumbs!

After we finished at the park, we headed over to Jen's parents' property nearby. They have an annual bonfire/hayride party (remember when we went last year?) and they were kind enough to invite us again this year.

Luckily, it wasn't as cold this year as it was last year. And yes, Caleb is eating a grilled cheese sandwich. That's just the way it goes sometimes.

Daisy spent the end of our evening snuggled up with our neighbor, Mary, who is also Jen's aunt, and Hannah's great aunt. Daisy just adores her!

And then, the fireworks grand finale!

Caleb informed us tonight that he is no longer afraid of fireworks, which was a huge relief. We were anticipating a minor meltdown when the fireworks began, but everything was fine.

Yay, Caleb!

Finally, it was time to go. Lily was getting fussy, and I was getting cold and smoky. I went to look for my boys, and stumbled across them here: 

Lying on the ground, looking at the stars. It was so sweet!

We gathered our stuff, headed to the car, and changed the kids into their jammies for the 45-minute drive home. 

But five minutes into the drive, Lily started crying. So we pulled off at a Target for me to feed her. 

Then Daisy announced that she was poopy. (Luckily, we had put her in a diaper since it was so late and the ride home was so long.) So Chris took the kids into Target to change Daisy's diaper while I nursed Lily.

 Then we got back into the car and drove five minutes more before Caleb announced that he had to poop. Unfortunately, there were no gas stations nearby. But Caleb insisted that he couldn't hold it, so we pulled off the highway and he pooped on the side of an on-ramp. 

Yep, we're that classy.

Then we got back in the car and finally headed home.

And now it's midnight and I took over 360 photos today and I'm dying to edit them all but I just need to go to bed. I am exhausted!