Trunk or Treat

We had a tri-ward Trunk or Treat/Halloween carnival last night. It was quite the shindig, though not quite what I've grown accustomed to. The outdoor carnival was okay: bowling with small pumpkins and orange spray-painted 2-liter bottles, fishing for rubber duckies, face painting, donut-eating contest, etc. The girls had little interest in most of it, and had more fun running in circles on the grass. We ate corndogs and carrot sticks and wandered through the crowd to find people we knew so I could show off how cute my kids were. I meant to take a picture of the chaos that was the carnival, the turnout was bigger than any I'd ever been to, since it was 3 wards instead of just one.

As usual, Cadence refused to pose long enough for me to get a decent shot of her costume, so here's the picture I managed to snag when I first completed the project. She was so ecstatic when I finished it. We had to hide it from her to keep it in one piece. Now that it's her to do as she likes, she's been carrying it around in her Strawberry Shortcake trick or treating bag all day long:

Megan was SUPPOSED to be Lemon Meringue to match Cadence's costume (which got rave reviews, by the way), but the jacket I was making just wasn't working out. So last minute, we went costume shopping and found the most adorable Little Red Riding Hood costume. She looked 200% adorable. I may be biased in saying so, but she really, really did. The pictures I got didn't do her justice. Everyone who saw her, even complete strangers, just squealed in delight over how adorable she was.
Cadence did get her face painted and even managed to avoid touching it long enough to let most of it dry. If you peek in the back of this picture, you'll notice James trying to lure Megan out of the bushes she was obsessed with going into. Thankfully, they were pretty dense, so she never got more than an arm in before we grabbed her away from them.
The trunk or treat portion of the night was fantastic. I'm used to maybe 15-20 cars participating. This one had closer to 50 (if not more), since all three wards sat out. We started out early before all of the cars opened their trunks, but we did get a nice stash going (filled one of my mixing bowls, at least). Megan was quick to catch on to the idea of "open my bag and people give me candy". It fascinated her. Cadence caught on to the idea of "get candy, move on to the next one", but we frequently had to drag Megan away as she constantly asked for or reached for seconds. Most people indulged her (probably because she's so cute) but we tried very hard to discourage it. Anyway, they didn't fill their bags, but they had about 3-4 inches deep of candy going before we put an end to it (with many protests) and were content to munch on M&Ms on the way home.
Anyway, doubt we'll go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood this year. I'm not even sure our neighborhood does it. We're the only ones on the block with pumpkins set out. We're prepared with a big bag of mixed chocolate, just in case, but I bought it with the mindset of "if nobody comes, at least it's something we'll eat", since last year we ended up with a big bag of dumdums that eventually got thrown out (since our neighbors sat outside blocking the walkway to both our apartments to hand out their candy, so nobody squeezed past them to come to ours on Halloween).

Pumpkin Painting

Since paining the pumpkins was such a hit last year with Cadence, I wanted to give the girls a chance to do it again this year. I dressed them up in some of my old t-shirts that I wouldn't mind never getting the paint out of (though acrylic is pretty washable all said and done, I still have some clothes with stains). So, decked out in "mommy dresses", the girls sat on the back porch with their paint palettes and foam brushes and painted the pumpkins we bought them at Dewberry Farm (since Cadence would not let us leave pumpkinless!)

Cadence was very particular about how she placed her paint. When I pointed out she'd missed the bottom part of her entire pumpkin she scooted onto her belly and very seriously painted the blank spots. She had this intense look of concentration the whole time. I was too busy enjoying the moment to catch it on film, though.
The pumpkins were fairly small, so I happily bought a larger jack-o-lantern pumpkin when we went to the store. I let the girls paint the smaller ones themselves, but added my own finger-painting technique to the bigger one that we all painted together. Neither Cadence nor Megan were too keen on ditching their brushes to use their fingers, no matter how much I played it up, though.

By the end of our painting experience, both pieces of cardboard I put the girls paint on was a big goopy mess of brown paint. But the girls had a blast. I bought some foam stickers specifically for jack-o-lanterns for a dollar and decorated the pumpkins with silly faces once the paint dried.
The girls haven't seen the finished product yet, but I think they'll enjoy it in the end. Once they've seen them and admired them, I'll put them on our front lawn. Trying to decide between in front of the tree in the middle of the yard, or in front of the bushes that line our walkway. Nobody decorate for Halloween around here and it's kind of sad. Debating cobwebs in my walkway bushes still, now that the rain forecast has been changed to sunny all week. Not sure I want to deal with picking the cobwebs out, though...

And before you ask, yes, the larger pumpkin does have a goatee. That was supposed to be the vampire's hair, since the kit I bought had pieces for 4 pre-designed faces. So I snipped the sideburns and made a goatee for the pumpkin, lol.

Dewberry Farm (Lots of Pictures)

James has been working extra hard recently, so when he unexpectedly got a 3 day weekend, we decided we had to take full advantage of it and went to a family farm just outside of town. We had an amazing time. For the cost of entry (the girls were free, at least for another year) we got access to a playground, barrel train, hay stack with rope swings, pig races, and a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch itself. There's also a great corn maze, but by the time we did everything else, the girls were too tired for us to even attempt it. Now for the dozen pictures:

Cadence posing right before the barrel train ride. She loved it. A big tractor pulled around some old 55-gallon barrels painted and decorated to look like cows:

This was by far Cadence's favorite. Climb to the top of the hay mountain and swing on the ropes. If you fell? No big deal! Lots of soft hay to land on.

She seriously would have spent all day on this one if we let her. But there were only so many ropes and we needed to let other kids have a fair chance.

We paid a little extra to go through a dark building with lots of carved (and lit up) pumpkins. It was crazy hot inside that small building, so when we came out, it was only natural to go to the snow cone booth right next to it. Pretty fun. They give you the ice and you go to a little room with a dozen flavors and you can mix and match to your hearts content.

Obviously, the girls loved it.

Megan at the pumpkin patch. Thank goodness she wore that hat. It kept her from getting sunburned (like me).

Cadence was CRAZY about the pumpkins. As soon as we got off the wagon ride to the pumpkin patch she was running around trying to pick them all up.

Others had stacked pumpkins for photo ops, so we attempted to take advantage of the opportunity. Here's Cadence bossing her sister around as I attempted to herd Megan to the perfect spot for a cute photo.

And this is how Megan interpreted my request of "sit next to Cadence!"

James and Cadence inspected a few, but in the end, we bought some from the stall closer to the gates. Smaller pumpkins, good for the girls to paint next weekend.

After we checked out the pumpkins we headed into the farm to check out some chickens and sheep and pigs. At one point a big turkey attempted to hop out of his pen and spent a few minutes perched on the gate. Megan kept trying to go pet him. The attendants didn't seem too concerned, but turkey's aren't known for being gentle, so I had to keep snatching her back.

Checking out the ponies and miniature horses outside.

On our way out, Megan tore her hand out of mine and ran to see the goats.

What I didn't get pictures of include the girls' favorite rides: the big roller slide. We went down that thing half a dozen times and I got a nice bruise on my hand since I didn't trust the two of them to go down it alone (8-10 feet high, what can I say? I'm a nervous mom). And the cutest moment had to be Megan and the ducks. She was obsessed with the things. As we headed on our way out, we happened to be between two white ducks and their pond. They got nervous at our approach and ran straight in front of us. Megan was THRILLED and ran after them quacking. James snatched her before she chased them right into the water. Too bad those ducks wouldn't cooperate for a picture!

We plan to go back the day after Thanksgiving. Free admission to all the little rides and a chance to cut down our own Christmas tree!!

Yard Work

I was crazy excited to move into a house with our two girls, especially with the idea of a yard to play in.

Unfortunately, having been apartment dwellers for so long, we did not have the tools for yard upkeep which meant it quickly got overgrown and I was reluctant to let the girls out in to our new private jungle, especially when the rain came and the grass, okay, okay, the weeds doubled in height practically overnight.

We finally bought a lawn mower and I got my first taste of lawn work. I had previously trimmed our bushes and our tree, but that was it, until today. Other than sweating like crazy and struggling with the tall grass and the lawn mower (I didn't think to change the height until later, so I really struggled), I found the experience... heart-warming. As I trimmed bushes put tree branches and bush trimmings into trash bags, the girls ran wild around the tree in our front yard and even offered to help. Then, as I mowed the lawn, they rode their bikes in the driveway.

I basically loved it.

Even though I was panting like a dog as I wheeled the lawn mower back into the garage, and hauled the three bags of grass clippings (before I got sick of emptying the bag and switched it out for the blow-it-out-the-side thing, yes, that is the technical name) and my back aches.

Maybe I'm a little crazy.