Party PIctures

I'm a little bummed that half my pictures turned out blurry, but I still have a few to share!

My witch hat cookies. Super easy with keebler cookies and hershey kisses.


Sean's rice krispy treat pumpkins




Little Trick or Treat station I set up. Parents could take a treat bag and fill it with candy, stickers, H'ween jokes, and glow bracelets.



In the play room I had a little decoration too. Sorry for the glare. Super easy using free printables I got online.


Onto costumes! Tate and daddy were knights


Mommy and Grace were princesses

Grace was not AT ALL into this costume and I had to wrestle her into it and bribe her with candy corn. Also, it's too big. *sigh*

Benny was a fierce dragon!


We will try again next weekend for a decent family picture...


As we have come to expect, our group toddler shot at the party was much worse

Tick Tock

I am still in the throes of Halloween costume agony. The kids do not want to be anything we show them. They want to be Elmo and Cookie Monster (which I recently saw at a store for $60.00) or sharks which are impossible to find anywhere. We had almost everyone's costumes to be the Peanuts gang a few days ago, but now we worry nobody will be able to tell who they are with their homemade costumes. So back to square one. I am hitting Value Village and Sears this morning and I WILL come home with something. Our Toddler Halloween Spooktacular is tomorrow so I am out of time. I am excited that I got a lot of my decorations from free printables other bloggers put out there! Like these!

Just for fun, here are some of our pumpkin masterpieces we finished


Hope you are enjoying your Halloween preparations as well!

Ducks Don't Have Teeth, Right?

Or alternatively titled: Our Trip to the Pumpkin Patch.

Seattle has been gorgeous these last 2 weeks. Beautiful fall colors and sunny, crisp weather! Perfect for hitting the Pumpkin patch/farm. We were looking for a farm setting since we missed the animals at the Fair this year. We had a great time and literally chased G and T all over the place with Benny and wagon in tow.

The Pygmy goats were super cute

Glad we went with another family so we could take pictures for each other!




Toddlers were definitely not interested in posing for pictures with mommy.


Luckily, I have a more cooperative spare


We are still talking about the BIG MAMA PIG (said in a deep, booming voice) we saw there




One of the ducks bit Grace when she was feeding them. We told her it was fine because ducks don't have teeth. I am about 75% sure that is true...


In the end we all picked out pumpkins and were ready to head home.

Baking is a great way to distract/entertain my kids. They always want to help and LOVE watching their projects in the oven. Last night we decided to make pumpkin cookies. I bought these super easy pre-made ones last week.

As you can see, we had to keep them from eating the raw dough and they quite literally could not keep their hands off the cookies at any moment!
We added chocolate chips to the simple sugar cookies to make them a little fancier and the perfect job for G and T to do.

Then they went into the oven.


We waited...


and waited...


and waited...


8 minutes is a long time when you're two.

Finally the timer rang out and we cheered. All that was left was cooling them off. G and T were eager to speed up that process as well.


I'm pretty sure she spit on about half of these.
There you have it, toddler entertainment for 30 minutes with little clean up and that does not (for once) involve Elmo.

Decisions, Decisions

We are deep in the throws of debate around here. What should we/they be for Halloween this year? I normally just dress them, but we are hosting a party this time for a bunch of families.

So far they've been:
obese-I mean Little Mermaid and a pirate


and Wizard of Oz characters


We have narrowed it down to three possibilities.
1. Gilligan's Island. Grace is Maryanne, Tate is Gilligan and Benny is the Skipper. Sean and I can be the Professor and Ginger.
Love this concept, but finding the costumes sort of difficult to pull together. So far The Professor is done. I have jean shorts for Gracie and a sailer hat for Tate.

2. Farm animal kids with farmer parents. Cute, but feels kind of boring.

3. Sesame Street. This is what they say when we actually ask them. Grace wants to be Elmo, Tate wants to be cookie Monster, They want Benny to be Big Bird (which I've never seen a costume for), Daddy to be Mr. Noodle (that would be hilarious, by the way) and Gracie wants me to be Snuffleupagus. Thanks, kid.

The problem with these (besides my finding a giant hairy elephant costume) is that they are so expensive! I can't afford to pay $30 per child for a costume they'll wear like 3 times. Anyone have great tips for homemade/goof proof costumes?

The Birthday I got pee on my face

I think THAT might be what I remember looking back on my big 2-8. we had a great time having dinner out at a seafood place on the water for my birthday last night. The kids were great, Benny LOVES clam chowder like his mama and everyone else is happy with fish and chips. It was a gorgeous day in Seattle so we played outside in the sand box (at the restaurant, so fun!) and looked at all the boats. Wonderful. Ya know, besides the urine drying on my face.

During dinner Gracie had to go potty and I took her to the big girl bathroom. She did the deed and hopped off the potty per usual. Then she decided that her TP wasn't sunk far enough into the bowl, so before I could stop her she stuck her hand in and swirled it around. EWWWWW. I told her that was super yucky and we don't do that, blah blah.

Now the fun part. As I am snapping her jeans, she trips a little and uses MY FACE to steady herself, thereby wiping her pee all over me. I think I was actually speechless. We stood up, washed hands, and I blotted my face with a paper towel (truly not sure what one does, hygiene-wise, in that moment).

With little boys around you expect to get squirted on at some point, but never did I consider the toilet to face transference.

Wow, a year older and I am learning new things already!

Gracie coloring at dinner.

Benny

Tate and Daddy being cheeseballs

Birthday Video

Every year my wonderful husband makes me a video from my kids. What started as a sweet little thing has become one of my favorite traditions every fall. I look forward to seeing how much time and thought went into it and best of all, I get to save them forever! They gave me this year's on Sunday even though my bday isn't until tomorrow. I just have to show it off because it still makes me laugh and cry, every time I watch!

October Getaway and Mommy Guilt

Why, Hello there, Candy Corn...fancy meeting you here.


Just getting into the spirit of things.

I am excited to leave today on a trip with 7 of my girlfriends for an escaped mom weekend. We plan to do nothing but drink sangria, read trashy novels, and eat until our sweatpants burst. Pure joy, I tell you!

Unfortunately, in leaving my little ones for two nights, I am hit hard with a dose of mommy guilt. I swear I am getting it from all ends these days being back at work and trying to actually have some sort of social life and work out (selfish, I know).
So to ease my burden a little bit I left a couple treats for them (and daddy) to find when they get home today:



There are also some easy bake pumpkin cookies in the fridge (and frozen pizza in the freezer for daddy).
Lest you think I am ungrateful, I have done 4 loads of laundry this morning to boot!
With that said, I'm off!

Happy October Everyone!