Parents of Multiples Halloween Social

The local Parents of Multiples group I belong to held a Halloween social a couple of weeks ago where the kids could dress up in their costumes and have snacks, do a "Boo Hunt" for treats, play on the playground, and bounce in a jump castle.  This was the first Halloween related event we went to, but it will be my last Halloween-related post.

Brady and Chloe wore costumes to this event that were given to them last February by their Nana and Doodah (my Dad and Stepmom).  They were a lion and a chicken and they looked so adorable in their costumes!  Many thanks to Nana and Doodah!

They had a blast getting treat bags, running around on the playground, but by far their favorite part of the Halloween social was jumping in the bounce house.  I was a little nervous to let them do it since most of the kids at the social were older and bigger and I couldn't go in the bounce house with them, but they weren't afraid at all and loved every minute of it.  In fact, we had to practically drag poor Brady from the bounce house.

It was a fun family event and I am so glad we are part of a community that has so many family friendly things to do!  I have some pictures to share with you:

A rare family picture with all of us together!

What a cute chicken!

He was an adorable lion!  

He just wanted to live in the bounce house and never leave.

Having so much fun!

Bouncy bouncy!

Sliding with Daddy.

What a fun day we had!   Well folks, I think that is a wrap for Halloween posts for 2012!

Pumpkin Painting

One day last week while Grandma was visiting we decided to paint pumpkins.  Brady and Chloe both had a small pumpkin to paint, we used Crayola Washable Kids Paint, and I set up their picnic table in the play room with a plastic shower curtain liner underneath as a drop cloth.  I picked just two colors to start (purple and green) and squeezed a small amount in reusable applesauce cups.

Once we showed Chloe how to paint, she really got into it and enjoyed the process quite a bit.  Brady was not interested in painting his pumpkin at all.  He was way more interested in playing with his truck.

They turned out really cute and it was actually a lot less messy and time consuming than carving a pumpkin.  We had intended to carve a big pumpkin this year too, but we ended up not buying a pumpkin at Dewberry Farm this year so we didn't have a big one to carve.  We used our painted pumpkins as decoration outside our front door and that actually seemed to work out well.

Here are a few pumpkin painting photos:

The artist concentrating hard on her creation.  :-)

Brady observing, but not too excited to join in.  

The end result!

We used our painted pumpkins and the ghost craft we made at Story Time to decorate our front door where we left our candy bowl while we went trick or treating.  

This was the first year the kids painted pumpkins but I believe we will continue this tradition again next year!

Favorite Pictures from Grandma's Visit

We were so lucky to have my Mom with us last week, and we packed in so many fun activities while she was here, we made a lot of precious memories.  Like with everything, the time went by so fast and I wish I had taken more pictures, but I do have a few to share with you from our visit with Grandma.

Grandma on the carousel at the mall with Brady.

Chloe's "hat" is actually a bowl I ordered off of Etsy, not knowing how small it was.  It makes a fun hat though!

Painting pumpkins with Grandma, look how hard they are both concentrating!

Reading a story to the kiddos, so sweet!  Also the puppy Chloe is holding was a present from Grandma.

Mom and I made Halloween cupcakes one day during the kids' nap time.  They are actually the kind made from diet soda.  Mom was really unsure about how they would taste, but I think she loved them in the end!  

We love you and miss you already, Grandma!

Dewberry Farm 2012

Since I will be catching up on some of our October activities on the blog for at least the first week or so of November, my posts may jump around a bit in terms of chronology.  Today's post is about a recent trip to Dewberry Farm last Sunday.  We went to this pumpkin patch last year and fell in love with it.  We were very excited to find out that our new house was much closer to the farm this year and we were looking forward to taking the kids when they were older and able to participate in more of the fun activities.

We went late in the season this year since we wanted my Mom to be able to accompany us while she was here visiting.  Since we went just days before Halloween, we found to our great disappointment that the pumpkin fields were almost completely bare with the exception of a few clusters of pumpkins people had clumped together in order to take pictures.  Even the few pumpkins that remained were almost all either split open or in bad shape.  We ended up not even taking a pumpkin from the patch home with us this time.  

The kids still had a lot of fun running through the fields of wildflowers and running wild through the empty pumpkin patch field.  This year we also paid a visit to some of the farm animals including goats, horses, pigs, and chickens, which they loved.  Another big hit was the "Moo Cow" ride as Chloe called it.  Chad rode with Brady once and Chloe twice, since she somehow managed to finagle a second ride from Daddy per usual.  :-)

We brought along our wagon and did a lot of walking.  By the end of the afternoon, I think Mom, Dad, and Grandma were all tuckered out!  Maybe next year we will try a smaller pumpkin patch.  Even though I like Dewberry Farm it is HUGE and it is always very crowded with lots of people and lines for everything.  We also learned our lesson to go earlier in the season next year if we plan to actually pick a pumpkin!  

Here are some of our pictures from our Sunday afternoon at Dewberry Farm:

Flower field

I really like this picture of my little buddy.

Love this picture of me, the kids, and my Mom!

We found a few pumpkins!

Chloe was convinced she could lift a pumpkin herself.

Running in the (empty) pumpkin field!  

Goat!

Chloe looking at the baby chicks with Daddy!

Checking out the ducks

Chad ended up riding this cow ride three times, bless his heart!  :-)

Well, those are our pictures from this year's pumpkin patch visit!  Hope you all are having a great day!  

Halloween 2012

First off, let me just apologize for my dismal blog posting record in the month of October.  One post in one month has to be an all time low.  While the blog was quiet, as a family we were very active in the month of October and I have a lot of fun activities to post about on the blog.  In a moment of temporary insanity, I signed up for NaBloPoMo 2012, or National Blog Posting Month.  This means I will be attempting to write a blog post every day in the month of November.  I did this last year before I had walking talking twin toddlers and somehow I have decided to do it again this year!  So for those of you who still check the blog from time to time, there should be some fresh content on a daily basis for this month at least so please stop by and see how we're doing!

So, yesterday was Halloween!  It feels like we have been celebrating Halloween in our household for at least 3 weeks now since we have attended so many Halloween related events and participated in so many Halloween community activities including:  the local Parents of Multiples Halloween social, two different dress up days at our local library story times, a dress up walk around the mall, visiting a pumpkin patch, making Halloween cupcakes, painting pumpkins, and trick or treating around our neighborhood last night.  We wore three different costumes at  various occasions and we have just really done Halloween BIG time this year!

Like last year, my Mom (Grandma to B & C) came to visit a few days before Halloween and just left us this morning.  We had so much fun during her visit and we were so sad to see her go back home today!   On the actual day of Halloween (yesterday) Chad even took the day off of work to spend it with the family.  That made us feel so special!  We loved having both Grandma and Daddy home with us.

We started off our Halloween celebrations around 11:00 AM.  We had planned to meet several of the Moms in my local Parents of Multiples group at the mall to walk the kids around in their wagons and strollers with their costumes on.  We had a small turnout this year (there were only 3 of us) but we still had a great time.  Here we are in our wagon at the mall:

While strolling around, we stopped at the Bass Pro Shop because they had a Halloween Photo Op set up:

And we also had a chance to check out the tank full of fish they had at Bass Pro Shop:

After our fun time strolling around the mall, we took the kids to lunch at Rainforest Cafe in the mall.  Boy did they LOVE seeing and hearing all the animals and watching the lightning storm that happened every 15 minutes or so.  What a fun lunch experience for all of us!  Sadly, I didn't think to take any pictures while we were there.

Somehow, we didn't manage to leave the mall until we'd had a ride on this Ice Cream Truck, twice, because Grandma and Daddy are pushovers:

I can't really blame them, when this little girl pouted and wanted another ride, it was hard to refuse:

After an eventful morning at the mall, the kids came home and took a long nap while we prepared for Halloween.  When they woke up they had dinner and changed into their costumes:

If you don't know, they were the Minions from the movie Despicable Me.  They love to watch the movie so we thought it would be a cute costume idea.

Our friends Jeff and Kristen and their children Matthew and Madison came over to trick or treat with us, and we headed out around the neighborhood.  Here are a few family trick or treating pictures:

This was Brady and Chloe's first year of real trick or treating and I was amazed at how well they did.  They walked from house to house for an hour and a half trick or treating.  They held our hands and walked up to each house, and often would pick out one piece of candy themselves.  We told them to say "trick or treat" and "thank you" at each house.  By the end of the night Chloe was saying "trick" and "bye bye" to the people at each house.  :-)

By the time we got home we were exhausted from such an eventful day and put the kids right to bed.  I think the kids had a lot of fun on Halloween and it was extra special because they got to spend the day with their Grandma and Daddy too!