Halloween 2011: A Life Cycle

Got it?

EGG on a leaf to CATERPILLAR to COCOON to BUTTERFLY

Tyson just got a sheet from goodwill to wrap around himself, and I painted a leaf, cut out a hole and stuck my white shirted belly through it...

It worked out for all!

The caterpillar and butterfly.

I bought the wings for Berkleigh, but I made that caterpillar costume with no pattern.

Just eyeballed it and I can't believe it turned out at all.

Berkleigh has wanted to be a butterfly for awhile, so when I found the Monarch wings, I just had to... and the rest fell into place!

Merrick getting into character. He kept telling me, "Take a picture of me eating these weaves (leaves)."

We love our little bugs!

A Day Costume

My friend and I threw a Mustache Bash for three of our friends having boys... we made these shirts for them, and I found it in a stack of borrowed maternity clothes from one of those friends...

So, Baby girl's Day costume is... BOY with mustache!

But what will she be tonight?

I have to finish my costume so I can take a picture. :)

More Randomness

Poor thing. B got a cold sore on her tongue. This is the only (very dramatic) way of eating dinner without it hurting.

October 27, 2011

Sunny and beautiful, and having one of many picnics with dad outside at the park next to his office.

This is Merrick's position while reading books. If he is quiet, he is usually reading our weekly library books in this exact position.

Berkleigh NEEDED Halloween fingers! She came up with the idea...

New Preschool

I don't want to get on my soap box about preschool, but I was paying too much for basic daycare. It was annoying. I have a vision of what a preschool should be, and that is probably because of my background in teaching... I think that if I want a preschool to run exactly how I want it too, then I would have to teach it and move my friends I did preschool with in HB up to Oregon so that we could team teach and our children could play together again, but that is just too expensive. :)

We heard about a preschool through the high school... hmm. Two of my friends have kids at that preschool, so I crossed my fingers, and called. They didn't start until the 18th of October, but it was the 19th when I called. Luckily, the teacher was nice enough to take both my kids, even though they only had one opening.

Yes! It has been the best experience so far, and they love it.

Yesterday they had their Halloween party and they each got a pumpkin to decorate.

Berkleigh's is on the left, and Merrick's is on the right. Berkleigh named her pumpkin Tinkerbell, and Merrick named his Elephant. Then they wrote stories about their pumpkins and here they are: Berkleigh's Story... Once upon a time, there was a pumpkin named Tinkerbell. She was very sad, because all the children were out having fun on Halloween and he just had to sit and watch. But finally, one Halloween night, Tinkerbell's wish came true and he came to life! Here is her story. She was a princess and went in a castle all the time. Merrick's pumpkin came over to save Tinkerbell from the castle's MEAN Dragon. Merrick's pumpkin saved Tinkerbell! The End. Merrick's Story... Once upon a time, there was a pumpkin named Elephant. He was very sad, because all the children were out having fun on Halloween and he just had to sit and watch. But finally, one Halloween night, Elephant's wish came true and he came to life? Here is his story... He ran and jumped all around and played with all the elves. He ate all the candy as soon as he got some from trick or treating. Elephant was an ant for Halloween. The End. Oh, the imaginations of a 4 year olds.

We Picked'm so we have to Carve'm

We have great friends in HB who plan a great pumpkin carving party every year.

Well, we could be sad that we don't live close and don't get to participate, OR we could make our own fun.

That is what we did.

We invited 5 families from our ward over for FHE. We ate pizza, the most amazing carmel corn that had chunks of snickers in it, and drank LOTS of root beer.

Then we carved our pumpkins.

It was great fun with new friends, but we still miss our old crew!

Hope you guys had fun carving yours, HB buddies!

The head bone's connected

to the neck bone...

I tried to copy this awesome skeleton from Potterybarn kids.

It turned out cute I thought, but the most fun part was not hand stitching all those bones... ugh,

but letting the twins put Mr. Bones together and try and figure out what bones were connected to what.

We also had a playmate with our friend Tessa. She came over and we made sugar cookies.

Look at the amazingness that is the sugar coma they created. yuck.

The Great Pumpkin Race

My cousin and his family live up near Portland. I feel bad, because I am not used to having family close, and so I never remember to hang with them.

They really aren't siamese twins, just to let you know... hehe.

Well, they called this weekend, and wanted to hang at this great pumpkin race.

We jumped at the chance and drove 40 minutes away to the site of the race.

This race is pretty amazing. They have the HUGE pumpkins, carve out the innards, and then dump them in the lake to canoe in. It is a pretty funny race with people in full Halloween costumes.

We really enjoyed ourselves!

The Pumpkin Patch

We went to a real live pumpkin patch. We had to break the pumpkins off the vines, and there is an infamous patch where they sell ALL pumpkins, no matter what size, for $1. Awesome.

But, it was kinda far away, and so we just went to a family farm 8 minutes from our house which sold pumpkins for .18 cents a lb. We got 4 beautiful pumpkins for less than $5. That is still a great deal!

We went twice. First time, was Friday night with our friends, the Maughans.

It was dark when we met them there, so we didn't get to pick our pumpkins (which was a bummer, but awesome too, cause I love knowing that I didn't have to go to some kind of carnival in the Mall parking lot to pick our pumpkins out of a pile, and that once the night hits, the pumpkin picking closes because there are no lights on the farm.)

We did get to go through all the hay mazes and hay pyramids!

The second time we went was Saturday night just right before sunset to pick out our pumpkins...

I love the farms in Oregon!

Merrick and Berkleigh wanted to pick one for Baby _ _ _ _ _ _. So we decided on this semi green one, because it wasn't ripe yet, and neither is she... :)

It was a great day on the farm.