Happy Halloween!

Ah, another Halloween is over and done with.  I've got to say, I LOVE Halloween.  It is so much fun for me to watch Samantha choose who she wants to be and see her face light up as we go trick or treating at each house.  She had so much fun and was great at saying trick or treat!

We went out with our amazing friends from playgroup and had quite the crowd!  Before heading out we had an Orange dinner of mac and cheese, mummy dogs, and a tasty orange drink.

Did you know Snow White is a closet villain?

The princesses!

How cute is Miss A as a Cabbage Patch doll?

Zachie finally conked out!

D was a lifesaver and helped me carry Samantha as well as his own daughter B.

Samantha's loot!

Once we were done with playgroup trick or treating (THANK YOU D for hosting and the amazing dinner!) we hit a few houses in our neighborhood.  One of the houses goes ALL out and has decorations everywhere.  They offered to take a picture for us, but I got cut off!  Oh well!

We hope you all had a happy Halloween too!

Wordless Wednesday

Halloween Festivities!!

With Halloween just 2 days away, our household is in full blown pumpkin mode!  Last night was pumpkin decorating/carving day and we had a blast.  I've never really carved a pumpkin before so I must admit I was slightly intimidated.  My pumpkin didn't turn out that great, but I only lost one portion of my pumpkin so I think I did pretty good!

I got a kit at Target for Samantha to make a Minnie Mouse pumpkin.  She had to paint her pumpkin black, but we gave her green and blue to use too.  She concentrated so hard on painting and did an awesome job.

Zach helped a little bit too, but he was more interested in eating the paint.  Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing on the Minnie Mouse box or directions noting if the paint was non toxic or not!!  I did have a little freak out, but we washed him off right away and he hasn't gotten sick so I think he's okay.

Zach standing all by himself!  He's getting a lot better and more daring with doing this.  Won't be long before he's walking!!

Chris decided that he was going to carve a pumpkin too.  Zach loved helping to pull out the guts...and try to eat them!  Not sure how good raw pumpkin tastes but he kept stuffing his face.

The finished products!!  Samantha's pumpkin is behind mine but we needed to wait for the paint to dry before we could attach the Minnie face.  We will probably do that tomorrow.

Today was another fun filled pumpkin day.  We started off with Spooky Tots.  This was a halloween event in the next town over from us that provided live music, balloon art, face painting, candy and more!  Samantha was SO excited to dress up in her costume and go "trick or treating".

I am having major second child syndrome here.  I was planning on having Samantha and Zach have "matching costumes" but then Samantha wanted to be Belle.  As hard as I looked I couldn't find a beast, candle stick, clock, or teacup costume.  I glanced around at party stores, but sorry, I am not paying $50 for a costume he will wear one time.  Sooooo, he is being a cat which is what Samantha was for her first halloween.  Thankfully next year he will definitely be getting his own costume because I am not dressing him up as Minnie Mouse or Belle.  Phew!

We ended the morning with a run to Starbucks for strawberry banana smoothies.  Cheers!

After a nice nap we decided to do a little pumpkin playground.  There wasn't much to it, but it was perfect for Samantha and her friend C.  It had a slide and an awesome corn box that Zach especially loved playing in.

They also had a fun corn maze!  Thankfully it wasn't super hard so we didn't have to worry too much about getting lost.  The kids loved it and enjoyed telling us which way to go when we got to the turns.

Our final stop was a wagon ride to go check out the pumpkins.  This is one of the only patches in our area where you get to pick pumpkins straight from where they grow.  Thankfully we already had our pumpkins and didn't need to buy any as most of the nice ones had already been picked.

I'd admit I am going to be sad once Halloween is over as I love all of these festivities.  At least we have another month to think about pumpkins and yummy pumpkin pie!!

Halloween Footprint Craft

Samantha has been begging me for days to do some painting so I thought today we'd do something fun.  We don't have any real Halloween-y decorations so this was the perfect opportunity to create something.  I love crafts that have a personal touch and handprints and footprints are my favorite.  Plus - if you do them year after year you can watch your child grow!  How cool is that?

We picked up all our supplies a week or so ago at Michael's.  I wasn't sure about the glow fabric paint but I figured I'd give it a shot.  I wanted something colored for each of them and not something I'd have to paint over with a glow paint.

Samantha was super eager to get started so I let her go first.

She was also jumping at the opportunity to help out with Zach's prints.  Unfortunately Zach wasn't in the happiest of moods and he doesn't like things on his hands/feet so he was a little trickier.

The finished product turned out really cute.  Unfortunately my fear was confirmed and the glow paint was too thin on their feet to actually glow.  I could just barely see the color on the canvas after it dried so I went back and outlined the footprints and now it looks much better.

I tried to take a picture of it glowing but my camera wouldn't focus and my cell phone doesn't do good in the dark.  You all will just have to use your imaginations!

Disney on Ice!!

Even though Samantha is OBSESSED with Mickey Mouse, we have not yet had the chance to take her to the most magical place on earth.  Back in September when we were in Chicago, my Aunt had the opportunity to take us all to Disney on Ice.  Samantha had an absolute blast and has been talking about it ever since.  A few weeks ago I got an email from groupon that Disney on Ice was coming to the Patriot Center at George Mason University which is only about 30 minutes from us.  I knew immediately that we had to go!!  We decided to keep it a secret and surprise Samantha once we got there.  Tonight finally was the big night!

Earlier today we visited our friend Kelly and her daughter B since they have a ton of dress up clothes.  At Disney on Ice in Chicago there were tons of little girls dressed up as princesses and I knew Samantha would enjoy doing that too.  Kelly had a beautiful Snow White costume that Miss Samantha chose to wear.  She looked seriously adorable!

The show we saw was called Let's Celebrate! and featured various holidays including Valentine's Day, Christmas, a luau, and a birthday party.  As always Disney put on an amazing show and the skaters did fantastic.  Our seats were a little high up but honestly, there wasn't a bad seat in the house.  They were pretty steep and even with adults in front of all of us, we could see the show perfectly.

Here are a few pictures from the show!!  I didn't bring a regular camera so these are all cell pictures so I apologize that they're a little blurry.

I LOVE the Sorcerer's Apprentice!  I could watch that part of Fantasia all day long!

The princesses helped Minnie Mouse learn how to find her true love.  The princesses were amazing skaters. I got video of most of them and stopped at Ariel and I am so disappointed I didn't record her.  They did some fantastic tricks and I think they were the best act!

Christmas and grand finale!!

I also took a few videos which for some reason play choppy through blogger.  If you want to see any of them regular, just let me know!

I'm a sucker for goodies so we did get some souvenirs, lol.  The light up toy in the back was from our Disney on Ice trip in Chicago.  We brought it with tonight and Samantha loved lighting it up!  The popcorn came with a cute little tote bag that I know Samantha will like playing with.  Samantha picked the Minnie Mouse cup that came with a shaved ice.  I was trying to get her to pick a Tinkerbell cup but she wanted nothing to do with that one.  The Minnie cup is seriously tiny and probably only holds 1/2 a cup of water.  The Tink cup was huge and looked like a flower.  It was so pretty!!  Oh well, at least Samantha is happy!  I got the lemonade for Chris and I and thought Zach could use the sport bottle.  Unfortunately once I got back to our seats I realized it didn't have a straw so Zach probably won't use it.  Also, once we got home and I saw the bottle up close I realized that the design on the bottle is not printed on, but rather a plastic sleeve that goes over the bottle.  Kind of a jip, we'll see how long it lasts.  The rest of the goodies (Incredibles plush, High School Musical bottle, nightgown, Incredibles watch, and coloring book) were part of a goodie bag that they were selling as we exited the stadium.  The entire bag was only $10.  Not a bad deal.

We got home and Zachary was completely wiped!  This was the best picture I could get of him in his new shirt, lol!  Samantha was a crying mess and just ready for bed and kept saying "more Mickey ice."  So cute!! We will definitely be going to Mickey on Ice again!!  We went to every show that came to Chicago as a kid and I remember having so much fun at them and I can't wait to do the same with my Sammie!