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!

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

So I said I would get back into posting and here I am 2.5 months later without a single post.  Whoops!!  Maybe this time I really will get back into it.  Anyways, last Wednesday was Halloween and since Samantha has been super obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse lately, we decided to dress her up as Minnie.  She was thrilled!!  Her way of expressing MMCH is by saying "Hot Dog" since they do the Hot Dog Dance at the very end.  The second we took out the dress she kept saying hot dog over and over again.  She loves anything Mickey related.  It's really rather cute.  So, without further adieu, here is our little Minnie Mouse.

Chris and I took Samantha trick-or-treating to two houses in our neighborhood and then Samantha and I went out with some playgroup friends while Chris handed out candy.  Samantha had such a great time trick-or-treating and I think she loved that she got to do it with friends.  She was right there with them running up and down the sidewalks and driveways.  I could just feel the excitement radiating off of her and it really makes me want to cry.  After all it took for us to get pregnant with her, you appreciate all these moments so much more.  Seeing her so happy and enjoying life so much really makes my heart melt.

happy halloween

I was fully intending to come home and post all about Samantha's first Halloween, but I think this picture says it all.  We're wiped!!!

let the festivities begin!

It has been so much fun this year celebrating all of Samantha's first holidays.  So I was especially excited for today to begin our Halloween festivities!  We started off this afternoon with our playgroup's Halloween party.  There were 57 people scheduled to show up PLUS all their babies!!  I'm pretty sure all of the 57 parents showed up so it was a full house.  But we had a blast with everyone.  There was delicious food and delicious deserts.  I just LOVED the confused looks on many of the babies' faces wondering what the heck was going on.  I tried to get pictures, but the problem with photographing babies is none of them want to look at the camera, let alone all at the same time.  Here is me and Samantha with our friends Megan and Caleb.  And Amy - I know you read here...for some reason all the ones with all three of us came out blurry.  :-(  So I hope one of the ones your husband got came out nice!!!

After the playgroup party we headed to my cousin's house for our second Halloween party.  This was an adult only party so we didn't stay too long since we didn't have a sitter for Samantha.  But we did bring her in her kitty costume so she fit in.  My cousin was dressed as Rainbow Bright and looked so cute!!  Her husband was a hockey player.  Unfortunately by this point Samantha was getting very tired so we only stayed for about an hour.  A highlight of the party though was when one of the guests actually recognized Samantha from her little bit on the news the other day.  How cool is that?!  Here is Samantha and I with my cousin, Vanessa.

By the time we got home, Samantha was WIPED.  She will typically wake up the second you remove her from her car seat but for the first time ever, she didn't even stir.  The poor little thing was just exhausted.

Now we can look forward to Monday when we will be taking her Trick or Treating!!!

a halloween preview!

Hello Fall

Today we took Miss Samantha for her first trip to a pumpkin patch.  We chose to go to Lyman Orchards since it's right around the corner from my in-law's house.  We spent Friday and yesterday searching for the perfect fall outfit since it was 80°+ here today and our fall looking things are all long sleeved.  I didn't find anything spectacular but we did find this adorable little dress.  Then I borrowed a headband from my niece Leah for her to wear.  Too cute!!  Samantha really enjoyed the pumpkins and she did great sitting amongst them.  It was a great day!


We were joined by Samantha's cousins Joey, Leah, and Aiden.  We first played in the pumpkin patch and then went inside the store and got some apples, apple pie, apple cider, and apple cider donuts.  We had apple pie for dessert tonight which was delicious and the apple cider during dinner.  Tomorrow morning we'll enjoy the donuts with some apple cider and then get on the road to head back to Virginia!!