Snippets ... it's the little things.

Monday, November 9, 2009

The Day-After-Halloween Party

Our hosts: Holly, Carter & Chris

Claire and I work on a craft.

Colleen and her girls.

The baseball tee was a big hit. (no pun intended!)

Claire takes a swing.

David kept the lawn mowed ... almost the entire party.

Cute scarecrow in the BIG pile of leaves.

Sweet kitty Cami.

Will with the kiddos.

Who knew that cowgirls could play soccer?

Time to eat! I love that our kids wanted to sit together.

Pocahontas and Minnie Mouse.

Claire and me.

Some girl time on the inflatable. Oops, we lost Minnie Mouse.

Silly girls!

We loved having one more excuse to wear our costumes!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Halloween is not a real big event in our neighborhood. Last year, I walked around with Claire and I think about 6 of the 21 houses in our neighborhood had their lights on for trick-or-treaters. This year, we got together with two other couples (one being our next door neighbors) and went to a huge neighborhood to let the kids trick-or-treat (where the third couple lives). It did not disappoint!

Here are my two spooks at home showing off our freshly carved Jack-o-lanterns.

David loved the pumpkins lids.

David & Will.

Our feeble attempt to get a picture of the four kiddos (minus baby Hannah) at our little get-together.

A family photo.

Our hosts.

Look at this sweet little Tootsie Roll!

Time to go get some candy. Look at Minnie Mouse's tiny bucket. Her mommy didn't want her to get too much candy because she (her mommy) would eat it all! I think she came home with 5 pieces of candy. My kids, on the other hand, came home with two big bagfuls!

The daddies took the kids out to trick-or-treat, while the mommies stayed at home and passed out candy (and drank wine).

David and me post trick-or-treating. Love the face he is making.

Is it Spiderman or Scooby Doo. Maybe its Spider Doo or Scoobyman? Cooper decided her needed to wear the Scooby hat ... maybe he'd had a few too many pieces of candy?!?

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Candy Overhaul

This girl loves her some candy. She also loves to collect things and carry them around in bags, buckets, etc. She has been toting her bag of candy around since Saturday. She only asks to eat a piece about every five minutes. She is just as happy to play with it as eat it though, so that is okay.

I was trying to finish a work project one afternoon this week and I had her match all the like candy and separate it into piles. Who knew that playing with candy could be educational? And, it kept her entertained for a good long while!

Bedtime Routine

Will and I have a pretty good nighttime routine down. While I clean up the kitchen after dinner and get things ready for the next day, he takes the kids upstairs for their baths and puts them to bed. By the time I finish up downstairs, Will is finished upstairs and we meet up for a little downtime in front of the TV.

But, sometimes we have to switch things up a little bit for one reason or another. This week, Will had to do some online training for work at night, so he started the baths and I finished things up ... which means I got to read a story and share some bedtime snuggles with this little guy.

And I got to get this little gal out of the bathtub, lather her up with lotion, zip her up in her pjs and put her to bed.

As Martha Stewart would say, it was a "good thing."

Halloween Goodies & Goo

Saturday morning, we carved our pumpkins just in time for Halloween night. David really enjoyed it, but Claire kind of kept her distance. Okay ... David really just enjoyed taking the "lids" off the pumpkins and putting them back on, which I think he is doing in every single picture!

After Will cleaned out all the goo, I fished out all the pumpkins seeds and roasted them using this recipe. They were yummy, but I'm not sure it was worth all the trouble it took to get the seeds cleaned out of the pumpkins! And two medium-sized pumpkins only yielded 2 cups of seeds!

The finished pumpkins.

After the pumpkins were cleaned up and put away, I made these yummy cupcakes to take to our little Halloween gathering that night. I found my inspiration here. I had to improvise a little on the spider legs because I couldn't find any pull-apart black licorice. Very cute for a photo item (if you're into photographing food), but the kids would have been just as happy with a plain chocolate cupcake I think.