Trick 'o Treat!

Something about this day.  I wake up feeling anxious and it lasts all day.

I feel nervous that I won't get out of work on time or will hit lots of traffic on my way home resulting in us missing trick 'o treating.  The past few years we have gone to the Busta's and spent the evening with them.  It's much more fun for the girls since their neighborhood is full of kids and the neighbors participate.  In past years it has proven to be a ghost town around here.  Every year I get anxious and every year everything turns out just fine.  I make it home, we make it to their house, we eat dinner, we get ready, and we go out.  We haven't missed a Halloween yet! (maybe next year I should read this....)

 

Brennan, Chloe, Aubrey, Hannah, Maddie and Hailey

 

The girls were excited to get going!

 

 

We decided to walk this year so Hailey took the opportunity to ask daddy for the stroller.

It was a good thing we did:

1.  It was nice to have the extra room for carrying hats, gloves, drinks

2.  It was nice to push her when she decided she was tired instead of having to carry her

3.  We made our way down the first block.  At the end the girls realized that they had missed Brent's house (Stacey's neighbor in a 'new' development but some day there will be houses between them).  The big kids decided to run there and Hailey decided to sit in the stroller and wait for them to come back.  Good thing.....a few minutes later we heard screams.  Hannah and Chloe came running from the house, Maddie came away crying and Aubrey wasn't following.  When Maddie got close enough we asked what happened and she told us how Brent scared them.  He was waiting in front of the house (see picture) and would jump out to scare the kids as they got closer.  Aubrey was so scared that when Mandy opened the door to give them candy she ran inside and wouldn't come out.  I get that it's Halloween and kids should be ok getting scared but they are only 5-6 years old.  Poor little things...scared to even approach houses if there was any chance something would scare them.

 

 

They made it around our usual path and by the end of the night had a full bg of candy.

Hailey quit half way through and was pretty content just riding along watching the kids in their costumes. 

Happy Halloween!

This night was brought to you by Pinterest

 

I found these ideas on Pinterest and couldn't resist.

Aren't they cute?!

 

Time to carve the pumpkins!

 

Tonight we carved the pumpkins. 

Hailey was NOT shy about digging in to get the guts out.  Hannah preferred to use the spoon at first but got over that really quick and soon they were both up to their elbows in pumpkin guts.

We searched online to find an idea and came across this kitty. 

 

BOO!

It's the quiet things....

 

Meet the newest member of our family- the self closing toilet seat.

Really.....we are all pretty excited and amazed by this thing.

Grandma's Halloween Party!

Every year Grandma Judy has the kids over for a Halloween party.

The kids bring their costumes and Grandma supplies the activities.

Courtney- Vampire witch, Hannah- Rapunzel, Justin- Spiderman,

Adam- Lizardman, Hailey- Butterfly

 

The kids each made a Halloween banner- complete with felt cut outs (grandma really goes all out!) and thick puffy glitter stickers.

 

After dinner we made pumpkin rice krispie treats.

Just add orange food coloring, shape like a pumpkin and add a green M & M for a stem.

Yummy!

Now, this is what I call a day off

Today started with bringing the girls to Hannah's pre-school screening.

The screenings for our area were done at Soderberg Elementary.

 

We started with a mini-health screen.  Height, weight, and blood pressure.  Next was her developmental screen- we couldn't be in the room since Hailey just turned 3, they were concerned that she would 'remember' the things for when she comes back. She needed a score of 18 to pass (for her age group) and scored a 28!  NICE WORK BEAN!

We finished with a vision and hearing screen.

 

She did great adn Hailey did a great job waiting with me.  Won't be long now and we should be getting her Kindergarten packet in the mail.

 

This evening we made a trip to Bobby's new house- Kristin lives there too.  We were celebrating Jennie's 29th Birthday!

The house is in Afton (almost to Wisconsin). 

 

 

It sits on a ton of land.  There are multiple gardens, multiple fire pits, a fountain, an inground pool, and a double decker deck. 

 

Not to mention a HUGE tree house!

 

They served tacos- chicken and beef.

After dinner, presents, and cake the girls played hide and seek with Kim and Jennie.

It was so fun watching them play.  One group would start downstairs while the other group hid upstairs.  Then "ready or not, here we come!"

One of the greatest things about being a parent is watching your kids have other people in their lives that they love to be with.  The girls had so much fun tonight hiding in closets, under tables, in the shower, under blankets, and in the bed.

 

 

Hailey was too cute!  She would get so excited running around looking for a place to hide.  Before Jennie and Hannah would even get downstairs she would head for a new spot and call Kimmy over "Come here!"

 

Can you find Jennie?  Hailey looked at her three times before realizing she was really under there.

 

Later Kristin let Jessie, the kitty, out of the laundry room.   Hannah got a kick out of her hiding spot!

Hannah was really interested in the cats and had tons of questions about them- real interested in the litter box situation ("So, they stand on their pee and poop?!").

Bus is leaving and other adorable things

Here is a little post about some of my most favorite (and recent) Hailey statements.

We were getting ready to go out to eat.  Hannah was fixing her hair, I was using the bathroom, Brian had gotten his shoes on and was making his way to the door.  Hailey came running down the hall yelling "Come on!  The bus is leaving!"

Had never heard her use this phrase before but I know where she gets it.  Brian will casually tell them the bus is leaving when he's ready to go.  It had us laughing tonight hearing her use this term to signify it was time to go.

"Whak a heck Milla?" 

(What the heck Miller)

For some reason she started saying What the heck?  Even though it might not be the most appropriate thing for a little 2-3 year old to be saying, it sure is cute.  Brian occasionally calls me Miller and the girls have picked up on this.  Of course the more we laugh, the more she says it.

"Thank you mommy!"

Hailey: "It ok if me breaked this?"

Me: "Ummm, whatever,s ure."

Hailey : "Thank you mommy!"

Hailey: "It ok me bring me drink downstairs?"

Me:  "Sure"

Hailey:  "Thank you mommy!"

Me:  "Hailey, did you wear those fancy shoes to bed last night?"
Hailey: "Yeah.  It ok me wear them?"

Me: "Yep"

Hailey: "Thank you mommy!"

Hailey:  "Mommy, it ok me sleep wif me teddy today?"

Me:  "Of course."

Hailey:  "Thank you mommy!"

and so on and so on....

If she sees something cute her response is either "Oh my goodness!" or "OMG!"

When she is feeling silly she will either call you a turkey, knucklehead or dude.

If Hannah lets her do something like sit next to her or let's her wear one of her headbands or play with her toys her response is usually "Thank you Hannah, you me best friend!"

Her language has developed so much over the past year.  So fast that it actually still shocks me sometimes to hear certain things come out of her mouth.

It has been so much fun watching her grow up adn into the little girl she has become.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIE!

Fancy

Me:  "Hannah, what is that behind your ear?"

Hannah: "It's a pencil like dad does.  I'm working.  Do you think it looks fancy? Cause I do."

 

'S' sound

I wish I could bottle up Hailey's voice.

It is so fun listening to her talk and seeing how she phrases things.

 

This weekend Brian and I were trying to get her to say words that contained the 'S' sound- she has a particular challenge with that sound.

 

The conversation went a little like this....

Brian:  "Hailey, say stroller."

Hailey:  "Toller"

Brian: "Say snake"

Hailey: "Nake"

Me: "Say super"

Hailey: "Super"

Brian: "Say super duper"

Hailey: "Super duper"

Me: "Say kiss"

Hailey: "Kiss"

Brian: "Say Kristin"

Hailey: "No, me rather say Bobby."

 



Kid Salad

Yesterday we were outside enjoying the weather while we still can.

Brian and I were in the garage and the girls were setting up chairs in the driveway to play resturant.

 

Hailey sat down and Hannah, the waitress, went in the house.

A few minutes later she came out with a bowl and a drink.

 

Cut up meat sticks, granola bar, fruit loops and fruit snacks.

Remind me to never order a salad from that resturant- although Hailey LOVED it!

Never knew a blanket could giggle

For the past week when I put Hailey to bed Hannah has daddy hide her under this blanket.

I come out of Hailey's room to get Hannah and she 'isn't there'.

Eventually after a few minutes of searching or even giving up and sitting down, I eventually find her and we make our way upstairs to bed.

Can you see the two bumps under the blankie?!

The girls are under there together teasing daddy by taking his spot when he got up to use the bathroom. 

Knuckleheads :-)

He. Was. Awesome.

The excitement leading up to this day was ridiculous!

We bought the tickets months ago and at that time October 20th seemed like forever away.

I am certain that I was more excited about this concert than Hannah was.

Not because I wanted to see Justin Bieber's show, although I did.

Not because I was excited to hang out with Stacey, Maddie, Gretchen, and Kiley, although I was.

I was most looking forward to seeing Hannah's reaction.  I was excited to be able to give her this experience and I was excited to watch her face light up when she sees him.

The girls wanted to dress the same.  We decided since everyone there would be wearing Bieber shirts that maybe we would go with the next obvious...purple.

Stacey and Maddie came over around 3:30.  The girls got dressed and we did their hair.

A few weeks ago, at Tyler and Carter's Birthday party, the girls had made a sign for the concert.

They were REAL proud of it!

We actually forgot the sign in the car- which turned out to be for the best considering they would not allow signs in the arena.  So, as we walked in there were mounds and mounds of signs that were on their way to being destroyed.  Probably for the best that the sign remained in the car since the girls would have been pretty upset about tossing that sign.  For once our forgetfulness paid off.  Again, for the best since it was already hard to see with the sheer number of people there jumping around, signs would have made it impossible- gotta give Target Center props for this one!

LOVE THIS PICTURE of the girls!

We went to Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.  It was a great choice!  Everyone was full but not stuffed and the food was fabulous.  Hannah really wanted to pay for dinner so as far as she knows the dinner cost $1.  (we will work on actually understanding the value of a dollar another day)

Here we are trying to kill sometime before the concert started.

Hannah kept asking me when Kelly Clarkson was coming out to sing :-)  I had to keep reminding her it was Carly Rae Jepsen.

 A little after 7 Carly Rae Jepsen came on.

The girls were full of energy and got up on their chairs and started dancing.

We told the girls that they could get shirts but the lines were outraegous so we decided to wait until the concert started and then figured that one of us could go up while the other stayed on kid duty.

A few songs into Carly's performance we decided it was a good time.

 I went up and got in line.  The line was long for normal circumstances but in the grand scheme of things the line was short so it seemed like a good time.  While I was in line I heard 'Call Me Maybe' starting, within seconds people went running out of line to go back to their seats.  After that song, Carly was done and the house lights were back on.  Next thing you know people were pouring out of the arena making their way to the t-shirt line, getting snacks, using the restroom- thank goodness I was already in line.  By the time I was leaving the line with shirts in hand, I looked back and couldn't even see the back of the line.  YIKES!

The countdown was posted and in 10 minutes the concert was going to start.

When the countdown made it's '2 minutes until showtime' annoucement, we plugged the girls ears with their bright pink earplugs and waited- not paitently.

Hannah was squeezing my hand so tight and bouncing up and down.

He came 'flying' in from the ceiling and landed on the catwalk right in front of us.

He started with his song "All Around the World"

There were fireworks and confetti exploding from the ceiling- the girls (I mean ALL the girls- not just ours) went crazy trying to catch the confetti that was falling- as if Justin himself had been the one to cut it.

You can imagine how loud it was with the fans, mostly girls, screaming with excitement.

Throughout the night he had a few outfit changes.  While he was off stage changing the jumbo screens played videos of him as a young child and videos that played along with the show.  At one point he pretended to dive into the stage and then the screens on the stage showed him swimming around in his clothes, he would then reappear in new clothes.  Very entertaining!

He played the piano, drums and guitar.  I wouldn't be surprised to hear if he had lip synced parts of the show but there were other parts that it was obvious that he was signing live (and a mixture of this during the high-dancing songs).  

It was hard to get good pictures.  He was wearing white most of the night and with the bright lights it was hard to focus the camera.  I so wish I would have been able to bring my 'real camera'.

For part of the show he was lifted in a 'cherry-picker-style-cage' and circled the crowd.

Hannah kept reaching for him, as if she thought she really might be able to touch him.

I asked Hannah to tell me something about the concert that I could put in the blog. This is what she had to say.

"Justin Bieber you look cute and I love you.  And tell him that his face is cute.  I wish I had his phone number.  I had 21 fun at the concert!  My favorite part of the concert was when he singed Be Alright in that big thing."

He sang most of his new songs but did entertain us with a mini-medley of his 'oldies-but-goodies'- or 'junk' songs as Hannah calls them.

Why junk songs? 

According to Hannah "that's just what I call old songs when he has new ones I like."

He ended with Boyfriend and Baby and the place went crazy!

These three were so cute walking out of the concert together.  They just forged ahead and made their way to the car as if their 'mommies' weren't even there.  I love that they have so much fun together!

I would have to say the night was a HUGE SUCCESS!

I guess this is how you cure Bieber fever :-)

Love these 3

 

You are pretty much my favorite of all time in the history of ever

iCarly (and Freddie)

 

Hannah's latest obsession is iCarly.

She found this show on Netflix and since then she can not get enough.

In the mornings she used to ask for Cailou, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc McStuffins, and Timmy Time.  It then started to turn to Big Time Rush and Good Luck Charlie.

Now it's always iCarly.

This morning while I was getting ready in the bathroom (with the fan on and door shut) I heard the biggest belly laughs coming from the living room.  It's sweet to see how much she gets into the show and fun to watch her actually 'get' the comedy of it all.

 

Hannah:  "Mommy, come quick!"

Me:  "What'cha need?"

Hannah:  "Can you get my camera?  I need to take a picture of this best part of the show."

Me:  "Why is this your favorite part?"

Hannah:  "Freddie looks so cute doing that dance!"

Best part of the show:  Freddie is dancing