Lightening Review, October* 2013

*Disclaimer:  When I say "October 2013", what I really mean is Halloween 2013.  Here are all of our activites for the second half of October crammed into one lightening-quick post:

We went to the Hickory Ridge Farm Pumpkin Patch to get a pumpkin or two.  I had the girls each choose a smaller pie pumpkin, because I knew I would be cooking them down for baking.

We also rode the pony, walked the corn maze, ate kettle corn, played in the bounce houses, went for a hay ride, and played on a hay bale mountain.  It was great for the girls, and I found myself wondering...why did we not do this until our last year in this area?

We had a Halloween dry run the weekend before the big night, and used it as an opportunity to get some stress-free photos and play in the leaves.

We    Brandon and the girls   Brandon carved the larger of our two pumpkins while I took pictures and the girls supervised.  Elora at least tried pulling out some of the pumpkin guts, but Kaylie wouldn't touch it!!!

And finally, we went trick-or-treating with Lydia and Little James.

Brandon had to take a 3 day trip for the class he was taking, so he couldn't go with us.  Rebekah and Big James were in Florida visiting family.  We missed them, but holy cow, we had a great time anyway!!

See, super fast!  Yes, I might have glossed over a few things, but you got the highlights.  :)

Halloween 2011

The girls were fairies for Halloween this year.  The original plan was for Elora to wear the official Dallas Cowboys cheerleader uniform that her Aunt Dawn got for her, but the outfit is still way too big for her.  It worked out well: I'd been wanting to make tutus for them anyway, and I had 2 pairs of wings that I could remake for them.

What the wings used to look like.

What they look like now.

 The tutus were easy-peasy, (I used ribbon instead of elastic) but those wings were a royal pain!!!  At first I though I could just throw some tulle on there and gather it at the inner sides, but that was simply not going to work.  Then I tried using pantyhose, but it squished the wings too much.  I was able to make it work on Kaylie's wings, but then I ruined it by trying to paint them and had to start over.

Finally, I wrapped the wire forms with long, narrow strips of tulle, then cut more tulle to fit the wings and stitched it on over the wrapped frames, and used puffy paint and glitter to decorate them.  They're tied on with another set of long ribbons of tulle.

"Really? You're going to make me wear these stupid wings? You do know I am going to try to eat them, right??"

Kaylie merely tolerated her costume, but  Elora had a blast getting all dressed up.  I painted her nails and did her make up, which she loved.  She was super excited about putting her tutu and wings on (I hadn't let her play with them so she wouldn't mess them up) and was very good about letting me do her hair.  When they were ready, we took them outside for pictures...

...and then took them to the mall for trick-or-treating.

Elora didn't seem to like the trick-or-treating.  I think she was overwhelmed by the crowd; there were a ton of people there. Once we got out of the crowd, she perked up again.  It also helped that "aunt" Bekah met us at the mall just as we were finishing up.

Then we had Abuelo's for dinner, just like we did last year, and Rebekah joined us there too.

Happy Halloween!

We took a break from working on the house this afternoon to take Elora to the mall for some early trick-or-treating.  She's really too young to appreciate it, but I'm certainly not!  Brandon thought it was all rather silly, but he humored me.

The silly girl sucked on her hand nearly the entire time we were there.  It was prune-y by the time we left.

Is she not the sweetest little angel ever?  Most people thought she was a fairy, though, because I accidentally put her wings on upside down.  Oops.  The crazy thing is that this is the angel costume--labeled 6-9 months--that I bought for her last Halloween!  Thank you again for loaning us the bear costume, Jennifer! So this was Halloween 2009:

And this is Halloween 2010:

When we got back to the house after trick-or-treating and dinner (we went back to Abuelo's for more delicious Mexican)

we went outside to play and take pictures.

 

  

These were taken right in our back yard, but we also walked down the path to the little canal right around the corner.  These were taken on the grassy slope by the water.

 

 

It's been a good day.  I hope you've all had a happy Halloween too!

Our First Pumpkin

It's our 5th Halloween together, but this is our first pumpkin. It's pretty ridiculous, actually. The cat was supposed to have more detail around the face, but Bran didn't draw it in, and I forgot to do it before I started carving. Still, I think it turned out pretty well.

While we were working on gutting the pumpkin, Elora had her supper and a nap.


Then she and her daddy went upstairs to hang out while I did the actual carving. They came back down when it was time to do the eyes, and Brandon got out his drill. I wouldn't have thought to do it that way, and I have to admit that while Elora entertained herself on the floor

and Brandon went at the pumpkin with a power tool, I hovered over him until I could be sure that he wasn't going to destroy 3 hours worth of carving with that power tool. Once I was satisfied that it wasn't going to be demolished, I started taking pictures again. I'd say it turned out pretty well! I like our pumpkin. :)