Halloweens Past......

I really enjoy Halloween and brainstorming on what the girls want to be each year. I wish I could sew so I could make their costumes, but I have used hot glue to make costumes before and it works surprisingly well! Anyway, I enjoyed looking back over the years at the various costumes the girls have enjoyed. Here they are:

Sofia's very first Halloween as a lobster and I'm her fisherman!

With her buddy Grayden, the penguin

Sofia in the monkey costume made by my Mom. She liked it but cried overtime we put the "head" on her.

Our cute (and tired) monkey!

Our little Texas cowgirl! Love her in this costume!

Our little ladybug with her little sister

Ladybug girl

Olivia's first Halloween as a ladybug sister!

Sofia, the mermaid in a homemade (thanks to hot glue) costume.

Mermaid and the goldfish, another homemade costume.

One of my favorites - Sofia the dinosaur and Olivia the monkey!

Frozen Halloween

Elsa, Anna, Kristof and Olaf

Jack-o-lanterns

On Thursday after school, we finally got around to making our jack-o-lanterns out of the pumpkins the girls picked out at the pumpkin patch. I moved the pumpkins onto the grass in the front yard and grabbed our bread knife, which is the best knife for cutting out pumpkin, as well as a steak knife that I thought would work well for the girls. It took a little work to get to the tops of the pumpkins off since they are so big and thick. Personally, I'm not a fan of cleaning out the pumpkins but both girls love it. Olivia had so much fun and told about how her class took turns pulling out the insides of the pumpkin when they made their jack-o-lantern at school. she did a good job of getting the the innards out. Sofia's pumpkin was even harder to get the top off and she dug out the innards really well. I asked Olivia what design she would like as the face and she picked out triangle eyes, a round nose and a toothy smile. I drew it on with permanent marker and got busy cutting. Sofia helped by pushing out the pieces once I'd finished cutting them and we worked well as a team, while Olivia scootered around the front entrance. She'd had fun and was ready to scooter. I was able to get a few photos of her with her pumpkin and finished jack-o-lantern.

Next it was Sofia's pumpkin. She drew on the pumpkin's face herself and then started cutting. She did a great job and did the face all by herself, except for the mouth, which needed my help. She'd cut a few spots too close, so we needed to add a little section of pumpkin to hold up it's mouth. She was really into it and decided to make her jack-o-lantern into Percy Jackson! She wrote "Percy Jackson" in permanent marker and then cut out hair and a "P J" on the side. It really looked cute! Olivia decided her jack-o-lantern also needed hair so she drew some on with the permanent marker and signed her name at the back. She loves writing her name lately. Meanwhile, Buddy ate pieces of the pumpkin. At first, I thought he was eating the pumpkin seats but he actually loved eating the smaller pumpkin chunks.

Soon the girls were done and the pumpkins looked really cute! We moved them into place under the awning, since we were expecting rain the next two days and waited until it got dark so we could light them up! Then the girls grabbed their scooters and played with Brandon while I made dinner.

Olivia scooping out the insides

Sofia making her jack-o-lantern face

Olivia and her finished pumpkin!

Sofia is ready to cut.

Pumpkin carving

Sofia and her finished pumpkin!

The girls and their cute jack-o-lanterns!

Olivia watching Sofia cut hair into her "Percy Jackson" pumpkin.

Pumpkins, girls and Buddy

Percy Jackson's hair

Sofia cutting the nose

Olivia's name - she loves writing it now

"P J" for Percy Jackson, just in case anyone doesn't know who her pumpkin is supposed to be!

Olivia and her pumpkin

Jack-o-lanterns in place and ready for it to be dark

How they look at night!

Olivia's Fall Festival

On Thursday, Olivia's Owl class held their Fall Festival so all the kids were able to wear their Halloween costumes. Hannah's mom had a tennis match that day, so she asked if she could drop Hannah off before school and I could take her, which I love to do since I've asked her to do the same for me before. Plus, the girls love playing together and have a ball. They played together for an hour before it was time to head to school and I was able to get a photo of them together before we left for school. I was also dressed up as Professor McGonagall since I'd offered to help with the Fall Festival and needed to be in a costume.

Once we arrived at the girls' class, Miss Michelle told me they needed candy-collection buckets so I returned home and dug through our hall closet to find five baskets! I decided to take them all in case other kids forgot their baskets. I returned and walked to the gym where the festivities had begun. There were a number of stations set up for each class to go through. It started with a cute obstacle course followed by a bean bag toss and a sock toss through a hanging inflatable tire followed by a relay of cereal in a spoon, then a broom race (where I was stationed), then a ring toss and a duck dive in a little pond as well as a pumpkin bowling station. It was very impressive! The first class through was the 2 year olds and they were SO cute! I worked the broom races with a lady named Cathy whose son in in the transitional kindergarten class. She was super nice and I really enjoyed talking with her between the times when we were busy.

The broom races included two pool noodles that were the "brooms" and two lines on which the kids were to run down and turn around and run back. After they were finished they took their candy basket and collected candy from Cathy at the other end of the race. The kids loved it and some of them really took it seriously and raced their hearts out.

Before long, Olivia's class arrived in the gym and I was able to take pictures as she and her class went through the various stations. Of course, I couldn't take pictures of the broom races since I was busy directing kids, but was able to get pictures at the other stations. Olivia stood next to Hannah and seemed to really enjoy the festivities. She also has quite an arm on her and threw everything really hard and well! Who knew?!

Olivia's class finished all of the stations and headed back to their room with their trick-or-treat pumpkins after I gave her a quick hug and kiss. It was so fun to spend the day with all the various classes and to meet more of the parents.

Olivia and Hannah before we left for school

Our sweet mermaid

Standing in line for the bean bag toss

She has quite the arm on her!

Waiting for the next station

Tossing socks through a tire

Olivia's kitty art craft she made the week before! Love it!

Olivia's ghost!

The Pumpkin Patch

I really wanted to visit the pumpkin patch with just the girls to take cute photos of them and buy pumpkins to carve. So after Sofia got home from school today I told her that we would all be visiting the pumpkin patch, to which she said she really wanted to stay home so she could play. I thought about going on Wednesday, but the weather was so perfect out, so I suggested that they bring their Halloween costumes so we could take pictures in their regular clothes and then in their costumes. That convinced Sofia (Olivia was already ready to go from the beginning, as usual), and we loaded up and headed over to Hall's Pumpkin Patch. Luckily it wasn't terribly crowded, although it was sunny and bright which made it a little hard to take photos without a lot of shadow. We were able to find some good spots for pictures and the girls did a great job smiling by the pumpkins.

After they were done with their "regular clothes" pictures, we went behind the little fake barn and the girls changed. From there no one could see them and I figured it was a lot easier than returning to the car and changing in the backseat. Olivia wanted to wear her dress under her mermaid outfit which I'm sure made it even more snug than it already is. Sofia changed into her Hermoine Granger outfit and we were ready!

I took more photos of the girls and then we decided to pick our their pumpkins for carving before heading back home for Sofia's piano lesson. Olivia picked her pumpkin out first and picked a huge pumpkin that I could hardly lift into the wagon. Sofia couldn't find the "perfect" pumpkin and probably inspected at least half of the pumpkins before choosing her pumpkin. Olivia was already in the wagon with her pumpkin and once I added Sofia's, Olivia was squished in the wagon. At one point the girls asked if we could do the corn maze, but after the fiasco when we visited with Sofia's soccer team friends, I told them I was done doing the corn maze. Plus, we didn't really have time to get lost in the corn. So, we paid and headed to the car so we could be in time for Sofia's piano lesson. The girls had fun and it was a great day to visit the pumpkin patch.

Pumpkins

Our sweet girls

Sofia!

Hermoine Granger

Our little mermaid and Hermoine Granger

My best attempt at capturing Olivia

The girls and their HUGE pumpkins

Sofia

Olivia