Happy Halloween 2012

 Trick or Treating with our friends Olivia & Charlie (& not pictured Zoe, Benjamin, & Caela too)

 Julia gets a lift from Daddy.

 The girls fell in love with their purchased costume, and Julia soon realized hers was the best.  People stuffed her full of candy.  They didn't really know what she was, especially with the hat off, but just seeing her brought joy to everyone around her.  I highly recommend this costume to everyone.  In fact, Elliot & Samantha have requested one for next year.  I did make it.  Pieces of felt hot glued onto some old (& hideous Christmas PJs).  The pinterest woman I stole this from made the hat out of foam...i hot glued onto a bucket hat we had slated for GoodWill.  

 Our after trick or treating was:  no rules on candy.  Eat all you can.  It was much easier for us to enforce and police this rule.  "can I have this one mom?" YES!  What about this one?  YES!  Really?  Of course, let me open it for you...and then they passed out.

Joy to the candy.  And a candid of making the pinata.  Had to see if it would fit on her since I was gluing the stretch out of it. I especially like Samantha howling at her in the background.

The Pink Ladies

 And no, it is not even Halloween. Well, I mean it is Halloween, but these sweeeet sillky awesome Pink Ladies jackets are not Halloween costumes, but just a little something my mom whipped up for the girls and their love of Grease.  Anyone watching Modern Family and see the episode where Cam works on his secret "master project"?  Well, this one turned out to be Grandma's secret master project.  These arrived in the mail last week, which we opened after breakfast and on Facetime.  Each girl has a silky jacket that says "Pink Ladies" on the back.  They all have been wearing them to school.  They even got little matching twirly skirts like Sandy. Which is awesome for them.  And since we are in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy (which Samantha says should have been named Hurricane Samantha (even though she is out neatest little chicky)) - all the more fitting.

And, today truly is Halloween, so we will step out over broken branches in leaves up to our knees donning our witch, little red riding hood, and pinata costume, and hopefully get those darn pictures off the camera to post before Thanksgiving!  

Because It's Fall

It is fall.  It is fall.  The leaves are falling everywhere.  That means it's fall!  -- Yo Gabba Gabba

Today was Sammy's Halloween Parade at school.  BUT, they don't wear costumes.  They were masks they made.  Waaah Waaahh.... I wanted little tykes in costumes!  And we already went to a Halloween birthday party and modelled their costumes, but then our camera battery died and I cannot get them off of there!  So, hopefully I will be posting some costume shots soon.  In the meantime, check out my two youngest lovelies having fun at Samantha's new preschool...which we love!

And PS, since you are still scrolling.  Just wanted to say that I LOVE SANDY!  Hurricane Sandy that is.  And I am saying this 5 days before she is supposed to hit and before there is any reported damage, so this love does not come back to haunt me...but a meeting I had at work was cancelled due to the hurricane & travel woes.  The meeting is a lot of prep and a major presentation -- my part was scheduled to go live at the client site, an hour from home, from 1:30 - 5:30 on Oct 31 -- Halloween!  It was a source of major frustration and a huge bummer to me who loves this holiday so much.  I hated raising my hand to confess that I love my holiday and my kids' costume parades and did not want to only be home for bedtime, but for the whole thing.  But I did it, so they were letting me leave early anyway, which is really great of them (but seriously, don't they have kids?  what about the folks who were traveling for this meeting?  Am I the only one who thought this was weird?) -- but now with Hurricane Sandy, Wooo hooo!  I don't even have to go!  My part is reduced to a conference call, albeit a long intense conference call, but one that I can take in my witches hat and still be home to steal all the Reese's Peanut Butter cups trick or treat with my kids!

Baby Godzilla

Any of you who have talked to me in the last few weeks have heard me call say that Julia is like "Baby Godzilla" these days.  She really is into everything and creating wakes of mass destruction.  She does it with an impish little smile and cute belly laugh, which is keeping her off the time-out mat for now.  Look here, she's all, "who, me?"

Eating dinner alone with the girls is especially hard right now. I don't have any photographice evidence, because who knows what would happen in the time I took to grab the camera, but my friend Kate captured it pretty well with her own little Waylonzilla.  

Ours goes something like this:
Samantha finishes moving the food around her plate and asks for more milk.
I turn my back and open the fridge to see that Julia is standing on her high chair leaning across the table with her hand in Elliot's glass.
She knocks it down, milk everywhere.
I go to the closet to get cleaning up. Julia goes to the closet to help.
I am wiping up milk that is dripping everywhere and Julia is now clearing out the tupperware drawer.  Piece by piece.
I redirect her to the living room and hurry to finish wiping the milk and shove the tupperware back in place.
As I close the cabinet there is a crash.
Julia has taken the Game of Life off the shelf.
And taken off the lid.
And dumped the contents (all those little cars & pinheads).  And is standing on the box, crushing the sides down so it will never close cleanly again.
I think I need to play with her.  So we "play" Life together.  She sits on the board, warps the spinner.  She gets bored while I am putting it away.
So she strips naked (-- taking off her diaper is her favorite thing.  Mostly because she is completely potty training herself.  We didn't start her potty training, truly. She did.  And she keeps her diapers dry most mornings, though she strips naked and takes them off about twice every half hour.) 
Which is extra fun when I am getting shoes on all the girls and Julia goes first.
Socks then shoes.
I turn to tie Sammy's laces.
Then zipper Elliot's jacket.
Then turn to grab Julia's hand to head out and realize not only are her shoes off, but she is naked as a jaybird, swinging her diaper around her head in victory.

Sidewalk Chalk w Ami + Dresses from Grandma

If you count the fact that Papa is hiding in the background over on the right, this kind of qualifies as catching the whole family on the day at church when Sidewalk Sam came.  And Samantha reminded me that "you and Daddy are not really dressed for church clothes." She was right. It was opening day for the Patriots.

And Grandma sent some pretty cute dresses this summer.  Finally, at the end I got the girls to be matchy matchy and wear their similar styles all at once.  Over some pajama pants, and without any hair done, but they busted into a routine. Look out Spice Girls, these ladies have mad MOVES!

Grandma Visits

Aquarium Rock Climbers.  We had a great walk from the Boston Aquarium, which is remodeling all around us (no penguins, no sharks...) and then we walked on the Harbor walk all the way to the Children's Museum.  Which proved to maybe be too much for a half day visit.  We left the Children's Museum early to take Sammy to a doctor's appointment, which meant a bee-filled lunch at Olecito in Inman Square and a little visit to the Stella Bella play room.

We welcomed Grandma with a post-airport Lobstah dinner....with the fabulous roasted corn salad and orzo with everything recipes we picked up from Elissa on Girl Weekend in July.

The next morning it was off to visit Auntie Kassi at Starbucks.

 Then Grandma went to work with Elliot on making puffy piggies while Julia helped me make super garlicky pesto.

Sammy trying on some novelty glasses.

And then the sequence - of Julia at the Children's Museum.  She was waiting out front with me while Ben was bringing the car around fro Sammy's doctor.  Beautiful day.  Julia loving her sparkly shoes that look to me more like cheap cardboard slippers.  I was loving snapping shot of her, but my camera is so delayed, it was annoying.  And then she was running and I snapped, but it didn't take, until she wiped out...which I did not realize I had on film until we downloaded here.  Poor girl was okay and I was running to scoop her up before the picture was even done forming.