Wednesday, November 12, 2014

It's Halloween!! (Editors Note: It's November 12th.)

Right, OK. So I know it's the middle of November. Several relatives have pointed out that I haven't put up any pictures of the girls in their Halloween costumes yet, tick tock. You guys, it's been NUTS around here. Today is the first normal day without a PTO responsibility, a school holiday, or a sick kid since this month started. And Mike has a work thing tonight and won't be home until after the kids go to bed, so you know, "normal." I do not like this kind of normal, but I admit that I piled quite a bit of our recent chaos on myself.

Just a friendly warning: I'll be taking the month of December off, except for our Christmas travel which I'm looking forward to. If you come at me with some chore between December 1st and January 7th (the day after Kate's birthday) I will ping candy canes off your forehead until you run away! Beware!

ANYWAY, here are some photos of the more fun stuff we've been up to since Halloween...

Pumpkin carving!

Squishy

At Maggie's insistence, I did roast the pumpkin seeds like my mom used to do. They were a hit!

Kate wasn't so into the grodiness of pumpkin carving. This is about the closest she got to the pumpkin.

Mike's handiwork.

The girls were witches this year, which surprised me. They started out wanting to be a cat (again) and Elsa, but switched to this instead. They looked great!

Scary.

Hobo Witch?

They organize their candy like this every year.

Not too extravagant, but all high quality loot.

The next night, we met Cousin E up at Gram and Grandpa's in NH to trick or treat again! It was pouring rain and freezing, but they had the best time - and then we had clam chowdah to warm up. CLASSIC New England Halloween.

We also celebrated Sweet Caroline's First Birthday!

Everyone loved the balloons best of all.

Next up - the required Fall in New England leaf-raking, pile-jumping photo shoot.

Jump!

Silly girls with leaves in their hair (and socks and pants and everywhere).

And finally, since the girls were out of school yesterday for Veterans' Day, they watched the movie Elf for the first time, and Kate decided to make her Christmas ["Crismiss"] List...

Comprehensive.
Reminds me so so so much of my cousin Amy when we were kids, although I think Kate might have her beat.
Please don't buy her the "lizrd glasis" because I'm getting those.
Also, she cut it in half so everyone could have a piece of it - covering all her bases, present-wise.

Not to be outdone, Maggie (who just wants some "fun stuff, like about science or whatever") decided to make the following rather fancy letter to Santa:

"Maggie's Wonderful Christmas List
Dear Santa, I realy want a fluffy kitten for Cristmas. Love, Maggie"
So to stay competitive in this current holiday present market, Kate also had to get in on this letter to Santa thing:

"Dear Santa, for Christmas I wat a mack your onw cat trees [I want a make your own cat treats (kit). - this actually exists]. Kate."
So, there you go. A photo update of our autumnal shenanigans. Thanks to Mike for his photography help otherwise this post never would've seen the light of day. Back to the grind!

PS - All I want for Christmas are bottles of bourbon and a nap!