Trick or Treating!

Halloween night finally arrived! This is the first year we have lived in a neighborhood that is GREAT for trick or treating, so we all were ready to hit the street when the sun started going down.

A little background on our costumes. Madeline wanted to be a ghost last month. Then she saw last year’s monster costume and wanted to wear it—it fit, although it was a high-water monster costume. So I said fine. Then on Monday at the store she said she wanted to be a witch!! AHHHH!! The child about drove me crazy. SO… I took her precious little head in my hands and looked her in the eyes like any crazy mom at her wits end would do at Wal-Mart and gave her the LAST chance conversation to decide what she really wanted to be. A ghost!! And so with a $6 roll of tulle and a piece of black felt, I made her costume that night in 30 minutes.

Then there was Audrey. She has been princess obsessed for months and I’ve know for months exactly what she would wear… the princess outfit my sister and I both wore some 30 years ago. My mom actually made this as a flower girl dress for my sister back in 1980 and then added the hat for Halloween. On the left is my sister—she has always been so photogenic… HAHA! (Love you sis!) And then Audrey on the right.

        

I do think the dress has held up well considering the child that wore it between these two beautiful princesses was me, and I threw up all over the front of the dress the year I wore it. (Didn’t even make it long enough to have my picture made in it!) No joke, I got sick every year  on Halloween until my parents figured out that the double cheese pizza from Domino’s didn’t sit well with the lactose intolerant kid. To this day Rachel still says I ruined EVERY Halloween for her as a kid! And I guess she would be right… but I blame our parents. :)

So, back to trick or treating. We headed down the street to meet up with some of our friends to walk the neighborhood. Below was our main crew:

We added about 10 more kids as we walked to the first set of houses and it was more like a candy mob running from door to door until we got spaced out a little on the second street.

Once it started getting dark, Audrey would not go anywhere without Mark or me. She said “Halloween spooky at night!” Really, who can blame her.

My highlight of the evening was when Madeline went on to a lady’s porch and looked into her bowl and said… “I don’t really like chocolate, except for chocolate chips, and I know you don’t have any of those. So do you have any other kind of candy….please?!” I was certain I was going to die of embarrassment in their driveway and the woman was going to fall off her porch laughing, but don’t you know she went inside and found her something else. That child cracks me up!!

Can you say sugar overload?? She crashed in a hurry when we got home and began sorting the loot.

It was a great night out in the neighborhood and no doubt I’ll need to be picking up another tube of toothpaste for all the brushing we’re going to be doing in the weeks ahead!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Parties

Tuesday is a busy morning for us each week. The girls are in a class through our city called “Little Learners.” They do story time, games, crafts and various other activities each week for an hour. After that class we head to story time at the library, right next door.

It just so happened that today we had Halloween parties at both. Nothing like starting out with candy and cookies at 9am!!

Madeline helped me prepare our ghost snacks to match her homemade ghost costume for Little Learners. Didn’t they (and she) turn out cute?!

(Stay tuned to the blog tomorrow about Audrey’s costume!)

Here are the girls with their Little Learners teacher, Amy!

At the library, it was chaotic fun as there were a TON of kids there. Add costumes and sugar and it was a bit CRAZY!! Luckily Mark came with us for the fun this morning so I had two extra hands.

Lots of spooky fun wore these two out this morning, so I got a wonderful chunk of time to myself this afternoon during naptime!! Ahhh… the quiet!

Tomorrow will for sure be another day of Halloween fun!

Quiet After the Storm

Hurricane Sandy passed by and headed up the coast yesterday so we weren’t sure what the beach would be like today when we made our trip after church.

Although it was still VERY windy, the waves and water were very quiet and the beach was wiped completely clean of footprints and debris from the storm surge. That is always amazing to me… a fresh clean slate… not for long though, because my two little ones made it their job to put little foot prints EVERYWHERE!

I can’t believe I forgot my camera, but Mark’s “smart” phone did just fine.

Always fun to squeeze in for a family shot!!

This afternoon we caught a glimpse of some blue sky peeking through the clouds, so hopefully by tomorrow we might be seeing a bit of sunshine again! We are certainly glad the NC coast got spared this time around.

Dog Costumes

Well the girls have finally decided on their costumes for Halloween, but now they are trying to decide what the dogs should be.

George was having NONE of this dress up fun, but Eleanor played along for a bit.

Doesn’t she make a cute butterfly:

And although Eleanor looks like the saddest butterfly on the planet, Madeline was very proud!

Time with Gramma

Now that Gramma and Grampa Blevins are only about 1.5 hours away, they are able to come down more frequently.

Gramma came on Thursday night and babysat the girls for us. (It was our last foster parent class!! Woohoo!!) They had lots of fun together last night and then this morning, us girls headed to the park and out for lunch.

They love hanging out with Gramma!

What a fun Friday, thanks Gramma! Looking forward to seeing you (and Grampa) again soon.

Pumpkin Carving

The girls and I tackled some pumpkin carving out in the driveway today. Madeline has been nagging me for weeks now, and today I finally gave in.

Audrey attempted to help us for about 30 seconds and then went on her merry little way.

But for the first time ever, Madeline was in it for the long haul. She even scooped out the insides with her hand!! So proud of her!

Madeline drew the design for this big guy and I cut him out! Pretty cute I thought.

I accidentally flipped the settings button on my camera, so this picture turned out too dark… but all my pumpkins were so cute that I had to use it anyways!

They sure did look spooky glowing on the front porch tonight.

With our 80 degree weather I am pretty sure they aren’t going to make it until next week. Oh, well! It was the fun that counts right?!

Cape Fear Fair Preview Night

Mark has lots of agriculture connections and this time of year that means fun at the local fairs! Tonight was the preview party for the Cape Fear Fair in Wilmington and we were more than thrilled to be able to go with him for a fun family outing. (The fair officially opens tomorrow.)

We enjoyed a catered “fiesta” for dinner, all the chips, tacos, cake, and margaritas one could ever want; and then we hit up the rides!

Not all of the rides were finished with assembly and their final inspections, but we still had a good many to ride. The Ferris Wheel is always a big hit and tonight we were on it at sunset… super cool!

There weren’t many people riding the carousel so I swear the ride operator let us ride for about 10 minutes. I am not the best with spinning in circles and was about to throw myself off the side when luckily he finally turned it off. Neither of my girls appear to have the motion sick gene that I have.

The “Rockstar” was Madeline’s favorite ride… it’s like a sideways pirate ship… and she was barely tall enough to ride it. She had the best time screaming her head off, not because she was scared but because everyone else was screaming so she decided that is what you are supposed to do! I would have a gotten a better picture but I was holding a screaming Audrey the whole time because she wanted to go too! She just kept crying… “Audrey big girl too!” It’s tough being the little one!

The animal area was fun too in that they were still bringing in lots of the animals to their pens for the week. A high school age boy carried a turkey in upside down by his legs and Madeline nearly lost it because she thought he had killed it. Luckily she got to watch him put it in its cage and the turkey was happily hopping around when we left. Whew… crisis averted!

We didn’t stay out too late, but it was enough fun and excitement that both the girls fell asleep in the car on the way home! It definitely was a fun night at the fair.

Mountain Getaway

Talk about a blog hiatus!! I hope none of you were too worried about me. ;) I took the weekend off—but not to worry—lot of pictures to share from our mountain getaway… this will probably be a long one. :)

One of the things we miss most about Gastonia is the Turner Family. Wendy and I were pregnant with Aidan and Madeline at the same time and she quickly became my stay at home BFF! Certainly I would not have made it through the last 4 years without her.

It took us awhile to nail down a weekend, but we FINALLY planned a family weekend with them and we’ve been looking forward to it for quite some time!!

I am not sure which two have missed each other more:

 

On Friday we met up with them in Blowing Rock and hit the Blue Ridge Parkway for some exploring; a little hiking at Price Park Lake and then on to the Viaduct. The leaves must have been at peak because they were GORGEOUS!

It was a leisurely day, so of course there was time for taking family pictures, aren’t we all so cute?!

At the viaduct, the kids had the BEST time climbing all over the boulders on the trail. I am certain it was not the safest activity for the age of our kids, but they LOVED it, and everyone survived!

Wendy is the non-camper of our bunch so since she is 22 weeks pregnant, we decided to go with a “camping cabin” instead of tents. And by cabin, I really meant a hard sided tent. No heat or kitchen; just a queen bed and 2 sets of bunk beds inside 4 walls.

There are only a few rare people that could stand each other for that long in those close quarters but we rocked it and are much closer for having done it! Oh, the stories we have to tell! (What happens in the woods, stays in the woods!!)

Here the kids are hanging out with the guys on the night that it went down to a chilly 34 degrees.

Thank goodness for our tiny space heater so Wendy, Mark and the girls didn’t freeze. Aidan, David, and I tried our best to leave the door cracked a few times to let some hot air escape but all we would hear was Wendy and Mark yelling at us… “DOOR, DOOR!!”

Over the long weekend we enjoyed a visit to Linville Caverns, Linville Falls, and Alta Pass Apple Orchard.

We got a good laugh on the orchard hayride as somehow Mark and Wendy ended up sitting next to each other and David and I were together across from them. When the kids started switching sides and calling different people “Mom and Dad” we got some really interesting looks. Good times!

      

But most of our time was spent at the campground just relaxing and catching up… and it was great!

The playground at the campground was right across the dirt road from our cabin so the kids were busy all weekend and we could watch them from our chairs around the fire. (Except when the big kid bullies pushed my buttons one too many times and I had to go be Mama Bear!) But somehow I have ZERO pics of them on the playground, Wendy must have all those on her camera!

Dinnertime:

The first night we were there, Madeline and Aidan were in one of their typical make believe adventures, and this time they are the mom and dad and Audrey, who Aidan renamed “Megan,” was their baby. So for the rest of the weekend anytime she was being ugly, in a mood, or throwing a tantrum—we would just call her Megan. And yes, she answered to it!

Shockingly, her BFF for the weekend was David, Wendy’s husband. She has always been a little leery of him, but not this weekend… they were best buds!

And as for the boys, they were typical pyros and kept the fire (and the smoke) going all weekend. (After 4 showers, my hair still smells like a campfire!!) For the record… bag chairs are NOT flame resistant! OOPS!! No, Wendy, this is not a sign that you don’t have to go camping again! :)

These three really are the best of friends. I can’t wait to see how the newest little Turner guy fits in with these three hams, I can’t believe he will be here in February!

So I guess I have gone on long enough! We enjoyed EVERY single moment of the weekend although it went by SO fast! The Turner/Blevins Weekend Getaway 2012 is in the books. Wonder where our adventures will take us next year!?