HallowBirthdayWeen

When I was pregnant with Meili, I absolutely did not want her to be born on the Halloween. In the years since then, I have decided that it was actually a lot of fun, and don't mind it at all. However, this year I decided that we need to start doing things a little bit differently. It was just way too busy. I made her a birthday breakfast, then had to get her ready in her costume before school (which she was, of course, late to). Then I took Grant to story time at the library, dropped he and Cam off with a neighbor so I could help with the Halloween party in Meili's class. After school, we ate lunch, and had to get Grant down for a nap ASAP. We had less than an hour of downtime, before I had to get Grant up so Meili could go to gymnastics. Then after gymnastics we tried to have a spooky dinner of mummy hotdogs, bug juice, and black olives and cheddar cheese on skewers. Then trying to get three kids out the door in costumes, while trick or treaters are interrupting every couple minutes. We went trick or treating to a few houses, while, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking "We need to get back to our house so she can open her presents before bed."

 

Needless to say, it was a very fun, very exhausting day, and I bought everything to make her birthday cake, and didn't even end up making it because I didn't think we could squeeze one more ounce of sugar into our diets that day.

 Here is our cute Cam Man in his skeleton costume. He wore it for a total of about an hour and a half the day of, and during that time, he was either screaming or asleep. (The other drawback of our super hectic day is that Cam was totally off his schedule, and in the middle of trying to get everyone ready and make dinner before Josh got home from work, he pretty much just cried in his swing.)

 These pictures are from the day before when my parents came and gave Meili her presents.

 My parents kept asking if my kids like legos. Now we know, the answer is: Yes. They pretty much couldn't keep their hands off of it for the last two days. We now know what Grant needs for Christmas.

 

 And here is Meili in her Genie costume before school. She told me last year that she wanted to be a Genie named Shine that is on a tv show. I was so excited about it, and we went to the store to start looking at fabric. Right in the middle of our shopping trip, she changed her mind about what she wanted to be. This year, she told me a couple months ago that she wanted to be Shine, and that she wasn't going to change her mind. Her costumes went through a few modifications from my original vision, but it was still fun for me to make. However, I felt like after all the hours I put into it, the pictures don't do it justice.

 Grant said right from the beginning that he wanted to be a witch. We talked about being a Super Hero, or something from Cars or other shows he likes, but he just laughed. I think he believes that you have to be something scary for Halloween. So witch it is!

I tried to figure out a witch costume that wouldn't give him a complex later in life, and I think it turned out well. I did try to paint his face green and he wasn't having any of that!

 I wish so much that we had, but we never got a decent picture of him running around on his broom. He always had it backwards like this, and for some reason watching him, with his backwards broom, and cape flowing in the air-it was pretty much the cutest thing ever. But I really like this boy :)

 Again... I tried SO hard to get the perfect picture in their costumes...

 ...And this is what we ended up with. Oh well! I may like this even better!!!

 When the kids were sufficiently tired and frozen from trick or treating, we came back to open presents. I feel like every single person hit on the head with Meili this year. She got a box of cards, stamps, watercolors, and a notepad from Mary Elizabeth. I thought about getting her something similar because she is totally into writing notes and drawing pictures for people right now. When we were done opening presents, guess what Meili played with first? She wrote a thank you card to Grandma Anderson. Aaahhh......

 Grant and Cam gave her a Mermaid Barbie that she's been asking for for months.

 I gave her one of those extreme coloring books, because she and I have colored a few of them this year, and I love it.

 Josh gave her Perler Beads that she has now been obsessed with for the last week.

 See. Here she is writing her thank you card.

I. Love. Her.

And... this picture is a random add-in. I asked my sister for witch's stuff for Grant's costume, so of course, they both had to try everything on.