halloween festivities

It has taken me for ever to get my photos edited (and I didn't even take all that many!), and then I noticed that I missed some stuff from earlier in the month that I wanted to blog about (no surprise there), but I wanted to get Elsie's first Halloween documented, (and of course Ry's Halloween too, but you know...) so without further adieu...

We kicked off our Halloween fun with the girls and I heading to a party at my friend Tarah's house.  As we pulled up we could see a bounce house in the front yard and Ry honestly could not get out of the car fast enough.  She was jumping out and down and already out of breath before I ever got Elsie out of the car.  This stage with Ryann, where she really understands what is going on, can be tough, but the fact that she can also get incredibly excited for stuff is so fun too.  When we got inside we found a photo booth, face painting and a spooky maze, and of course lots of good food.  I was exhausted trying to handle both girls on my own, but Tarah throws a great party and Ryann had a blast.  I wish I had video of her waiting in line to get her face painted.  It was priceless.

photo courtesy of Tarah, I was a gardener, obviously.

I guess I should probably touch on the costumes too.  I had these grand plans of having the most adorable sibling costumes.  I had a bunch of ideas, and finally narrowed it down to caterpillar and butterfly (similar to this).  At some point in the process we had changed Ryann to being a bumble bee, or a 'queen bee' rather, because her favorite song is Royals by Lorde (I know I know...).  I thought that was going to be so cute, a bee costume with a little crown?  Adorable!  And if she was going to be a bumble bee, I thought it fitting for Elsie to be a flower.

And then we were talking about Halloween one day and Ryann very firmly decided she was going to be a butterfly.  No amount of coaxing or bribing could change her mind.  Fine, whatever, we could do butterfly.  But then I started thinking about a caterpillar costume for Elsie, and I couldn't come up with anything that I thought was cute, that she could actually be mobile in.  And nothing is worse than a cranky baby (actually there are worse things but you get my point), so I decided to keep her costume simple, keep her a flower and call it a day.  Of course I procrastinated putting together both of their costumes (as in made the tutus the day of the party procrastinated...) so it didn't come out as I had envisioned, but they both looked cute and Ryann loved her costume so that is what counts.

For Ryann's costume, I ended up searching 'butterfly wings' on amazon, and she picked out these.  Again, not my first choice, but it wasn't my costume.  I ordered a leotard and tights from here, because they had 51 color choices and I could get it in time (I ordered orchid pink).  For her tutu, I had originally planed on just making a regular solid color, or maybe two color tied tutu.  But then I saw this image on pinterest, and well, went to work doing my best to make it.  I promise I'll do my best to get around to posting about how I actually made it, but if I could do it again I'd definitely make some changes, and maybe figure out how to sew it (I still did a tied tutu).  I wish I would have made it a touch shorter, and been a little more particular about my layer lengths.  Oh well.  For her shoes we were lucky enough that Target had some high tops that matched almost perfectly.  Oh and the mask was in the Halloween crafts at Target as well.

Alright, moving on, that weekend we carved pumpkins at my parents house.  I had drawn a lovely girly pumpkin face on one, the J on the other, and then left them for Chris to carve while I went and nursed Elsie.  When I came back my sweet girly pumpkin had turned into a scary face.  Rude Christopher, rude.  He claims Ryann asked for it though so whatever.

On Monday the girls and I headed over to Sarah's house for a little Halloween playdate.  Sarah put together a cute little lunch, had a craft ready to go, and we took the opportunity to put the kids in their costumes and take a picture of course.  The group shot, well, it was nap time and Brennan opted not to be in it, but hey.  We tried!  Thanks for having us Sarah!

On the 31st, Ryann had a little fall party at preschool.  Elsie and I attended, but chasing E around the room didn't leave much opportunity for pictures.  Oh well, it was fun to see Ryann interacting with the kids and doing her thing.  She loves school.  That afternoon I attempted to get a picture of the girls in their festive attire.  Yeah, that went well too...

At some point I'm pretty sure Elsie ingested mud and leaves.  Whoops.  When Chris got home from work we ate a quick dinner and then dressed the girls to go trick or treating.  I was worried that Elsie wouldn't last since she is usually in bed between 6:30-7, but we all actually had a good time.  We only went door to door for maybe 45 minutes?  But Ryann had fun, and Elsie really enjoyed being outside and looking around.  There were a few houses that Ryann wouldn't go up to because their decorations were too spooky :o), but she got just enough candy, and was surprisingly ok with only getting to pick one treat from her bucket to eat when she got home.  I truly expected more of a fight about that, but she has been great with it in general.

When we got home I put Elsie to bed while Chris and Ryann passed out candy for a little while.  Ryann took her job VERY seriously, making sure to tell everyone they could pick TWO CANDIES!  At one point she had the door open, yelling at kids on the sidewalk, trying to get them to come to our door to trick or treat.  Quite the sales girl, maybe she really does take after her Auntie :o).

Hope everyone else had a great Halloween too!