Halloween Day

Bradley had a parade at preschool so we went to watch him. He's so funny because he does this thing where he'll look really hard for you, but then as soon as he sees you he pretends like he doesn't know you're there and will purposefully avoid all eye contact. (He does the same thing when I come get him every day :) ) So I got this shot...

Then all other shots were like this :)

Then we went trick or treating in old town like we do every year. We usually get there right when it starts and it's a mad house, so I thought it would be really nice this year to avoid the rush in the beginning. It was really nice and quiet, but unfortunately I think a lot of people had run out of candy because not too many people were still out. That's ok though, we didn't need that much candy anyway :)

It was a beautiful and surprisingly warm day! Bradley even had to take off his shirt underneath and dinosaur head because he was burning up! That's not like the Halloweens I remember growing up - having to go out in the FREEZING cold having to wear huge coats over my BEAUTIFUL princess dresses! :)

Classic Gracie face!

Then at night (evening) we went trick or treating around our neighborhood. We added more houses this year and thought they could handle it, but it was pushing it a little. We had to skip the last couple on the way back because they were DONE.

BEAUTIFUL night!!

Suckers are all they ever want!

Even Sammie agrees!

New Members of the Family

My Mommy got kittens!!! Sadly we lost Keisha back in Feb due to kidney disease. Then Willow passed away at the end of July which left my Mom all by herself. She kept saying how she didn't ever remember a time when she didn't have a dog or cat. She mentioned one day how she would be up for getting sibling kitties so every day I would look on craigslist for some kittens for her. A friend of hers at work just started fostering some kittens so Mom agreed to go look at them. Tammy and I came along to 'help' :) and we found 2 adorable little kitties that we all loved. They were not ready to be adopted just yet so Mom decided she'd go to the cat rescue place that weekend and put a deposit down. Then when she was there she called me and said she thought she'd just 'look around' to see what they had there and she became very attached to two little sibling kitties, a brother and sister, that were there and ready to be taken. I stopped by and of course fell in love with them too and she got them the next day.

This is Patches.

And this is Casper.

They are adorable and keeping Mom very entertained and busy :)

To Grandmother's house we go...

It had been a couple of months since we saw Grandma and needed to get our Grandma fix in before she went back to Arizona for the winter. We had a really nice visit and it was so great to see her and spend time together, as always! Sammie even got to play with her cousin Jude who is just 1 month older than her :) And of course we had to get a card game in before we had to leave. We let Katie and Drew play and they ended up being Winner and Runner-Up, and out of the 6 of us I was dead-last, but I will blame my kids for distracting me :) I think that sounds like a good excuse :)

(Don't mind my daughter with her finger up her nose :( )

First Halloween - Trunk or Treat

It must have been months ago that I randomly asked the kids in the car what they wanted to be for Halloween and right away Bradley shouted out "A T-Rex Dinosaur!" and without any hesitation Gracie immediately followed with "A Piggie!" Then Bradley asked her if she wanted to be a Daddy Piggie or a Baby Piggie and the answer was a Baby Piggie. It's like they had been thinking about it forever and they were totally ready for my question and it really surprised me. I thought there would be some discussion, but no - their minds were made up and there was no talking them out of it. I kind of even thought they would change their minds or forget since it was months away, but they were dead-set on their decisions. Which was fine with me, I actually really liked the choices, I think they suit them well, but it made it a little more difficult on me when shopping. It's not like we could just go look around and I could pick what was cute (and cheap) like in years past. They knew what they wanted and I had to find them. We did go out to the Halloween stores and I couldn't find either one so I had to order them online, which I actually liked A LOT better! It was SO exciting waiting for them to come in the mail and miraculously (because I had ordered from 2 different websites on 2 different days) they came on the same day at the same time!!! So that was VERY exciting, and luckily they fit perfectly! I am SO in love with Gracie's piggie and I'm hoping to keep it in tact (not like the rest of her clothes that she seems to ruin :) ) so that Sammie can wear it in a couple years.
Sammie's costume was much easier seeing that she couldn't care less :) I had bought a penguin costume from a consignment store when Bradley was a baby but then found something else I liked better and never used it. It fit Sammie perfectly and she didn't even seem to mind the hood (which surprises me because she will not wear hats!).
This was my first Trunk or Treat experience at Bradley's preschool. It was ok, not my favorite trick or treating, but it was nice. The kids got a little trick or treating in and I got to take pictures of them :)

SCARY Dinosaur!!!

Having to mimic everything Bradley does - SCARY Baby Piggie!! :)

Suckers are always the favorite!

Sammie's 9 months!

She is growing too fast!!! I feel like she's bigger than both Bradley and Gracie were at this age, but she's still little on the charts (which I don't pay too much attention to because personally I think it's skewed since so many kids and babies are huge and overweight now - just my opinion) :) She got her first tooth at 8 1/2 months, then a week later started crawling. She was so funny because the first day she'd cry the whole time she would crawl, like she was frustrated that it wasn't going like imagined, or confused about what was happening - I don't know :)
For some reason all the sudden she is a VERY picky eater. She reminds me of the door knocker on the movie Labyrinth - anyone know what I'm talking about? When she takes the ring out of his mouth so he can tell her which door to choose, then he won't let her put it back in and is SO tight-lipped she can't get it in. That's exactly how I feel when I'm trying to feed Sammie sometimes! On the movie she solved the problem by plugging his nose so he'd have to open his mouth to breathe and then stuck it in, maybe I'll try that next time - JUST KIDDING! :)
She started pulling herself up to kneeling against stuff pretty much the same day she started crawling, which has resulted in many bumped heads as she tries to get balance.
She has this adorable face where she sucks in her bottom lip, my doctor says that she has perfected the 'old man smile' :) She seems to be always grinning and people comment on how happy she is wherever we go.

 

Pumpkin Carving

Getting ready - looks like a scene from Dexter to me :)

Gracie once again decided to scoop out the seeds ONE AT A TIME. So it took quite a while but she was determined and was so proud of herself every time she would get ONE :)

Bradley's an old pro now :)

 

Sammie was just crawling around our feet so we decided to give her her pumpkin and she just wanted to eat it :)

Bradley was SO good and drew his face on his pumpkin all by himself. It ended up having layer after layer of teeth and was quite a chore to carve.

I opted for the purple - almost unnoticeable - highlighter for Gracie's "face". She had fun coloring. Later she just told Kevin what shapes she wanted for the eyes, nose, and mouth.

We were talking about how big Kevin's pumpkin was and how Sammie could fit in it, so we thought we'd give it a try. She was somewhat unsure for about 2 seconds, then had a blast hitting it with her hands and didn't want to get out.