Halloween 2011

So there are still 2-3 older posts that I should do first, but Halloween is always such fun, that I thought I'd do this one first and play catch up later. A few shots from a very long week. Parts of this are way too long, I am too tired to edit, so feel free to just look at pictures.

Our entry table. I glittered about 7 more pumpkins for decor around the house. Poor Clayton, he often goes to school all sparkly.

On October 26th, the Allee family hosted a ward trunk or treat. Clayton had class but I still wanted to go. Sadly I was still working on Eleanor's costume right up until the time it started. I'm glad I didn't volunteer to do a trunk this year. We were late, but got there in time for Eleanor to get about three pieces of candy and to see most of the folk's costumes. Getting a picture of her costume before hand proved challenging. She was so tickled to be out at night and to see her friends.Especially her sweet friend Kinsley. Note the hand holding. It's like they're being coached on extra ways to be adorable.I wish I had gotten a picture with Kinsley's coat off (Note- responsible parenting. Notice who is chillin' in just her costume?), but Kinsley was Lil' Orphan Annie, complete with dyed red hair and special locket. I helped her mom make the dress. She was so perfect with her naturally curly hair. So darling! I love how these girls get along. We have to make sure not to sit near each other at church otherwise it's a little love-fest reunion for the two girls. It can get hilariously distracting. I'm glad I got a shot of the three of us. I was going to be Darth Vader, and Winston was to be R2D2, but I hadn't gotten that far with the costumes at that point. Since Clayton couldn't come, eh.I took a bunch of shots of her on the street with her bucket anyways, as she was too dang cute. I ended up sewing down most of her "wires" as she kept getting them caught on things. The next day was my birthday. Funny story*: Clayton and I were both still awake on midnight the "morning" of my birthday so he said I could open my presents. I had already gotten a new camera for my present, so I wasn't expecting anything else. I was still dressed from the day so I said for him to wait just a minute, I wanted to get comfortable. I hollered out, "I want soft pants! Make it so!" (Since on your birthday you should act like a dictator if at all possible.) Clayton started acting super weird and suddenly wanted me to open my present a little too much. I got nervous that it was going to be a bag of fake spiders or something awful, when lo and behold- it was new soft pants! Some awesome MSU Law ones. Yaaaaaay! My one demand met! My husband is a freaking mind reader! Apparently making demands totally works. I need to try that more often.
* I realize that wasn't really funny, but more of a "you had to be there" type of thing. Maybe amusing at best. Sorry for the oversell. Back to Halloween.

Halloween playgroup. Wow. That's about all I can say. Amy Nielson, Britani Frampton, Sarah Stradley, Aubrey Boardman and a few others made it the best playgroup ever. It was better than most ward carnivals. There were games and treats and crafts and everything had the most amazing Halloween details. There was even yummy potato soup with home made rolls for the moms, which saved me from eating fast food on my birthday, and a slew of kid-friendly Halloweenish foods for the kids. I am so glad I set our alarms so we could wake up in time to attend. It's always so fun to see Eleanor with all of her little nursery friends too. Here is a group picture minus about 13 running children.
From L-R, Back Row: Valerie Abenroth, Emily Becker, Britani Frampton, Aubrey Boardman, Amy Nielson, Nora and Jody Evans, Abby and Elisa Hutchison, Daxton and Tiffany Alldredge.
Front Row: Dean Abenroth (escaping), Laurie and Kinsley Johnson, Marisa Christensen, Eleanor and Marianne Firth, Delicia Coupe, Sarah Stradley holding Bennet Johnson, Zach Johnson (Spiderman #1 behind) Josh Hutchison (Spidey #2), Abigail and Jessica Anderson, Angela and Grant Johnson and Thomas Nielson. The little purple fairy behind Jessica was a visitor whose name I don't remember.

And just the kids.
Most of the kids, Back row, fromL-R: Carter and Thomas Nielson, Eleanor Firth, Nora Evans, Jacqueline Stradley, Ellie Becker, Reagan Coupe, Samantha?... Front row, Lily Coupe, Kinsley Johnson, Robbie Evans, Zach and Grant Johnson, Abby Hutchison

Eleanor posing with the pumpkin she decorated. Each child got to decorate it using pieces from a binder full of stick-on options. Which is lucky as we never got around to carving our pumpkins at home. I'm telling you, the traditions I imagine for our family are so special. It's a shame I probably wont have it together enough to actually do them until our kids are in college.

The rest of my birthday was just so-so. Clayton had to study and had class at night, so we planned to celebrate on another night. I did a return at Target and then at Walmart. At Walmart I had the bad idea to try on some pants. You seriously can't know how random that is. The Walmart in Okemos is so ghetto, I hate it. It's not even a super Walmart so I rarely bother shopping there. Anyhow, for whatever reason, probably misguided birthday indulgence, I decide to try on some pants. (I know! Right? Pants, for me, at Walmart. Target? Sure! 90% of my clothes are from Target, but Walmart?) I have both kids in the cart and I am trying to maneuver it into a large dressing room when the cart hits the handle of the dressing room door and stops fast, toppling little Eleanor right over the front. She landed smack on her head on the hard, horrible floor. It was so sick to see. It's one of those things that you replay in your head and can't believe it didn't break her... ugh. Can't even type it. She was mega-upset, understandably, but the sweet pea calmed down after about 4 minutes. I had a hoard of employees there asking me to fill out forms and what-not. She was fine but I was rattled. Luckily no concussion, not even a bump or lasting bruise on her head. She must have quite the armada of angels looking out for her, thankfully.

I decided to call it a day after that. There was another trick or treat event, but she's only 2 and doesn't know what she's missing yet. We stayed home and caught up on Sprout and Project Runway, occasionally stopping to check our ABCs, colors and numbers. No memory loss, hooray! After picking up Clayton from school, we stopped by Sam's Club so I could get my obligatory cupcakes. Then we got awesome Korean takeout. Goo-ood.

Halloween night. I spent most of the day doing who knows what, thinking I would whip up Winston's costume a few hours before go-time. I had bought the fabric over a month before, but waited til the afternoon of Halloween to discover that it would not sew on my machine for anything. The vinyl binds up like crazy. Getting desperate for time, I resorted to my trusty glue gun. The hot glue worked ok, but once it was dry it was easy to peel apart. Combine that with not being able to find the long sleeved onsie to go underneath, nor his blue hat and he ended up with a pretty lame costume. Sorry, Winston. We'll try harder next time. Yes you love your second child as much as the first, but boy do they get hosed out of a lot of special things. He ended up wearing a knitted romper underneath, so at least he'd be nice and toasty when we finally made it outside. But it sort of made it look like R2D2 was baking bread out of his casing.

The kids on the couch. I like that at least together, their costumes made sense.

Cuties.

"Awww, my mom made my costume and it shows."

Out ready to hit the streets!

She really was adorably excited about it all. He fell asleep.

Outside we ran into our neighbors. Eliza and Eleanor had a sweet reunion.

Knocking on doors. If they took too long then she tried the handles. Whoops.

It was just so adorable! I know I've said that about twenty times already, but she just got so into it. People gave her a ton of candy, partially because we get approximately 2 trick or treaters on our block, but also because she was so sweet.

It was just cold enough to make one loop down the street and back. Also, Clayton had class again so there was no need to be too zealous. She doesn't quite grasp that the bucket of candy is all hers. Especially since mom keeps eating all the Whoppers and Twix from it. I did let her eat a full size 3 Musketeers when we got home. She thought that was pretty cool.

After a decent nap he woke up, confused as to why he was still wearing this plastic tube.

Sorry this was so long and chatty. Maybe if I blogged more than once a month I wouldn't feel the need to tell you about every thing that has ever happened.
Still to come, our trip to the Upper Peninsula and Jenni's trip. Those were both September. Egads.