Trick or Treat

What a go, go, go type of day!  The morning was spent cleaning the house and running errands so that tonight could be all about fun and games.

The fun was supposed to start with making a Jack-o-Lantern pizza for super.  Around noon as I was going around gathering my supplies for lunch I realized I was out of yeast.  So on to plan B which was a Frito pie type meal.  Lily got home later in the afternoon and rushed her to get her homework started while I started the frito pie.  I had everything timed out in my head, making it so that we would be done eating my 5:00 so I would have plenty of time to get the girls dressed in their costumes.  Then I realized that I had misread the recipe I was making.  It was going to take 1 hour 30 minutes to make, NOT the 30 minutes I thought it was going to make.   I was going crazy inside but then I remembered that Russ started his outage hours today and that he would be coming home earlier than normal. He soon arrived and took Miss Fussy Pants {aka Charlotte} and kept her busy while I cooked dinner and started doing the girls hair and makeup in between stirring dinner.  In the end we didn't finish eating until after 5:30 but all worked out.  I had forgotten that it isn't crucial to get out early here in Texas like it is in Utah and Idaho.

We finished getting the girls dressed, with me debating whether I should sew Lily into her costume.  I finally just let it go and figured it was going to be dark out and no one would notice.  Russ took all three girls out to go around our culdesac while I sat outside passing out candy. 

 

At the end of that he brought Charlotte home to me so she wouldn't get cold and cranky while they were out.  For awhile we continued to stay outside while Charlotte entertained herself chewing on some of the unwrapped candy she had gotten.  We went inside when we her bald head started getting swarmed by mosquitos.

While I handed out candy and put Charlotte to bed, Russ and the girls continued to wend their way through the neighborhood.  I kind of wish I could have been there since I've never been trick or treating like that.

7:30 rolled around and Russ brought the troops on home.  They checked out their haul, which was HUGE, then went off to bed.  We continued to get trick or treaters in a steady stream until 9:00!  What a fun night we had!

Milk Jug Ghost Luminaries

Last year I saw the coolest idea for a decoration on the Family Fun website.  I never got around to doing it but I made sure to bookmark.  Early this year as I was cleaning out my bookmarks to transfer them to Pinterest I came across this decoration idea again.  I bookmarked it my mind and when September hit I started saving milk jugs.  We quickly accumulated enough and I set Russ to work with his wonderful doodling skills.  Lily helped me fill in all the doodles.  This was REALLY exciting for her since we let her use a permanet marker {I know, we are crazy!}  One string of lights later and we had made...

Ghost luminaries!  The girls loved running outside at night to check and see if they had turned on.  We enjoyed them and apparently so did some of the Trick or Treaters.  We caught a few parents taken photos of them!  These guys will definitely be making a reappearance in the years to come.

Halloween Sugar Cookies: part 1

 During church today I was mentally making a list of all the Halloween things that I wanted to do with the girls.  As i was creating this list I realized that tomorrow would be the last Monday before Halloween.  Eeeps!  That means we had to make sugar cookies TODAY so that we could frost them tomorrow.  Lucky for me I had all the ingredients we needed to make said cookies.

The girls and I mixed up the dough after lunch and stuck it in the fridge to chill.  The girls didn't understand why I had to put it in the fridge.  We typically don't make cookies that  need to do this.  I convinced them that as long as they kept the house clean, were nice to each other, and ate all their dinner, we would cut out the cookies later.  The girls patiently waited, and with a few reminders were able to wait until later.  We had a lot of fun cutting out the shapes.  Daddy helped Charlotte do one spider so we could say she helped.  We're funny that way.  Russ was dubbed the photographer since I was covered in flour. 

Taking turns at cutting out cookies.

Hmmm...can I put this in my mouth?

Carefully trying not to tear the fragile cookies.

 The cookies are all baked and cooling over night, just waiting for us to decorate them for FHE tomorrow!

Where do baby's come from according to Lily

I got a pretty good chuckle in the car on the way home from church today.  

Lily:  We should have given Sister M. our carseat for her baby.

Me: She already had one she didn't need one.

Lily: Well, maybe if she had two babies and after she squirted them out we could have given ours to her.

Me:  What?!  Did you just say squirted?

Lily:  Ummmm....yeah?

Me{laughing}:  Oh Lily you are so funny!  Baby's don't get squirted out!

Lily{cheerfully}: Okay mommy!  I am silly huh?!

I seriously couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard!

Flu shots take revenge!

Almost immediately after I hit the "publish" button for my last entry, Allie came up and complained her tummy hurt.  Hmmm...maybe she was hungry.  After all she hadn't ate a big breakfast or had snack.  So we went and got some lunch and I let her lay down on the couch to eat it and watch some TV.  She never touched the food.  I sent her to bed for her nap hoping that she would wake up better.  She didn't....

By 5:00 when she woke she said she felt worse.  I asked if she wanted to eat dinner and she said no.  I wasn't feeling so hot either so I made the executive decision that daddy and Lily were getting grilled cheese.  Turns out daddy wasn't hungry, but Allie decided she was hungry.  However, when food was presented to her, she just stared at it.  

By now I was slightly worried since she hadn't drank or ate anything for most of the day.  Since we were going out to get daddy his book from the library we decided we would stop and get her a Sprite.  Allie loves soda and most the time we have to hide it from her if we have some in the house.  She drank it willing and I felt better that at least she wouldn't get dehydrated.

Lily and Allie happily went off to bed soon after we got home, but Charlotte struggled to calm down.  Very unlike her.  I chalked it up to her being overly tired since she hadn't slept well the whole day.  Later Russ and I had barely been asleep when Charlotte started screaming.  I actually didn't hear her until Russ was already in her room picking her up.  Her brought her to me and said the dreaded words, "She has a fever"

We spent the next two hours trading off trying to get her to sleep.  However, every time we laid her down in her crib she would wake up and start fussing/screaming two minutes later.  In hind sight we were both to tired to realize that we were laying her down on her leg that she got her shot in.  It was probably sore and therefore she fussed over it.  {Big duh moment when I thought of that today!}  Finally at about 1:30 I nursed her while in bed and she fell asleep next to me.

Poor Russ only ended up getting about four hours sleep because of the whole ordeal.  Thankfully it wasn't his turn to drive carpool.  Charlotte wasn't done with me though.  She decided that 5:30 was a GREAT time to wake up.  She has been fussy on and off all day, and hasn't slept well for her naps.  I keep reminding myself that this brief period of misery will pay off when she DOESN'T come down with the flu.  Allie woke up very chipper this morning with no belly ache. YAY!

9 month checkup: Charlotte

I just got home from Charlotte's checkup.  It was a super fast one which are the best!  

Some stats on Charlotte:

Height: 28.5 in {90%)

Weight: 17.6 lbs {25}

Head: 44.5

It was nice that this appointment was pretty much in and out because Charlotte decided to get up when daddy left this morning {5:30} for work.  She refused to go back to sleep before I took Lily to school and there just wasn't enough time afterwards for her to take a nap.  She was SUPER tired!  She took offense at everything the nurse and doctors did.  She cried when they weighed her, she cried when she laid down on the paper, she cried when the doctor listened to her heart, etc.  After it was all through the doctor said she is healthy and doing fine even though her weight has dropped...again.

The doctor and I did discuss how she was doing with her medicine.  He determined since she is doing better that he after six more weeks of it we will wean her off of it.  As long as she is doing okay that is.  I'm crossing my fingers that this will work out because I really hate seeing her on medicine every day. 

We ended the appointment with a flu shot.  Allie got hers first and since I had to sit Charlotte down to help with Allie she started crying.  She didn't stop until all the shots were done and I had her safely in my arms again.  Apparently all this crying tuckered her out.  She promptly fell asleep in the car seat before I even finished buckling her up!

We now just need to go get her anemia test done.  All my girls have had anemia as children so I won't be at all surprised if she does too.  Hopefully that won't require another medicine and we can just fix it with diet like the other girls.