A Very Frozen Halloween

Halloween this year was crazy.

I managed to be completely worn out before the trick-or-treating even started.

After breakfast, the girls and I finally got around to carving our pumpkin.

Boy that’s a lot of work!

I think Andy usually spearheads the process, but he was working and time was of the essence, so I lead the charge.

Pumpkins are m.e.s.s.y. and have very thick skin.

Despite the fact that I sharpened my knife right before starting to carve the darn thing, an epic battle ensued.

But I was determined!

Grace chose a classic jack-o-lantern face when we browsed Google for ideas, then we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

Amazingly she even agreed to help pull seeds and goop out of it!  Avery assisted by holding the seed bowl :)

For the most part, I was really impressed with their teamwork.

We ended up with a pretty nice jack-o-lantern and a batch of clean seeds ready to be roasted!

Somewhere between the end of the carving and the end of my clean up, drama ensued.  Both girls started fighting and tormenting each other.

Ugh.

I’m so over all of the bickering.  Why can’t everyone just get along??

Sure they look happy, but if you look real close you can see the remnants of Grace’s tears.  Plus, both of their blankies were seriously overdue for a good washing, so they were in the dryer and unavailable to comfort the girls in the drama aftermath.  The blankies shown are “backup” blankies.

A far cry from the real deal!

#toddlerproblems

After the Great Pumpkin Carving of 2014, it was time for lunch.  I made lunch for the girls and started on a batch of green juice.  I fell out of the juice habit over the summer and felt justified because of all the fresh produce we were eating.  Lately we all keep battling annoying coughs and colds, so I’m going to juice all week long!

The girls gulped it down which was awesome, but the cleanup was less than awesome.

Throw in a bajillion loads of laundry and more cleanup and making a double batch of chili for the evening festivities and wrangling two cranky little girls into their makeup and costumes, and I was one tired mama!

In the end, they both looked adorable and were very excited about their costumes though…

 

The weather was atrocious.  As in seriously cold and rainy.  Blustering winds.  Sleet.  It was dark and dreary and just begged me to stay inside and keep warm!

It also didn’t make for very good picture taking, so I was only able to snap a few lame shots near front door.  I was grasping for natural light but had to use the flash after all.

A wise man told me I should, “Let it go!”

And that’s great advice :)

Of course there were some silly faces too :)

We made a quick stop at my old office to visit my sister and show off our costumes before heading to our friends’ house for dinner and trick-or-treating.

The girls had a ball playing with their friends and gobbling up cornbread muffins like it was their j.o.b.

Trick-or-treating was almost funny.  It was freezing and windy and rainy and at one point Grace shouted, “That’s it!  I’m done!  I don’t want anymore candy, I just want to go inside and get warm!”

Haha!

Avery was such a trooper!  It was her first trick-or-treating experience and I melted every time she said “Trick-a-tweet!”

Even better than that was when Andy reminded her to say thank you for each candy and every single time she would say, “Thanks Mom!”

What a little ham!

We got back to our friends’ house, changed the girls out of their wet costumes into cozy jammies and warmed up by the fire while sampling the treats we collected.

All in all it was crazy and cold, but an evening of happy memories for sure :)

Pics from 2010-2012 can be seen in this post.

Instagram pic from 2013 here.