Halloween 2014

November 7, 2014 by
I had pretty low expectations for Halloween this year.  After all, the girls were only slightly more aware of Halloween than they were last year, they weren’t used to staying up past their bedtime of 7 p.m. and the likelihood of them keeping on their Madeline hats was approximately zero. 
We told our friends in the neighborhood to expect us trick-or-treating early so that we could make it home before bedtime and only planned to hit a few houses before turning in. 
In the end, my expectations were definitely exceeded! 
Halloween afternoon, I took the girls to do a trick-or-treating trial run at their beloved Pretend City.
I was prepared with my camera to snap shots of the girls running around. What I was NOT prepared for was the paparazzi that gathered to take pictures of S and A in their Madeline costumes. Just so it’s recorded for posterity, I’m pretty sure we set a new record for the number of random people taking pictures of the girls (including the time I took them to Costco wearing their Fourth of July outfits with matching flip flops). 
By now, I’m pretty used to people commenting and/or asking to take pictures of the girls, just because they are twins. This was a whole new level of crazy, though. I wish I had snapped a picture of the people taking pictures of the girls– quite amusing.
It was not an infrequent occurrence to hear: “Look! Madeline!” 
                                                                       “Oh my gosh, another Madeline!” 
And the dawning realization: “TWIN MADELINES! CAN I TAKE THEIR PICTURE?” 
S and A made it on the Pretend City Halloween invites for next year, or so an employee who took their picture told me. Great work, Grandma– the costumes were a hit. So much a hit, that on Monday, Jake received calls at work from random attorney friends who had seen the girls’ picture on Facebook and loved the outfits.
I realize all my mommy gushing sounds akin to the eye-roll inducing comments from moms like those on Toddlers and Tiaras. I’m not going to lie though– it all made this momma a wee bit proud!
Posing for pictures from the paparazzi. Mommy fail for not having an extra pair of tights on hand. 
                    
Amongst all the commotion over the girls’ costumes, we managed to try our luck at a little trick-or-treating. I wasn’t sure how my shy little girls would react to going up to strangers dressed as witches and ghouls and asking for treats, but man, did they catch on quickly.
             
Samantha stayed next to me most of the time and would only go up to the costumed treat-givers if I was standing two feet behind her. Amelia, on the other hand, banished her stranger danger ways and became totally fearless. There were a few times I turned around and panicked, thinking I had lost her,  and then finally spotted her across the museum, tagging along with other trick-or-treaters. 
Go up to those crazies in weird costumes and hold out my pumpkin bucket for a prize, you say? Done and done. 
                      
COOLEST DAY EVER. 
Counting their booty. Good thing actual candy wasn’t handed out. 
Samantha’s favorite treasure, by far, was the toothbrush she received. No complaints here.
                       
I’m so happy, I think I’ll do a jig!
    
Five minutes later and still dancing. 
                    
After trick-or-treating, the girls’ next favorite activity was taking turns pulling each other around in a wagon. 
How Samantha convinced Amelia to pull her around 80% of the time, I don’t know. 
                       
After Amelia went on strike, Samantha begrudgingly let her have a turn. 
After Pretend City and devouring some homemade pizza, it was time to hit the streets.  Poor Bandit– he’s been “Skeledog” three years in a row because I’ve been too lazy to get him a new costume I have twins. 
                
“What’s Samantha eating?” yelled our neighbor, Timothy, from behind the camera. Oh, just a styrofoam skeleton. Picture break while I scream and extract the styrofoam pieces out of Samantha’s mouth.

I vote that Jake wear that red scarf always.

 Can we talk about the fact that the girls kept their Madeline hats on almost the entire night? A Halloween miracle!
And then we were off. Let the trick-or-treating begin!
Amelia ready to go after donning her light stick for tracking purposes. 
Our neighbors are some of the nicest people out there and always show so much love for our girls. A few knew what our plans were for their costumes and were very excited to see them. A week later, I am still getting feedback. An actual comment yesterday:  “I can’t look at the girls now without remembering those two little Madelines walking up to my door by themselves!” 

Hey Parker and Phi!

Just like earlier that day, Amelia was completely fearless. Hold hands with mama down the sidewalk? No way. She wanted nothing to do with me.

Amelia ran up the steps to neighbors’ houses, knocked on the doors herself and chose her treat carefully before nonchalantly turning around to go to the next house. She liked to follow groups of kids down the sidewalk to the houses, often trying to lose Samantha, Jake and me in the shuffle. It was like she did this everyday. Who is this little girl and what has she done with Amelia?

A few neighbors had some pretty creepy decorations out. One guy had a “haunted house” in his garage, complete with animatronic vampires emerging from coffins, remote control ghosts swinging on a zipline connected to a neighbor’s house, and a zombie being electrocuted in an electric chair. While most of the two, three, four and five-year-olds wouldn’t go within a hundred feet of the place, Amelia couldn’t get enough of it.

A zombie being electrocuted? AWESOME!

I was too creeped out to go inside, but Amelia had no problem going right up to the scary ghouls to collect her candy. Samantha didn’t seem scared, either, but wasn’t overly enthusiastic. She trick-or-treated at a few doors, but was content to hang back with mom and dad much of the time too.

Your’e cute, Mr. Skelly. 

A few of our neighbors were expecting us and saved us a few special treats for the girls– granola bars, fruit snacks, fruit pouches and the like. We even received some 12-packs of juice boxes from a few awesome neighbors.

We met up with Scooby (Logan) along the road and exchanged the deets on which houses had the best treats. Logan’s family and other neighbors were outside with a “coffin” cooler full of cold juice boxes for us and some kid-friendly treats set up on tables. They even projected an episode of Scooby Doo onto their garage door for everyone to watch. So cute!

We all loved Baby Harper’s costume– a San Diego Zoo zookeeper. 

Enjoy looking at your treats, girls! In the morning, the Halloween Fairy comes to take them and distribute them to all the little girls and boys who didn’t get any candy on Halloween…after mommy and daddy take their pickings, of course.

The Madelines said good night to Pooh Bear, Elsa, Anna, Scooby, and the rest of their friends before heading off to bed. They conked out in record time and Jake and I spent the rest of the evening on our lawn chairs in the front with the rest of our block, until the rain chased us inside. The one night it decided to rain…

 How I wish I could freeze time. I would freeze these two. This moment.

Halloween this year was so, so fun. Fun isn’t even the right word. I thought my heart would burst with pride as I watched my two little shy birds climb the stairs and knock on doors, completely independent of mom and dad. Amelia’s determination to do everything herself, right down to wriggling her little hand away from mine so she could walk by herself, was a milestone I won’t forget.

Halloween, and all the activities that went along with October,  were taken to the next level this year and we had such a memorable month. Now that the girls are getting old enough to participate, I’m looking forward to the holidays like never before. 
And did I mention the girls stayed out until 7:45 p.m.? Winning. 
Lots of love, 
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In an old house in Paris

November 6, 2014 by
In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines…
                         
Lived two little girls in two straight lines.
               
In two straight lines, they broke their bread
And brushed their teeth
And went to bed.
They smiled at the good
And frowned at the bad.
And sometimes they were very sad.
They left the house at half past nine
In two straight lines
In rain
Or shine.
The smallest ones were Madelines.
They were not afraid of mice.
They loved winter, snow and ice.
To the tiger in the zoo, the Madelines just said, “Pooh-pooh.”
And nobody knew so well how to frighten Miss Clavel.
“Good night, little girls! Thank the Lord you are well! And now go to sleep!” said Miss Clavel.
And she turned out the light and closed the door.
That’s all there is.
There isn’t any more.

 

 Lots of love,
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2nd Annual Halloween Playdate

November 5, 2014 by
After the disaster that was last year’s Halloween play date with Samantha, Amelia, and Maliyah, Jodi and I decided to try again this year, opting to get the girls together the day before Halloween for some play time. 
Last Halloween, for reasons unbeknownst to us, all three girls were miserable in their costumes, cranky for pictures, and the twins may or may not have been screaming 97% of the time. I can’t remember exactly what we did because I’ve likely blocked it out of my memory. It was truly SCARY. 
This year, we invited Maliyah, plus the new addition, Baby Allie, over for a Halloween re-do. I’m happy to report there was minimal crying this time.
Earlier that morning, Samantha and Amelia enjoyed helping me put together some Halloween treats for the playdate: clementine/celery pumpkins, banana ghosts, rice krispie treat pumpkins, cheese stick brooms, mummified juice boxes, Halloween Go Go Squeezes, mummified hot dogs, carrot fingers, and cupcakes for decorating. Let’s be real– do a couple of 19 month olds really care about juice boxes with googly eyes on them? No. Was it worth it to me anyway? Yes!
Amelia was the mastermind behind the food selection, and enjoyed browsing ideas on Pinterest, while Samantha was the executor-of-ideas-in-chief. They made a great team.
As soon as Maliyah and Allie arrived, we hurried to get a picture of them in costume before they destroyed their outfits. Maliyah, especially, was a trooper in her witch outfit. 
No smiles, but 66.6% of the girls are looking at the camera. Success!
Samantha and Amelia thought little “Allie Cat” was the cutest thing ever and kept bringing her toys. 

 After rolling their eyes for a few pictures, the girls changed back into their regular outfits. The little ghouls went outside to explore the sensory bins we set up with orange water beads and some creepy crawly toys. 

 Amelia concentrated hard on scooping and pouring the water beads. Eventually, half of them ended up in her mouth, so we had to put the bins away for a while.

Once Maliyah found a ball, she was totally uninterested in the rest of the activities. Easy to please!

There was no way I was going to attempt pumpkin carving with the girls this year, so foam sticker decorating it was.
 

Getting a little worn out with all this decorating…time for some food.

Yum!
Next up: cupcake decorating. For never having wielded a knife, S and A did pretty well. 

The twins decorating some non-dairy pumpkin cupcakes I made them while the rest of us decorated the yummy sugar cookies Jodi brought.

 Samantha caught on quickly.

I was shocked when the girls didn’t try and dump all the sprinkles down their throats.

Licking the wrapper clean.

Time for a game of “Ghost Toss.” Or just tearing up the tissue paper. Either way.

I knew Maliyah would be excited for our Ghost Bowling game since she loves balls.

Our “bowling” game turned into “see who can knock down the tower of toilet paper before mommy can set it up.” But at least we had fun!

Little Allie had a blast watching the big girls play. 

While Maliyah played with her ball (that girl LOVES balls!), Samantha and Amelia explored the pumpkin-pie scented play dough we made. It smelled a little too yummy not to sneak a few tastes…

Spit it out, Samantha!

Not bad for a toddler play hour. At the end of our date, each of the girls received a little treat bucket with some non-candy Halloween trinkets. S and A were particularly excited about the bath crayons and hand stamps– they are obsessed with stamps at the moment. Fun was had by all!
Jodi and I both agreed this year’s playdate turned our so much better than last year’s. The bar was set pretty low after all. I’m excited for next year when the girls will be a little bit older and will hopefully “get” the whole Halloween thing even more, disaster or no disaster. 
Lots of love, 
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Filed Under: Halloween

Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2014 by
Halloween is here! And much like last year, we still have no idea why we’re in costume!

A more detailed Halloween recap to follow after the weekend, but here’s a snippet of what we’ve been up to this week (we’re really getting some mileage out of our Halloween outfits). 
 Samantha was acting just plain scary cute after music class yesterday. 
We celebrated yesterday by having a little toddler-sized Halloween soiree with Maliyah and baby Allie.
This morning, the little witches played some ghoulish games together at the park (which happened to be a total ghost-town…everyone’s gearing up for tonight, apparently). 

Today, we will be “trick-or-treating” at Pretend City’s Halloween celebration and then we will be blowing up the neighborhood with some Halloween cuteness as we attempt to show S and A the logic behind dressing up, walking around the neighborhood, knocking on doors, taking candy from strangers, and then not eating said candy. I’m sure it will rock their little toddler worlds. 
Our neighborhood usually turns into a giant block party on Halloween since there are so many families with kids, so we will likely sit outside and chat with the neighbors and hand out Halloween candy while the girls are in bed. 
We’ve really grown up since last Halloween!
Can’t look at this picture from last Halloween (we had two costumes, one for actual Halloween and one for a party) without missing those chubby flapper babies!
                         
Have a fun and safe Halloween!
Lots of love, 
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Filed Under: Halloween
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