poodle skirt

Halloween 2018

Happy Halloween 2018!

Halloween 2013:

A classic from 2013. Amelia is the unhappy one.

2013, 2014, 2015:

2015:

The infamous fairy pout faces of 2016:

2017:

One year later!

2017:

2018:

Choosing our Halloween costumes is always an ordeal. There’s a sweet spot on choosing costume timing in which Halloween is close enough that the girls can’t change their minds a million times, but far enough away that there’s still time to look for a cheap costume or borrow one from someone else. When asked what they wanted to be, the twins said they wanted to dress up as the same thing as last year, which would have been fine, but I gave them a few magazines and pre-selected photos from Pinterest I printed out to give them some more ideas anyway. Sadly, they did not choose the 50s family theme I was hoping for! I thought they would all look adorable in poodle skirts, but alas, I think the family themed costumes are a thing of the past for us! At least Eleanor didn’t have a choice, and was forced to wear her baby poodle skirt to our school’s Grease-themed annual dinner.

Someone in our neighborhood was selling a beautiful Chasing Fireflies peacock costume, so even though that wasn’t Samantha’s original choice, once she saw it, she said yes! One down, three to go.

Eleanor had two costumes– one was a 50s baby costume complete with poodle skirt, which matched mine and Jake’s. We doubled up our Halloween costumes to go with the theme of the school’s annual dinner, Grease, to get some more use out of them. I was fully intending on having Eleanor wear her poodle skirt for Halloween as well, until I saw this hilarious baby pineapple costume at Carter’s. She’s only a baby once, so pineapple it was.

Amelia saw an angel costume she fell in love with. But two weeks before Halloween, as soon as she saw Meredith in her ladybug costume, she proclaimed she didn’t want to be an angel anymore, and wanted to match Meredith. Exasperated, I suggested a bumblebee, and told her that was fine if she wanted to switch, but that the money for the additional costume was coming out of her own money! She agreed to the deal and thus, she became a bumblebee.

Grammy came to town and with her help, we carved our pumpkins the day before Halloween.

Eleanor was bored.

Having Grammy around made getting ready a lot more manageable. After school, the girls changed into their costumes, we did hair and makeup and got ready to go to our neighborhood block party/potluck, while Grammy stayed home with napping Eleanor.

We filled up on chili, taquitos, snacks and hot dogs and admired our neighbors’ cute costumes.

I had too much fun pressing “bounce” on my phone.

When Eleanor woke up, we forced the girls to take more pictures before heading out for trick-or-treating.

I think Jake took his character a little too seriously.

Our town becomes one loud, giant party on Halloween, with tons of kids and parents out on the streets, making it so fun and festive. We were even named California’s best town in which to trick-or-treat!

Meredith had no fear and caught on to the trick-or-treating concept pretty quickly. She had no qualms about entering people’s houses for a look around, either. The twins have always been sufficiently scared of random people that I’ve never been worried about them talking to strangers, but Meredith is another story. She’s a little too friendly!

I love seeing our neighbors’ costumes, so I took a turn answering the door and handing out candy, while the girls, Jake and my mom trick-or-treated with some of the neighborhood kids around our block and then my mom traded with me so that I could go out with the girls. It was the best of both worlds!

Baby Pineapple thought everyone being out so late and in such strange costumes was highly entertaining, until she became glassy-eyed and sleepy from all the excitement. Jake took her home to go to bed while the girls and I ran around to more neighborhoods.

Our town does a Haunted House/House Decorating contest each year and puts out a map so you can find all of them. The girls are still a little young for most of the scary ones, but we did check out our neighbor’s haunted house up the street that they do every year. Last year they had evil clowns with chain saws, and had the same this year.

As we approached, we saw a pack of tween boys screaming and running for their lives as an evil cackle and revvvvvv of a chainsaw echoed in the background. I asked the girls if they wanted to get candy from the house, and they were all gung- ho about it, walking nonchalantly passed the evil clowns and taking their candy. I overheard one of the clowns laughing to another clown, “Did you see those little girls!? They just walked right past me like it was nothing!”

While trick-or-treating, I told the girls they could eat two candies, but I’m pretty sure Meredith snuck in about ten. She was so wired! And so began a month of the girls sorting their candy and picking one out each day for a treat until I got so sick of it that I told the girls I had given their candy away to kids who didn’t get any candy, after which they cried for a day.

Lots of love,

Fall Bucket List and October

At the beginning of Fall (which we started in October since September here is still pretty hot!), we sat down during one of our family meetings and put together our fall bucket list. “Jump in the cold ocean” was the twins’ idea and the pretty much put that down no matter what season it is. We ended up completing our list, except for paddleboarding and making scones (sadly!)

The biker gang: Maliyah, Allie, Amelia and Samantha, with Meredith, baby Corbin, and baby Eleanor tagging along.

We look forward to going up the mountain to Oak Glen every year for apple and raspberry picking, fresh apple cider, mini apple donuts and picking up yummy breads, jams and my favorite flavored vinegars from the country market. This time, Eleanor and I stayed behind while the girls and Jake crossed off their bucket list item.

Playing at Oak Glen after gorging themselves on donuts and hot apple cider:

Swinging outside of someone’s house in our neighborhood.

Checking out a new park in Esencia.

Putting up Halloween decorations and waving to the garbage man.

Soooo many Halloween decorations.

Checking out another park in Irvine and playing checkers.

Dress rehearsal for family pictures!

Jake and I started a weekly date taking tennis lessons, but the girls ended up being interested, so we signed them up too.

They are super silly during lessons, but it’s really helped with their hand-eye coordination and we’ve had fun going to play at the courts on the weekend with the whole family. Thankfully, Coach Elaine has twins of her own just a year older than our twins, so she’s used to the crazy!

Our yearly cookie decorating date with Maliyah, Allie and Corbin. Jodi makes the best sugar cookies on the planet and her girls are very meticulous about decorating them, whereas Samantha, Amelia and Meredith basically dump as much frosting and sprinkles as possible on their cookies, without even bothering to spread.

I went in to school for a few mornings to help Amelia and Samantha’s classes with their Class Platter that they paint for the school’s auction/fundraiser.

There were no other volunteers to paint the the tree, bird design and names, so I took it home to paint. Let’s just say it was not the best looking plate at the auction since I am no artist… the names looked terrible! But it still got some high bids since every mom wanted a piece of class memorabilia and their child’s thumbprint, despite the mediocre artistry.

I helped Samantha’s class with painting the chocolate chips on their Cookies for Santa plate, which turned out adorable. Thankfully, Mr. Michael is a more gifted artist than I, so all I had to do were the chocolate chips!

Samantha was very proud of her planets project.

Eleanor chilling in the playroom.

Amelia taking a break on a walk.

Silly Samantha.

Once it gets close to Halloween, we read “The Chocolate Chip Ghost” story for FHE, complete with stick puppets. The theme is supposed to be about listening to your parents and obeying, but all the girls usually get out of it is asking for more chocolate chips.

Samantha’s block creation.

The girls trying on random costumes at the thrift store while looking for a leather jacket for Jake’s costume.

Normal breakfast shenanigans.

The theme for the school’s Annual Dinner/fundraiser/auction this year was Grease, and it was a blast. The room moms worked our tails off for two months to badger people into donating items and money for the auction, and it all worked out, despite people avoiding us the last week for fear of being accosted to donate. The gift baskets I was in charge of were the “Beauty School Dropout” basket and the “Harvest Basket.”

We decided to take Eleanor with us to the dinner so that my mom, who was in town, would only need to watch the other three… never again! Normally such a happy baby, she screamed and cried on and off for the entire five hours! It was right during her bedtime, but with all the noise, unfamiliar people, and loud music, she was so overtired and just couldn’t sleep. So most of the time, while everyone else was eating, bidding on the silent and live auction, dancing and using the photo booth, I was on the streets of San Juan Capistrano strolling in my poodle skirt with an inconsolable Eleanor, hoping she would fall asleep. Jake took a few turns with her in the Ergo carrier, but to no avail. At least we got some use out of the adorable poodle skirt outfit I got her! Despite her tears, she was the hit of the party for everyone but us.

So many cute baskets up for bid this year.

“Beauty School Drop Out”

A rare moment of silence from Eleanor that night.

There were several bids on the class platters, and wanting to earn more money for the school, I kept bidding up the price, thinking I would definitely be outbid. In the end, I ended up winning both Samantha and Amelia’s class platters, which I hadn’t meant to do! So now we own two very expensive plates that I’ve been trying to get some use of!