Costumes & Trick or Treating

Emmalyn - a strawberry

Ashlyn - Ariel

Sadie - Rapunzel

Kali - a vampire princess

I tried to convince Ashlyn to be a witch this year because Josh's mom already had a witch costume. But she decided she wanted to be Ariel. In the end I'm glad we went with her choice because she sure looked cute as a red headed Ariel. And Kali's costume was her own invention. I had never heard of a vampire princess. Sometimes she referred to herself as Dracula's daughter. I think she just wanted to be a cute vampire and I think we achieved the goal.

We really had a fun Halloween this year. We started out by trick or treating at Josh's work. Emma was adorable. As soon as she realized people were putting candy into her bag, she was saying thank you very loudly. Afterward, we went to my parents' house to show them the girls' costumes. Then we went home, ate dinner and trick or treated around the neighborhood. We finished off the evening by passing out candy while watching an old episode of Heman.

Halloween Dance Recital

Today our Halloween activity was watching Sadie do her Halloween dance. All the girls dressed up in their costumes and performed for the parents. Kate and Sadie are in the same dance class and they got to dance side by side. They did such a good job.

Carving Pumpkins

Today we carved pumpkins, one of my favorite activities and one of Josh's least favorite activities. The girls fall somewhere in between. Sadie doesn't like digging out the insides. Kali enjoys most of the process, and Ashlyn is young enough that she was just focused on separating the seeds from the pulp. I was just glad Josh was willing to fix my mistakes and fill in where needed. I broke Ashlyn's stem before getting the top off and I couldn't work on Sadie's while helping Kali. So he got Ashlyn's top off, helped Sadie, and then roasted the seeds. I also loved that the weather was nice enough that we were able to do our carving out on the deck. It sure made for a much easier clean up.

But my most favorite thing this go around was the finished product. I think these pumpkins are the best we've done yet.

Parry Halloween Pary

Our Halloween celebrations started early this year. We celebrated with all the Parry cousins tonight so that Grandma and Grandpa Parry could have a chance to see everyone's costumes. There were some super cute costumes, great food and fun games. The girls got to bob for apples, eat donuts from a string with no hands, and play a musical walking game for toys.

Witches Brew

My mom has a witch's pot that Sadie has been obsessed with so she finally bought one to give to her. Sadie could hardly wait to get home to make her own brew. My mom started giving her suggestions of what to put in it and gave her several things to add. She ended up adding lucky charms, popcorn, pretzels, fish crackers, dried mangos and cocoa roos--probably one of the more interesting concoctions I've ever seen, but the girls loved it (until the next day when they decided it wasn't that good of a mix after all).

Halloween Decorations

My girls beg me to hang up Halloween decorations every year, but I'm not really into all the gory stuff so I never do. This year, a friend of mine found this idea and I decided to give it a try. It was a big hit.

Life in a Castle

Sadie is learning about life in a castle for this session of Discovery. She got to see all sorts of swords and daggers. They talked about armor and she got to try on a vest made out of chainmail which was very very heavy.

She made her own crown, castle, sword and shield and one day her teacher even took them outside and shot candy at them from a catapult.

Letters

Ever since Ashlyn started preschool, she has been obsessed with letters. She's always sounding out words and trying to figure out what they start with. She usually says it wrong and says something like, "'m' starts with your name", but she's getting the idea and I love it. Today I asked her to unload the silverware and when I walked in the kitchen, this is what I found instead...an "A" out of knives. Super cute!

Bells Canyon Reservoir

The girls didn't have school today so Josh took the day off and we went on a hike. Neither of us had hiked Bells Canyon before but I was told that it wouldn't be too hard for the girls. We recently bought camelbaks and decided to give them a try. It turned out to be a fun little hike. The girls loved it.

When we got to the reservoir, we ate lunch and Josh tried to teach the girls how to skip rocks. Mostly they were just throwing rocks. Afterward we decided we'd keep going up because another mile and a half up the canyon were some waterfalls. We were pretty certain that we wouldn't get that far but thought we'd give it a try and see what we could see. Unfortunately we didn't get very far. After only a minute or two, Sadie informed us that she needed to use the bathroom. We decided to turn around and soon realized that she wasn't going to make it down the mountain. We were able to find a place for her to relieve herself and discovered that both Kali and Ashlyn needed to go too. Once the three of them were done, we decided we could head back up the mountain. Once again, we didn't get far. Ashlyn was too tired to walk so I had to carry her. Sadie was complaining that her legs were tired, and Kali informed us that she needed to use the bathroom again. We gave up and turned around. If you ask the girls, the most memorable part of the hike was the fact that they got to go to the bathroom out in nature.

Walking

Since Ashlyn is attending a preschool that is close to our home, we have the pleasure of walking there most days and this is the view I get--a little girl with a big backpack! She begs to walk even though half the time she changes her mind half way through the walk. I think I probably enjoy the walks more than she does. I don't feel like I get out of the house much these days unless I'm shopping which is near the bottom on my list of enjoyable activities. Emma also likes to get out but doesn't like to walk. I have to push her in the stroller or else I'm carrying her the entire walk. Ashlyn insists that she'll even want to walk during the winter. I told her that I won't want to but I promised her at least one walk in the snow so that we can make snowballs on the way. She can hardly wait.