Halloween 2012

Halloween was everything Rachel hoped it would be: candy-filled. 

We (meaning I, while the girls looked on) carved Rachel's white pumpkin on Monday night for FHE. A book of 5 or 6 Mickey Mouse-type stencils came with a movie we recently bought, so of course we used the Minnie Mouse stencil. Rachel took the smaller one to preschool for her Halloween party there and painted it purple, then decorated it with stickers.

Peyton and McKenzie came out to trick or treat with us, but when they got here McKenzie had a fever and didn't feel much like trick or treating, so she stayed back with Grandma while the rest of us went to the church for the trunk or treat. Of course I didn't even manage to get a picture of Peyton dressed up like a princess all cute. After the trunk or treat the cousins headed home to recuperate, and we headed out for a spin around the block (luckily our neighborhood is pretty small, so it was a quick-ish trip). Here are the kiddos all dressed up and ready for some more candy:

 

Annie was a fan of all the candy (shocker, I know). The only problem was she only had one mouth to try to eat three things at once: her lollipop, a box of Nerds she spread all over the floor, and a popcorn ball from the trunk or treat. 

For the next few days after Halloween almost any time Annie would come in to the kitchen she'd say, "Hold mine pumpkin!" (the plastic pumpkin that had all her candy). We have now consolidated the girls' candy into one basket, and hidden it in a cupboard so they aren't reminded of all the candy just waiting for them every time they come into the kitchen and see it sitting there.

The unforeseen after-effects of Halloween included gross, sticky candy hair, especially on Annie, but also to a lesser degree on Rachel. Apparently somewhere between holding a sucker in your hand, and eating it with your mouth it must pass through your hair several times or it's just not as tasty. We have had many baths in the last week (though, admittedly, baths are kind of the go-to soother for Ryan in the late afternoon/early evening, and any time Annie hears the tub running, she rushes to get in too, so not all the baths can be attributed solely to the nasty candy hair.)

And while I'm thinking about it, I'd better record the bath time fun for posterity. One of Annie's favorite things to do is to pour water out. She pours it out of her water bottles, any cup she finds with water in it, and especially a teapot or watering can, both of which we have in the bathtub as tub toys. They are ONLY tub toys or she would figure out how to get water in them and go around the whole house all day pouring water all over everything. Anyway, so, with a teapot she spends most of the time pouring tea for herself, or if Rachel opts to join her for a bath, for Rachel. She pours the water into the bucket we use to wash their hair, or if that isn't available, she just pours the water into the tub (or on the ground outside of the tub if left unattended for any length of time, the little stinker!). As she "serves" the tea she asks in her cute little two-year-old voice, "Moe tea? Moe sooguh (sugar)? Moe ice?" over and over and over. I'm pretty sure she learned this from Rachel, and the only thing I can figure as to where the ice came from is that they must have heard someone somewhere talk about how many cubes (of sugar) with their tea, and of course the only cube Rachel could think of is an ice cube. So I guess we always have iced tea parties at our house. Usually with warm-ish bath water. Yum. Though thankfully Annie has stopped drinking the bath water for the most part these days, so that's something. :)