Halloween

For our ward party, we all dressed up as characters from The Little Mermaid. Obviously, our costumes revolved around Vi. It was super fun. It is always pretty time consuming to pull it all together. This year we got lucky and we had pretty big items that were all done and ready to go. I made Violet's mermaid tail in August with my grandma. That one was tricky because we were trying to make sure that she would be able to walk. My mom had a lobster costume for Grace to be Sebastian. I found a pretty sweet dress at the thrift store as the base for my Ursula costume. Mike had a long white lab coat from school. We had to add a lot to it, but in the end this Halloween wasn't too bad in the costume department. Grace's costume was not very warm and it was a bit big on her. I decided she needed her own real costume for actual Halloween. So she was the cutest little lamb there ever was. We had dinner before with our friends and let the kids play a bit before we headed out. It got pretty cold and rainy on Halloween and Vi had a nice melt down about half way into our night. She still had a lot of fun, but after 2 days of full sugar and terrible naps, we cut trick or treating short, got our kids in the tub and in bed early. I really can't stand being in the cold that long either when we are trick or treating. We have not lucked out on good Halloween weather the past few years. I really love this holiday and I hope our kids always have as much fun as we do. I think we might have one more year of family costumes before our kids have more of an opinion.  

Violet Turns 3

Yea, I feel like a bad mom for totally missing this one. Like I said this past fall was nuts. Miss queen Vi turned 3 on October 30th. She was all about everything fancy and there were sparkles galore. It is always tricky with this girl's birthday. With it being the day before Halloween, it can sort of get swallowed up in all the Halloween activities that we have going on. Since I did 2 bigger parties for her the last 2 years, I decided that we would just do a more low-key family party this year. She woke up and opened all her presents. We got her a balance bike, books, a frilly cloak and play food. My mom and dad got her more play food, the new Cinderella DVD, an apron to wear while cooking and Aqualiscious. Mike's mom sent her 2 new books with a flashlight that you use to look at hidden pictures in the book. She got so many fun things that she was thrilled about. We also got her the sparkly dress she is wearing in all the pictures. She got to have donuts for breakfast and dad even blocked out his day so he could hang out with us. We got all bundled up and went trick or treating downtown with some friends. Vi was of course loving all the candy and costumes everywhere. Then we went and grabbed lunch at Blue Tractor. That night was our ward Halloween party. So we got all dressed up and spent the evening there. It was a very full day, but full of lots of fun for our spunky 3 year old

Fall in Michigan

I was going through pictures on our computer and realized that I missed a ton of posts this fall. Our lives were so crazy and I felt like I was all over the place. So I am really not surprised that I missed all of these. 

Each year during October we try to head to the Arb and see all the gorgeous colors of the leaves changing. It is one of my favorite things that we do. The girls loved being outside and I can't get enough of the smell of all the leaves in the air. It reminds we so much of growing up in Maryland. Fall is honestly one of my favorite times of the year. We walked along the river and climbed in the forest. We will be sad to not have anymore Michigan falls, but we are pretty excited to be moving somewhere warm.  I'm bummed that I am writing this so much later. I don't remember all the fun little details of the day. I just know Vi was running around and climbing on stuff and petting everyone's dogs. Grace was a trooper and I remember her being tired towards the end and snuggling in a blanket.