Question:

What do you get when you mix "Doctor Strangelove" and a lady with three eyes?

Answer: A flamingo, a golden retriever, a cowgirl and a witch.

Aren't genetics fascinating?

Playgroup party fun!

My sister-in-law, Lori, hosted a Halloween party for children under five this year, and she graciously let me invite my playgroup. It was so nice to sit and chat and let our children play and decorate cookies. Thanks Lori! Maddie and cousin Elena.
Cute little Cowgirl


My playgroup friends. (I seriously think playgroup is just as much for me as for Maddie.)

I love Lucy's smile here, all of our children have had this "I'm not going to smile" smile at her age. Hereditary? I think so.

Our Cute little Pumpkins

We had a ball decorating and carving pumpkins this year.

Hannah, of course, decorated her's like parakeet.

Johnny's turned out to have an uncanny resemblance to the guy on the movie Goonies.



Maddie loved her "princess pumpkin" but she was jealous that it got to wear Hannah's tiara. Hannah forbade her to wear it until it broke a week before Halloween, once it broke it was too floppy to stay on her head. We decided to hot glue it onto Maddie's pumpkin. Maddie felt better when I told her that she may get a tiara for Christmas.





Here is John's Pumpkin "pie". He entered it into the pumpkin carving contest at work and got a free lunch voucher.

Hannah and Johnny had a great time picking out their pumpkins at J&J Nursery's in Layton. They have an awesome tradition every year where anybody who brings a non-perishable food item for the food bank can take a hayride to their pumpkin patch and pick out a free pumpkin--we found some beauties.

Our Trunk or Treat

John and I decided to ham halloween up this year for the kids. I may have gone a little overboard in that area.

Here is a little background on our costumes:

John: Doctor, he put some rubber gloves on and carried a chainsaw around. During the trunk-or-treat, he kept telling people things like "wow a full day of amputations can really tire you out." I am so glad he didn't fire the thing up.

Cheryl: My costume was very mismatched, I threw it together about 15 minutes before we left. I guess I was trying to show Johnny how much fun we could have looking silly (and it was fun). I ended up being some sort of a clown nurse. We had a great clown wig that wasn't spoken for, plus I had to do penance for making Johnny be a clown last year. I had a nurse hat on, but you can't see it because the wig is so fluffy. There were a few technical problems with the dress so I had to wear a skirt underneath.

Hannah: She wanted to wear the cat costume that I made for her when she was four. I can't believe it still fit her, will she ever grow? We lost the ears so I had to make some out of construction paper before we left. She even dressed her little stuffed animal cat up as a witch. She was feeling a little under-the-weather that night. I'll tell more about that later.

Johnny: Black ghost shirt (see previous post).

Madeline: Little witch, she looked so cute!

Lucy: Spider, all of my babies have worn this costume. The hat kept slipping over her eyes but she didn't seem to mind.

We had a ton of fun, and went home with a lot of candy, thanks kids;)

Could this be why Johnny doesn't want to dress up this year?

The evil mom in me laughs out loud everytime I look at these pictures of Johnny wearing his halloween costume last year, I just can't help it. On the other hand I get that little tug in my heart and I just want to hug him and kiss his little chubby cheeks.





How could we have put Johnny through this kind of torture at the tender age of four. While all of the other boys in his pre-school class were dressed up in costumes with swords, magic wands or big biceps, all Johnny had to defend himself was a big squishy nose and a sense of humor.




This year I am so sad that he doesn't want to dress up at all. I decided to just buy him a low key black shirt decorated with ghosts. I hope we didn't damage him for life. I sure love that boy!