Miscellaneous October Photos

This month has brought a bunch of super fun fall activities for us to share with the kiddos, and we've had lots of fun with them at home, too.  Henry has been standing up every chance he gets, which bugs Evie to no end, especially when he's touching her rocking chair.  Evie has been doing great in school, and her language skills seem to be really developing.  She loves singing, and playing with Daddy whenever she can.  They have so much fun together!  We got away one evening to see a concert with our friends Charlie & Christy, while my sweet cousins, Jennifer & Kelsey stayed with the kiddos.  It's been a great October!

Halloween Trick-Or-Treating

Steve and Sophia joined us again this year for trick-or-treating, this time in our new neighborhood.  The girls had a lot of fun getting lots of candy from our neighbors, and Henry enjoyed riding around in the stroller for the event.  After we had gone around the block, we parked ourselves on some chairs in our driveway and the girls played around on the front lawn, with Evie's slide and playhouse that we had moved out there just for the night.  Then our friends, Charlie and Christy, joined us and we all had a great time handing out candy to the kids.  There were even a few kids that decided to try out our slide, which was fun.

Halloween 2014 - Henry

Saw this adorable knitted Yoda hat on Etsy, and thought it would make a really cute and easy costume for Henry this year, (plus we already had the toy lightsaber).  However, I've now learned that making a baby's costume revolve around something they can, and most likely will, repeatedly remove isn't the smartest idea.  (Also, I have a theory that if you frequently put hats on your baby while they are still infants, they will like hats as they get older.  Neither of our kiddos wore hats much as infants, oops).  But we got some really cute pics before he pulled the Yoda hat off and became just a Jedi.

Halloween 2014 - Evie

Since this is probably the last year that I can decide Evie's Halloween costume for her, I thought an adaptation of Toy Story's Jessie would be really cute.  Evie loves that movie (specifically Toy Story 2), and likes saying "Yay-Ha!  Ride 'Em Bullseye!"  It's adorable.  (The next few years are sure to be full of princess costumes, I'll bet you).  Joe came home a little early from work today to take these awesome photos of the kids in their costumes before trick-or-treating.

Halloween Costumes

Since I've decided to make a blog post out of it, I wish I had more progress photos to show of the costumes I've been working on for Evie and Henry.  I've really enjoyed making Evie's costumes these last couple of years, and this year was no exception.  It usually starts out with a simple idea, and then ends up being a much bigger undertaking that I had ever anticipated.  Evie's costume for this year took up about 95% of my effort, with Henry's being only about 5%.  (But since he's not even a year old yet, I consider his costume to be a "bonus").
For Evie's costume, I bought a plain shirt at Old Navy and added the decorative cowgirl yoke at the top.  I also took a jean skirt that she already owned, cut it, and added a ruffly skirt portion to the bottom.  And finally, I took a pair of hand-me-down cowgirl boots and painted them with leather paint.  We bought her hat on Amazon.  Oh yeah, and I made a "belt buckle" using a canning jar lid.
For Henry's costume, I took an old towel and sewed a cloak out of it.  Then I dyed a onesie and a pair of pants he already owned.  And I bought a cute knitted hat for him on Etsy.

This last photo is one Joe took of me a few years ago, but I love it because it shows me at my grandma's sewing machine.  This sewing machine is a work horse, it never fails, and has great sentimental value to me.  My grandma taught my mom and her three sisters to sew on this same machine, and there is even a place on the needle plate where my mom had scratched all of their first initials.  So cool, right?!!

Photos of our kiddos in their costumes coming up next!

A Grocery Store Cart

After dragging the kids on a couple of other errands, we stopped by a grocery store where we don't normally shop.  I spied another mom returning this kids cart that looked like a race car with two seats and steering wheels.  I used to think these things were so cheesy and cumbersome, (and come on, sometimes they look kinda dirty & gross).  But I really wanted to get Evie into a cart so I could get in and out without the challenges of letting her walk by herself.  Anyway, both kids loved it!!!  After a couple of minutes, Evie showed Henry how to work his steering wheel which he loved (very sweet of her).  And as we were cruising around the store, Evie kept saying "beep, beep, beeeeep, beeeep, beep", which was hilarious and had a ton of the other shoppers laughing and smiling at the kids.  I've now changed my opinion about these types of carts and I wish more stores had them.  Still not our go-to grocery store, but we will be back soon.

Evie Paints A Pumpkin

We're not into carving pumpkins, the kids just aren't old enough to really enjoy it much.  But Evie really loves painting, so when I suggested that she could paint her pumpkin, she jumped at the opportunity.  She had so much fun painting it (and her hands), it was fun for me just to watch.  I will have to think of more things that she can paint.