Halloween!

We did pretty good last night. We definitely made it to more houses than last year, mainly because the boy wanted to go go go! We had to leave our candy out the front door because we were out the whole night. Unfortunately, it didn't look like many kids came by. The wagon came in very handy for the our strawberry fairy and tulip fairy. Daddy and I just carried them to the front doors when Big Brother was ready to ring the bell.

Big Brother was Star Wars all the way. He had a Star Wars gun, which he got tired of holding and gave to his sisters. He also had the light saber with him, which turned out to be pretty useful. It made him very visible in the dark. In between houses, the fairies got busy poking and hitting each other with the light saber and Star Wars gun when Big Brother got tired of holding them.

We were all pooped by the time we came back home. Daddy and I wished we were like the other families who drove between houses. Those are smart parents!

Pre-costume attire. Look at those bellies!
(Thing 1 in white, Thing 2 in pink)

Getting ready to head out!

It took many trips from the porch to the house (jackets? no jackets? flashlight? reflective tape? where are the treat buckets?), but we finally made it out.

They were all pretty tired by the time we got back. The Fairies were sleepy, Big Brother was also sleepy but too excited about the candies.
(Thing 2 in red, Thing 1 in pink)

What are they looking at?

Is it too much for a mom to ask for one shot where they are all looking at the camera?

It's war at this point. The girls were just fascinated by the pretty little candies, but Big Brother seemed to think they were taking his. It didn't matter how many times we explained that they were not going to eat them!

lovely day gone bad

With the high for the day topping 80 degrees, I thought what a great day to go to the mall and let Matty enjoy riding his favorite train. How was I to know it was going to end up as bad as it did? Neither the fact that the husband complained of body ache even before we left the house, nor the fact that Matty started the day whining at 5:30AM gave me a single clue.

For $2 a person, who wouldn't have fun riding in this?

Enjoying the ride with me in the blue car.

There was some sort of family happenning and we enjoyed a lot of Storm Troopers, Padawans, Imperial Guards, Darth Vader, and even Young Anakin. I don't know why Daddy (the Star Wars geek) didn't want his picture taken with Darth, though?

Daddy and the girls waiting for us to ride the train.

So far so good, right? Little did I know that Matty was planning on riding the train again, but this time with his Daddy. Daddy wanted to go home but went ahead and agreed. All the 4 train cars had people in it. If they wanted to go ahead and ride, they would have be in the cars with someone else. Matty refused. Apparently, he wanted to ride on the red one and that one was already full. So they stayed behind until the next ride (they should get first pick of which train they wanted to get in to since they were in the front of the line). By this time, I left them to enjoy the ride so that I could go browse in one of the stores.

When I saw the train pass me, I saw Matty and Daddy in the black and not the red and Matty was screaming and crying. Why wasn't he in the red one? Here's the story... When Daddy and Matty were about to get in the red car, the family behind them (family of 5) asked if they could get in the red one since it's the only car that was big enough to hold all of them. Well, well, well... wouldn't you know it, Daddy said yes. So they went and rode in the black one instead. It was a bad decision on Daddy's part, but to his defense he said he wasn't thinking straight because he was in pain.

From the moment they got off the train, the tantrum intensified. Daddy grabbed the stroller from me and pushed on ahead of us because he has finally reached his limit. So there I was trying to hold a 3 year old who was having a full body fit. It was hard enough to be carrying a 40 lb toddler, but a screaming, squirming, tired and sleepy toddler?

The planets definitely didn't align for this trip.