The girls all chose their costumes early this year….as in mid-September!Avery and Harper made their costume decisions upon arriving in the costume section of Hanna Anderson last month. Emerson decided she wanted to be a bride around the same time and I searched on Amazon to find the perfect dress.  My mom spent HOURS hemming it….all five layers of it! She was all about posing!   A little foresight into the future.  Seriously gorgeous!The girls and Larrisa.Slowly adding one more adult at a time to the picture.

While I was weak in my Halloween costume this year, I was strong in my cul-de-sac socializing.  We trick or treated for an hour and then proceeded to spend five more hours hanging out by the bonfire.  I’m still not even sure how that is possible.  The girls went to bed much earlier than that…fortunately Larrisa was willing to go in early and give the girls shower and put them to bed!  TREAT!  All night, I was living in the moment and so appreciative of the wonderful neighborhood we live in and I didn’t want to miss a minute.

The girls all filled their pumpkin and had a great time trick-or-treating and hanging out with our awesome neighborhood.

ARIEL JASMINEELSAThe princess pact.Ariel, Jasmine, and Elsa meet a black cat. And a chick from the 70’s with an afro. The girls had a great time trick-or-treating. My sister was traveling for work and was able to trick-or-treat with us this year!  We went all the way up Hillington this year and the girls got more candy than in year’s past…so much that my sister and I took turns holding their pumpkins as they became fuller. Elsa even wore her high heels the entire time!  Quite the princess!  And everyone had so much fun that the fact that the girls forgot to wear their tiaras wasn’t realized by me until the end of the night and wasn’t realized by the girls until several days later.

This year there was no stress in figuring out what the girls were going to be for Halloween…because all on their own Avery decided she was going to be a purple monster and Emerson decided she was going to be a bumble bee.  Harper didn’t make her own decision but when I went to the Halloween Store for Avery and Emerson’s costumes, there was so much to choose from that it made the decision for her to be a pumpkin quite easy.

Halloween fell on a Friday this year.  We started the evening mingling and eating dinner at a neighbor’s house followed by trick or treating and a bonfire in the cul-de-sac. The girls went to only a handful of houses – I tried to encourage a few more houses but they felt they had enough candy in their pumpkins!

My little pumpkin…

My scary purple monster…

My cute little bumble bee…..

Our crazy awesome family….

Avery and Emerson made it to past 11:00 at the bonfire and it was 11:30 before they got in bed.

Saturday afternoon we went to Udvar Hazy for about an hour.  We hadn’t been there since February 2013.  Last time we were there Harper was in my belly (just barely though) and Avery and Emerson were wearing the very same outfit that Harper was wearing today.  We didn’t even take the camera as we were really just enjoying ourselves with no agenda.  Here are my three babies…Harper is just not a fan of posing for pictures with her sisters….we’ll get there one day….but for now I cherish my “babies”…frowns and all!

This weekend we went to a Pumpkin Patch in Reston.  We had an AWESOME time! 

The girls had a great time going up and down the slide…Avery especially!  It was $3 per kid all day so the girls could go on and off of it as much as they liked. Emerson was afraid to climb up it the first few times but after about the third or fourth time on it, she mustered up the courage to actually climb up to the top and once she did, she was unstoppable.  Literally every time Avery would slide down, she would beam with excitement and shout out “I did it all by myself the first time”….she was so proud of herself. 

She even started a trend and started to go down head first…soon after many of the older kids were trying to copy her….go ahead my little trendsetter!

Harper happily ate her snack and took things in while Avery and Emerson did “big girl” activities.

She did get her turn on the slide…

The girls had fun watching the baby animals….they even fed the baby goats leaves!  Emerson was really into it and thought it was funny…Avery thought it was funny as well; however, she was a little scared to get too close to the fence. The roosters kept saying “cockadoodledoo” and the girls would repeat after the rooster!

They had fun riding the train…although Avery had a moment right before she was going to get on where she refused to go….so Justin ended up having to get on and ride with them and Avery rode on his lap the entire time.  Both girls were smiles the entire train ride!  Harper sat with me and watched her sisters go chugga chugga choo choo.

We treated the girls to some fresh popped popcorn.  They had to wait patiently while a fresh batch popped.

They found some seats in the pumpkin patch to eat their snack.

They picked out some pumpkins!

And they wanted to display their affection for their little sister….who wasn’t so fond of the situation.

It was a great little pumpkin patch and we all had so much fun….can’t wait to go back…so much so that we may even have Karolin take them one day during the week this season!

This year I had wanted the girls to be princesses for Halloween since they had received princess dress up costumes as a gift for their second birthday.  While they love princesses, they don’t like putting on the princess outfits for some reason.  I tried and tried but after several failed attempts, I realized they would have to go as something else.  We even went out to Target one night and searched the Halloween costume aisle.  The girls refused to try anything on.  They have some sort of tag fetish and refuse to try anything on if it has a tag!  We left the store with plastic pumpkins (which they loved) and a Mama that was wondering what in the heck I could have them dress up as that they would actually wear.  I knew it had to be something they were into….thus the idea came that they were going to be chefs as they LOVE cooking and their play kitchen.  Even when I prepare food in the kitchen these days, they immediately pull a chair right up so they can watch. So I bought two chef outfits online and they were the cutest little chefs in town.  

Neither one of them were into taking pictures.  

They finally sat still so Justin could snap a few and they put on their best cheese face.

We had been rehearsing the whole knocking, trick or treat, receiving candy and saying thank you process for a few weeks and the girls actually remembered it and lasted for a lot more houses than I thought they would.  They were a little frightened at times due to some of the scarier house props and Avery wanted to be carried for the most part, but overall they did quite well and really enjoyed trick or treating. 

Harper dressed up in a Halloween onesie.  

She stayed home and gave out candy with Grandma and Grandpa while Mommy and Daddy took Avery and Emerson out trick or treating. When we got home we put her in a pea in the pod outfit (yes, the same one the girls wore and without the hat as I couldn’t find it).  

I was able to get Emerson to sit down with Harper for a picture.  I was trying to get Avery in the picture as well; however, she has a mind of her own and had her costume off before we could even snap the picture. 

We all had a great time and are already looking forward to dressing up and going trick or treating again next year!

On the Monday before Halloween, we decided to carve the pumpkin to get the girls in the Halloween spirit.  It was late already that evening since Justin worked late but he said it wouldn’t take long and he was right.  The girls were already dressed in clothes that I didn’t care about getting messed up (you’ll see why as I remind you it is October still) so preparation took only a minute.  Justin’s job was to carve while mine was to take pictures…easy enough!  The girls were very much into it!

Not only did they watch, but they even helped out some, especially Avery.

At first Harper just slept through it all.

But when she woke up and saw all the joy in Daddy’s face, she just wanted to be a part of it and wasn’t afraid to let us know.

Maybe next year Harper:)  The final result was pretty simple but turned out great.  In fact, Harper the pumpkin next year will likely look much the same as Mommy and Daddy’s artistic ability is quite limited. 

While the girls enjoyed the pumpkin carving, once the light was turned off and the pumpkin became a jack-o-lantern, the experience took a little bit of a turn in the wrong direction.

So we put the light back on and had to gain the girls trust that the jack-o-lantern was still the same old pumpkin they had just helped carve.  In fact, we even ended up naming our pumpkin….Puma.  The girls happily said good night to Puma and when they woke up in the morning the first thing they wanted to see was Puma.