Halloween Part I

This should have posted about two weeks ago so please bear with me...lol!!

This weekend was the kick off of our Halloween celebrations. It seems like every year, we have more and more scheduled for our month of October and we wouldn't have it any other way. I think the fact that the girls are both getting older and starting to enjoy themselves and all of our festivities really helps. Halloween is Daniel's favorite time of the year so he is in seventh heaven.

Dylan celebrating his 3rd birthday before the fun started!

We started off Saturday night at my uncle Dan and aunt Robin's annual Halloween party for our family. The girls had a blast running around the backyard and playing with their cousins and it was nice that I could kick back and relax a little bit knowing that I had so many other people helping to watch them. So many years ago I could only wish that I would be a stay at home mom. I had some idea in my head that I could sleep however long I wanted, sit around and watch t.v., pretty much do whatever the heck I wanted all while enjoying my babies. Man, oh man, was I wrong! Being a full time stay at home mommy is by far the hardest job that I have had to date. I never get to shut my mind off. Even when they are napping I'm constantly listening for when they wake up or if one of them has a dream and needs consoled. So when I'm with my family I know that there are so many sets of eyes on my girls that I can relax for a little while and just enjoy myself and my surroundings. It was heavenly!!

I was so impressed with my aunt Robin. She made homemade bingo cards for the older kids that had a Halloween theme to them. I'm talking, she actually drew pictures of Halloween themed items on the cards. She also made homemade pumpkin pinatas for the big and small kids out of poster board and made a spider out of wire hangers for a ring toss. The adults got to break the pinatas and it was so funny for the smaller kids...when the treats went flying they just stood there trying to figure out which treat to pick up. They didn't understand that they could pick as many up as they could. Poor Addison kept picking stuff up, looking at it, and then throwing it back down to move on to the next piece that she thought might be more appealing. I had to help her out a bit.

They had a costume contest and Daniel was the judge, however, after naming Cadence last place, his judging rights have been revoked for all future costume contests. Addison is a going to be a cowgirl this year and Cadence is the prettiest witch I've ever seen. They were both so adorable in their costumes, as were all of the other kids. Can you please check out my niece, Ireland! Is she not the cutest spider that you have ever seen? And of course her brother, Dylan, the dinosour. I love these kids so much!


We ate, played a few games, and most importantly, got to spend some quality time with our family. I love moments like these!

The kids shooting the Nerf gun for points.

Playing a friendly game of euchre. Nikki and I lost by a point.