September: The Park

My attempts to capture the girls jumping:

Sally climbed up on this little seat and watched the girls for a long time.

September: "I like the rain!"

After a long, hot summer, we finally got a bit of rain in September. The girls made up a little song called, "I like the rain." The lyrics go like this:

I like the rain.
I like the rain.
I like the rain-ain-ain-ain-ain.

Over and over and over again. Pretty fun.

"Nobody Knows . . . "

Eating snack. I started singing to myself: "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen . . . ."

A few minutes later, Mariah sang, "Nobody knows the trouble I've made." I smiled to myself, thinking I was hearing a classic Freudian. Not so. The next line out of her mouth was, "Nobody knows the trouble I've made for my mom . . . ." Oh, yes. I laughed out loud!

After I stopped laughing, I asked her why she sang those words. Her reply: "Because I've made lots of trouble for you today by being disobedient."  Uh-huh.

Halloween (Happy or not, it happened.)

So, it's no big news that I could live without Halloween. And yesterday proved to be my worst on record. I'm not sure why, exactly (probably a combination of many things: sugar, red dye, chocolate, horse riding Friday, ward party Saturday, primary program Sunday, Halloween Monday), but Mariah has been majorly bi-polar, hyper, and mean (to her sisters and me) for the last couple days. Yesterday especially. I handled things farely well until about 4pm, when I had some of my worst moments ever with my children. I'm not proud of the way I behaved.

Mike got home later than usual, and just as we finally had the girls sitting up for dinner, I dropped 2 bowls on the tile floor. Shards of glass flew everywhere; we found glass in the laundry room, living room, and our bedroom. My wonderful husband cleaned up while I sat down and ate dinner.

Anyway, Halloween still happened. And here it is in pictures, which do not show the true underlying emotion of the day.

Saturday was our ward Trunk-or-Treat. The girls went as Belle, Snow White, and Snow White (Hand-me-downs + a thrift store + a bit of mending + a bit of crafting = $12 total):

Sally wouldn't pose for a group picture:

On the way to the church:

Chili cook-off. Sally loved the vegan sweet potato chili I made. (Thanks, Marian, for the recipe):

Face painting:

Sally "helped" me hand out candy, while Mike took M and E trunk-or-treating:

Being the mean mom I am, I let the girls eat 1 piece of candy on the way home, and then choose 5 pieces to keep for themselves. The rest we put in the bowl to hand out Halloween night.

Yesterday, we recycled their stickered pumpkins (library activity earlier in the month), took off the stickers, and painted the pumpkins. Sally was squeamish about the paint, so she just re-stickered hers. (Then I took the stickers off and carved it.)

The finished pumpkins (and me doing Mariah's hair):

Mariah made a pumpkin snowman this morning:

We had broccoli cheez soup for dinner, a Halloween tradition carried on from Mike's family, and then Mike took the girls trick-or-treating while I made popcorn (and had a few blessed minutes to myself).

We again tried to get a picture of all 3 together. Sally kept just running to me as soon as Mike let go of her:

We finally got one by telling Sal to touch the fireplace:

They went to exactly 2 houses and were home way too soon. "Trick-or-Treat!"

I let them eat 1 piece of candy, and then we had cider, popcorn, and pumpkin molasses cookies topped with coconut cream. Yum!

I've never been superstitious, but as we were putting the girls to bed, I walked past our front storm door, and there was a random black cat on our porch . . . on Halloween.

One more Halloween down. I'm pretty sure we can only go up from here.

And here's a little video of Sal that makes me laugh. She carried each of the pumpkins, smallest to biggest, from the front door to the kitchen. The last one took her 3 or 4 carries to get it all the way across the living room. This video is of her last big effort.