A Happy Halloween Weekend

I went for a much needed haircut on Saturday at lunch time. When I got back, Greg mentioned that when the girls were supposed to be going down for their nap, they started giggling and chatting in their cribs. Not much different than usual, but when he went up to investigate a cry, he found Emma and Becca with their shirts around their waists. As in, they pulled their arms out of the sleeves and up through the neck, then started pulling their shirts down. I didn't go check, but when we went in to get them after they woke up, they were both in their diapers. So, yes, we are now THOSE parents. The ones that can't keep clothes on their kids? Yeah. That'd be us.

We're also those parents that just broke down and bought child leashes for the kids. Not something I wanted to do, or thought I'd ever do, but in certain situations, they're going to be necessary for safety. I'm all about letting the girls run free and investigate. But at highway rest stops? Not so much. Or, if something comes up and one of us HAS to take all three kids somewhere. They are all very much starting to have strong feelings about where they want to go and where they don't want to go, and what they want to do and what they don't want to do. And a lot of times that means trying to wiggle out of my grasp, while I've got another one in my other hand trying to do the same. I'm terrified of them both getting away and going in different directions. So, like I said, I intend for their use to be extremely limited. But I am coming around to see that they definitely have their place.

Back to the fun stuff, though. We attempted Trick-or-Treating on Saturday night (our neighborhood decided to do it on Saturday). We had intended to just go to the neighbors, but none of our neighbors had their lights on. So we went a little further than we had planned to. I think we only went to 3 houses before Emma got scared and wouldn't move up the sidewalk to the next door. And Becca kept insisting on being carried.

I just got a few pictures before we headed home again.

Me with Julie Cat

This is where they are all telling me that they are cats by pointing to the cat face on their hoods.

Emma Cat. Funny how this came out, with her lit pretty well and the leaves darker in the background. It almost looks fake.

Somehow they knew enough to empty out their bags and take stock of their loot as soon as we got home, though. This is Emma.

Julie

Em preferred the Twizzlers. But Becca was a girl after my own heart. Into all of the chocolate. Yum. Julie wasn't really into eating the candy.

Sunday started off well with me sleeping in and coming downstairs to find Greg in the middle of a spit shining courtesy of Emma.

After a good nap, we took the girls back to the farm with the pumpkin patch, since we didn't have time to see the other stuff without encroaching on lunch and naps. We found the farm animals, and the girls were at first intrigued, but then kind of scared. As long as the animals didn't move, they were ok, but when the little pig put his paws up on the fence, the girls started backing away and hiding behind our legs and wanting to be picked up. Needless to say, we did not feed the animals.

Julie checks out the cow and goat... from a distance.

Becca gets bold, but Julie and Em are still clinging to daddy.
Becca
Emma

Then the girls discovered that they didn't have to be picked up to get away from the animals. They could just take off running across the field behind us. It was so nice to let them just take off and run. They really don't get enough of that. And the farm was nearly empty, being late on a Sunday Halloween afternoon. We were the only family back by the animals.

Running. That's Emma way out in front, Julie in the middle, and Becca closest to me.

When they started going after the crops in the field, we decided it was time to move on. In their big huge Corn Maze, they had a mini maze. The guy that led us in said that in about 100 yards, we'd see a sign to exit the mini maze (versus continue through the whole thing). I'll admit, it was a long 100 yards. It didn't feel like we could have gotten lost, but I kept thinking, "uh, where's that sign?". The girls were nervous at first, but in about 2 minutes, they "got it" and took off. They were running and giggling and exploring. I keep telling people what a fun age this is.

J & R taking off

I don't know what she was doing, but it was funny. And it involved her head?

Emma with a sun spot "halo"

E closest to Greg, R, & J

And then, as we tend to do, we decided that we wanted to sit down and play in the dirt in the middle of the maze.

R
Rounding the last corner


We did make it out in about 15 minutes, which was just about perfect for us. And the girls were just as happy to sit and climb on the picnic tables when we were done.

Don't they look old? This picture scares me. E, J, R
R, E, J

Sometimes we surprise ourselves with how well our outings go. Sometimes they're disasters, but when we have a nice family afternoon with gorgeous weather, life is just about perfect.