Halloween 2014

The kids were super adorable again this year for Halloween.  I put zero effort into Halloween; the kids wear whatever hand-me-down costume we have from their cousins.  Conveniently for me, my kids have no opinion about what they want to wear.  I think is mostly due to the fact that I don't make a big deal of Halloween, Disney movies, or superheroes.  Little ones in fuzzy animal costumes is the cutest thing in my opinion and I will make every effort to dress at least one of them in one as long as I can (and I have a hand-me-down).  

The hand-me-down for Braylen was a Mickey Mouse costume.  When we tried it on months ago, it looked huge on him, so we put together a Bob the Builder looking costume as a back up.  It was chilly tonight therefore we opted for the Mickey costume.  He was so stinkin adorable in it; I'm glad we went with the animal costume

Shockingly, he did not touch the hood once

Miss Evie was a cheerleader.  

Just for the blog record- this was the year of Disney's movie Frozen. I saw many girls dressed as Elsa and Anna.

Yesterday, Daddio did his yearly job of carving the family pumpkin(s).  Daddio takes great pride in his two creative jobs: Kids' birthday cakes and pumpkin carving.  A friend shared a really cool pumpkin they made using their drill.  Brilliant!  Daddio took pumpkin carving to the next level!

The power tools come out!  I can just hear Tim Allen grunting.

Two happy boys with power tools

We might not watch Frozen yet, but we sure love Daniel Tiger!  For those of you that don't have toddlers obsessed with Daniel Tiger, it is a spin off of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.  I love the lessons Daniel teaches my kids!

In daylight, it doesn't look that exciting....

But with a candle in the dark, pretty awesome!

Pizza inhaled, 6 PM hit, and it was time to trick or treat!

As with the past two years, it took Evie about 10 minutes to warm up to the idea of trick or treat.  Braylen was ready to go from the first house.  Daddio took them around while I handed out pretzel bags to the masses (ha!  We had a light showing this year).  

After an hour, the two of them came back with full pails.  As soon as they came into the house, they emptied their pails and moved candy between bins.  It brought back memories of sorting out my candy back in the day.

That's a lot of candy for two!

Braylen was fixated on the "roller" he received.  He carried it in his hand from the time he got it until the time we went up for baths

"Roller" AKA Rolo

The kids were well behaved and adorable together.  They are so blessed to have each other to do all of this stuff together.  

Decorating pumpkins with stickers that just arrived from Mema

Sharing :)

If that all wasn't enough, we came up with one more special treat- glow sticks in the bath!

Fun with the lights on....

... but totally radical (dude) with lights off!

Why did we come up with a fun bath activity the night we are
late doing baths?  Oh well.  Stock up on glow sticks, friends!

It was a fun night had by all.  Hoping for some extra sleep in the morning ;)

The Running of the Bath Water

I can't think of one time Braylen didn't enjoy a bath.  From the newborn days until now, this little guy loves some warm water and a good chew toy in the evening.

We give the kids a bath just about every night since they enjoy them so much.  Braylen will shreek with delight when he hears the water turn on in the bathroom.  He will stop whatever he is doing and speed crawl to the bathroom and pull up on the tub.  The other night he smiled and giggled the entire way up the stairs.

Here's B mad dash crawl to the tub tonight.

These are the moments I want to remember and I need to remind myself to document them more often.

Cracking Up

While Marisa was giving Braylen a bath tonight, I heard lots of giggling.  I grabbed the iPad and this is what was happening...

And She's Back!?

Evie took a long bath in Braylen's blue tub in the tub tonight!!!!  She cried when I took her out.  Over the last week and a half I have gradually transitioned her back to submerging body parts in the tub.  First, she put her feet in a wash tub while laying on the floor on a towel.  Next, she would do "up/downs" in the wash tub.  Her diaper area was getting very red, so it became a must to get her bottom in water!  Then we moved to the filled blue tub on a towel.  And tonight back into the bath tub in the blue tub.  She played with her cups and poured water on herself.  I think she might be back to her normal self!  I was never so happy to have her splash again!  There is hope that she will touch the pool this summer!  How many explanation points can I put in one post?!  It was a horrible afternoon.... I am thrilled to end on a happy note!!!!!!!!

Love/Hate Relationship

Clearly this girl loves a bath



Bath time was not always so fun.  She was about 4 months old when she finally didn't scream through a bath or sponge bath.  Evie has splashed in the tub almost every night for the past 6 months.  It became the first part of the bedtime routine and was our go-to activity when there was serious night time meltdowns.  It was 10 minutes of pure delight for all parties in this house.

Until last week.

I would include a photo, but the screaming makes my ears bleed, so just imagine it.  I have no idea what happened.  She started to ask to get out after a minute, then the full out sob fest began.  Evie will blubber uncontrollably when we put her in the tub now.  She stands ankle deep in water and reaches for us like there are alligators ready to bite her legs off.

An activity that was so easy and fun has now turned into a battle.  Chime in parents if this happened to your kids!  We tried a mixing bowl and whisk as play toys (since she loves cooking with me) at Grandmom's house this weekend and having Grandmom try to bathe her.  No luck.  We have a bath time Barbie now.  She liked to play with Barbie in the bathroom last night, but once I put it in the water, she was done.

We know pushing Evie to do something she doesn't want to do turns out very bad.  We are keeping it as positive as possible.  After 4 days of no hair washing though, we had to wash it.  I guess we are back to sponge baths and holding her head over the sink to do her hair. 

Just when you have one thing going great, they change on you.  I keep saying to myself,  "grace, Marisa, grace"