Halloween with the Honeys

Emma, Charlotte, and Cristina have been counting down the days until Halloween.  Charlotte was especially excited about Halloween and has been counting down for two weeks.  This morning I told her to get dressed for school and she said, "I'm not going to school.  It's a holiday. It's Halloween."  She seriously could not believe I was making her go to school on such a sacred holiday. 

When it was finally time to go out, the girls were so excited.  Emma is a pro at this point and is all about hitting as many houses as possible.  Charlotte does a pretty good job of keeping up with Emma. Cristina was excited about the candy, but having a little bit of a time keeping up with her big sisters.  After going up and down one street, Brian and I parted ways with the girls.  He took the big ones to hit a few more streets and I took the little ones to head back to our friends' house. 

Cristina decided that she wanted to go to a few more houses, so we made a few stops on our way to our friends' house.  She was super excited about knocking on the doors - the only problem is she was knocking so softly that there was no way anyone was going to hear her.  We were in this one cul de sac where two guys were outside in costume.  So, Cristina says, "Let's go see the scary man."  She gets some candy from the scary man and then sees the other guy in costume (a Tin Man) and says, "Let's go to the kingdom." So, we walk over and she gets some candy.  Then, we go to a house on the other side of the scary man.  As we are leaving that house, she says, "Let's go see the scary man."  So, we go back to that house and she gets more candy.  Then, she says, "Let's go back to the kingdom."  She gets more candy.  Then, she goes to the house next door to the Tin Man and gets some candy.  We are walking back to the street and she insists on going back to the "kingdom" again. Luckily, the Tin Man was a good sport and didn't mind that the same kid hit his cauldron of candy three times!

Meanwhile, Emma and Charlotte were cramming their buckets with candy on another street.  When I was talking about it with Charlotte later, she says, "the worst part about it was my hands and feet.  My hand was just falling off and my feet were so tired.  It was just the worst."  On a side note, Charlotte was trick or treating in her bare feet.  She was wearing this long princess dress and I didn't notice that she had taken her shoes off.  So, yes, that was my child walking bare foot in the cold tonight!  I can only imagine what people were thinking.

Here are pictures of the girls from tonight. Emma was a witch, but decided she didn't want to wear her hat, which honestly is what makes the costume, but whatever.  Charlotte was Belle, Cristina was Cinderella, and Ella was an elephant.

Charlotte's Birthday

October was a rough month and I didn't have much time for blogging.  Since I totally missed Charlotte's birthday, I figured I'd better get it in today before we are on to a totally new month.  The thing I love about Charlotte is that she is super easy to please.  She doesn't spend a lot of time obsessing about her birthday and just enjoys whatever happens.  We started off the morning with pancakes.  Charlotte loves pancakes and when she asked so sweetly for them for her birthday, I couldn't resist.

Charlotte decided to have her birthday party at school with her friends. She requested a Dora cake, which had to be store bought.  She was excited with the result.

We promised to take her to Chuck E Cheese's after school, so that Emma could celebrate with her.  Charlotte had a lot of fun playing skeeball and I loved how she would jump up and down and celebrate everytime she got a ball in.

After dinner at Charlotte's favorite restaurant, Chick-fil-A, we went home to open presents.  Charlotte requested a Dora scooter for her birthday.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to find one, but did snag this great Princess two-wheeled scooter.  Charlotte is a speed demon on a scooter and needed one bigger than her Spiderman scooter and this one was great.

Finally, we ended the evening with candles and cupcakes, since candles weren't allowed at school.  As every kid knows, you only get older when you blow out candles, so Charlotte had to do just that!  I can't believe our crazy Charlotte is five years old.  She is such a funny kid.  I love her creative, spunky spirit.  She brings lots of excitement to our house. Happy 5th Birthday to Charlotte Anne!

Nightmare on Our Street

I thought this was a fitting story for tonight, since it is Halloween.  Charlotte was telling me this as she drifted off into a sugar induced coma.

Charlotte: I had the worst nightmare ever.

Me: Oh, no.  What was it?

Charlotte: There was this man - a dentist - and he lived in a laboratory.  A dentist in a laboratory and he made formulas for himself.  He gave the formulas to people and they died.  I was sneaking into the laboratory and he spotted me.  He gave me a formula and I died.  It was terrible. It was so scary.

Me: That is scary.

Charlotte: Yes, it was the scariest nightmare ever.  I thought it really happened.  Nightmares are just make believe.  So I just make believed it didn't happen.

Me: That's a good idea.

The Dollar Tree

The girls are not very good at holding on to their money.  When they get their allowance, they beg and beg to be taken to The Dollar Tree - or as Brian calls it "China Tree."  Brian and I hate going to The Dollar Tree.  Pretty much the only thing I hate more is listening to the girls beg to go there.  When they asked this morning, I decided I didn't want to have to listen to their pleas all day, so I told them we'd take them on the way home from church.  They were, of course, ecstatic and ran to get their dollars.

When we get to The Dollar Tree, the girls are slowly walking up and down the aisles - contemplating the merits of each and every item.  After a few minutes, Emma and Charlotte head to the kid section and I'm walking with Cristina through the store.  She has selected a plastic necklace with interchangeable charms and is holding it close to her heart.  Then, we walk by a display of artificial flowers and potted plants. 

Cristina: Flowers!  (Sniffing very deeply).  Just what I thought - flowers!  (Sniffing the artificial flowers.)  I love flowers.

Then, she hands me the necklace and selects an artificial potted sunflower.  She says, while smelling the flower, "I'm going to show Daddy my flowers."  She was so excited.  I'm glad a $1 fake plant can bring so much happiness.  

Here she is with her flower....

This is her smelling her flower.