Pumpkin Carving

We've been busy since last night cleaning and decorating the house for our Halloween party tonight!

Lily is a big help with the decorations. :)

We had a blast decorating the house. These jack-o-lantern cutouts provided endless entertainment.

When Chip came home from work we got to carve and decorate our pumpkins!!

I bought Lily foam Halloween stickers like last year so she could decorate her pumpkin again -- I don't think she is ready to actually carve.

I was trying to get her to help me get the "guts" out, but she just kept saying "ooh, that is gross!" and just wanted her stickers back.

Lily wasn't really into the family picture this year. She was way too preoccupied with her stickers.

I carved two pumpkins this year! One for the front porch and one for inside during our party.

This is how Lily's pumpkin started out -- with a cute little face.

Then she became addicted to the sticker.

My jack o' lanterns!

This is how Lily's pumpkin looked this afternoon after a morning round of sticker application. She even got the stem!

Playgroup Halloween Party

Today was Meg's turn to host the Friday playgroup, but since she can't make it to our Halloween party and trick-or-treating tomorrow night, she had a little Halloween party today for the kids. It was fun to see them all dressed up! She even got a couple of her neighbors to hand out treats so they could trick-or-treat!

Travis and Trent are dinosaurs (T-Rex and Tyrannosaurus to be exact). Ashley is Ariel; Lily is Cinderella; Elise is Tinkerbell; Alyson is also a dinosaur, although she wasn't excited to dress up at all and Hannah is Abby Cadabby! (and no Lily is not the oldest kid there -- actually there are 3 older and 3 younger than her -- she is just that tall)

Trick-or-treating!

We took every opportunity we had to get a good group shot! It is hard with 7 kids under 3!

Then we went back to the house for a fun craft (pumpkin picture frame) and snacks!!

Britney Part 2

Britney is home! The surgery went well and we were able to pick her up this afternoon. We still don't have the results back from the lab yet, but she is up and eating and looks pretty good, considering. The hard part now is keeping Lily and Calli away and administering pain meds and antibiotics twice a day. I put Chip in charge of making sure her stump stays clean -- it is too gross for me and he is the one taking pre-med classes. He actually had to dissect a few cats this semester, so this should be easy for him. In other news they finally think they found what is wrong with my car and are replacing the parts today! So no more sharing a car with Chip! Yeah!! Got Britney and my car fixed, now I just have to get through the Halloween party we're having on Saturday and I can relax again. Can't wait for next week. :)

Lily was very excited to pick Britney up from the "doctor's house." Here she is helping by carrying in the special litter from the car. It was so sad yesterday, Lily would stand at the bottom of the stairs and look up and remark that Britney wasn't there. :( Britney is always there. She is also having a hard time understanding that Britney will not get a new tail. She just keeps telling me to go buy her one. I wish it was that easy. In some ways it is a good life lesson for her. Everything that has ever gotten broken has been fixed; we've either used tape or glue, or just snapped it back together, so she doesn't grasp the concept that some things can't be fixed.

Britney isn't too happy, but otherwise she seems to be pretty good.

My poor stumpy baby.

Britney

Last week I discovered a large lump on Britney's tail. I was super freaked out about it, but calmed down some after Chip informed me that it had been there for some time (apparently he has told me about it, but I don't recall that at all). She has been perfectly fine and normal, so I was hoping it was only an absence that they could drain or lance off. Lily and I brought her to the vet today where they did a mini biopsy of the fluid in the lump and said that at first they thought it was only an absence, but it isn't looking like it now. Since the lump is so large (about the size of a golf ball), the only choice is to amputate her tail and send it all off to a lap for a pathology report. So my baby is currently at the vet getting her tail cut off. I am so sad, but really hope that is the worst of it. I feel so terrible that I didn't catch this sooner so that we could have avoided the full tail amputation. She should be home tomorrow while we await the results of the full biopsy. Lily is sad too since she and Britney are really close, which is crazy since Britney was the psycho attack cat -- but she has always been really good and sweet with Lily (under close supervision, of course).

Here is a picture of Lily and Britney at the vet today. I wish I could have taken more of her and her tail, but they were quick and efficient and I didn't get the chance.

Candy & Rain Boots

I am SO glad that we went to both the Arboretum and pumpkin patch last Monday because it has been pouring rain since about 7pm last night! It has been one of the wettest Octobers on record -- we have already gotten close to 10 inches this month alone! So today, Chip gets to complete some items on his to do list around the house and relax. We did make a trip to Sam's Club this morning to get some supplies for our Halloween party on Saturday and for some reason that is a big treat for Chip -- he loves warehouse stores (so strange to me). :)

Here are some random photos of Lily from Saturday night checking out her loot from the Halloween party:

Popcorn Ball

I don't think I've ever had a popcorn ball before -- it was yummy.

Candy necklace (and bracelet that I accidentally cut out of the shot).

She finally got to wear her new rain boots today when we went shopping. Of course they were heavy and hard to walk in and she wasn't too happy, but she looked cute!

Today (so far) has been a much better day than yesterday. She was in a terrible mood yesterday and had some of the worst tantrums I'd ever seen. It was a long and difficult day. I'm not sure what sparked it, but she did have some Halloween candy in the morning and then kinda fell apart. She doesn't usually eat much candy, and I'm not sure if it even had anything to do with it, but I am keeping the rest of the candy far far away!!

Cinderella Lily!

Today was our first Halloween party and Lily's first chance to wear her Cinderella costume! We bought the costume back in August and she has been SO excited ever since to be Cinderella for Halloween. She has been talking about Halloween so much and is always talking about and asking what all her friends are going to be. Finally the other day she asked, "Mommy, what do we do for Halloween?" So I told her all about dressing up and trick-or-treating with her friends (this will be her first time trick-or-treating) and she paused and said, "Oh okay!" and ever since she has been saying "Knock Knock. Bing Bong (that is Lily, for ding dong) Trick-or-treat. Candy!!" Of course after all this excitement, she said the other day that she didn't want to be Cinderella anymore that she wanted to be a cat and I could be a squirrel and she'd chase me around! Not sure where she got that idea from, but thankfully she was excited about Cinderella again today and stopped talking about being a cat!

All dressed and ready to go to the neighborhood party at the clubhouse!

I told her yesterday that we were going to a party at the clubhouse and ever since has been talking about going to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Oops. I'll have to remember to call it something other than a clubhouse in the future!

Lily and Tinkerbell Elise

Trent, Lily and Elise playing the bean bag toss game.

They had music playing, so of course Lily had to dance!

Lily and Trent

Ring toss game.

Yum! A caramel apple!

Playing the clothespin game.

Lily and Hannah

They had crafts and coloring set up, but Lily just wanted to trace the frog!

It was kind of a rough party. For some reason they decided to have it from 2-4 which is Lily's exact nap time. So Lily was kind of out of it the whole time. I kept saying she was a zombie Cinderella since she was so tired and spaced out. We had a busy morning too -- we met Trent and Elise at the park and then had to go grocery shopping before the party. So we left after about an hour so she could get a nap in. She was super cranky and fought me for about 30 seconds and then passed out in record time! But we have 2 more parties still to come, so we've only just started the Halloween celebrations!

Another Fun Pumpkin Farm!

Today we went to another fun pumpkin patch with Emily & Patti, Courtney, Trent & Elise and Beth & Abby. It is a lot like the one we went to on Monday with Chip -- hay rides, goats to feed, etc, but Lily had so much fun last time and was so excited to do it all again with her friends!!

Silly girl on the car ride there. She wore her pumpkin shirt again, but it was so cool today (low 50s with a wind) that she kept her sweater on the whole time.
Trent, Lily and Elise

Elise, Lily, Trent and Emily

No one else is looking in this shot, but Lily looked so cute, I had to post it! :)

Feeding the goats!

Emily, Trent and Lily

Believe it or not, Lily was the one who initiated climbing on the fence! When did she start climbing things??

Abby, Elise, Emily, Trent and Lily

Playing and singing "Ring Around the Rosie"

Elise, Lily and Abby

Lily and Trent on the hay ride.

Loving the hay ride!

Lily and Trent enjoying the view.

Lily driving all her friends on the barrel train!

Lily, Elise, Trent, Emily and Abby

Elise and Lily

Climbing again to see the huge horse.

With the $5 admission, you get a small pumpkin -- same as at the other patch. So now we have 5 small pumpkins plus the 3 big ones I got at Target (since I wanted 2 and if you bought 2 you got 1 free!). So our front porch looks like our own pumpkin farm!

Emily and Lily

When Courtney went last year they had hot dogs at the pumpkin farm, so she had promised Trent and Elise that they could have hot dogs, however when we got there we found out they only had hot dogs on the weekend. So after we were done I invited them all to the golf course for hot dogs and Lyle's famous brisket sandwiches! It was perfect since it is not far from the farm and I had to go by anyway to pick up Chip so we could get my car (which by the way, they found nothing wrong with). It was great too since technically the bar area isn't open for lunch, so we had the whole place to ourselves and the kids could play. Chip even put the Disney Channel on the big TVs to entertain them while they ate! It was the perfect end to a fun morning!