Halloween OVERLOAD!

Here is yet another (and final!) Halloween photo for this year!

Halloween Party!

Gallie decided to be a princess ballerina for school today!  Costumes where you have everything in your closet are the best :)

The how to for this really cool ballet bun is here.  It took me about 10 trial runs, but it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it... you use a sock with the toes cut out and it makes your hair look super thick!

A Trick-or-Treat Weekend!

Princess Jasmine!  The prettiest girl in all of Agrabah!

Bellingham's downtown trick or treat was on Saturday so Gallie got to dress up a little early this year!  The downtown thing is so nice for little kids... but we're also going door to door on Halloween night!

Caleb went as a snobby coffee guy.  Molly went as a beauty stylist with amazing hair.  Her school is downtown so they were handing out candy :)

Lily the cutest octopus ever!

Libby - 3 days overdue.

Spooky bus... I cried.

The treats (minus about 20 pieces that Caleb took from her bucket)!!!  We told her she could keep 10 pieces from each trick-or-treating day and then give the rest away - she seemed just fine with that :)

On Saturday night we drove to Seattle for Caleb's dad's annual pumpkin carving party.  We got home around 10:30 and Gallie slept in until 9:00 the next morning!  She really is a great sleeper but we put her to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 so she is always up pretty early.  This was one of like three mornings that I've actually felt rested since she's been born :)  I never complain about getting up early, but still, it was nice!

On Sunday we put Callie's new bed together (look for a room tour post soon!) and I did some cooking for a freezer meal food swap I put together (more on that later too!).  In the afternoon we went to a birthday party for our friend's little girl.  It was a pretty busy weekend and we still have Halloween tomorrow!  Callie has a party at school and raided her dress up stuff a different costume.  She decided on a ballerina :)

****************************

We had a downpour Sunday evening but then the rain stopped and this was outside our house!

Natural Lip Balm

If you're somebody I normally exchange gifts with... please disregard this post!

In attempt to give meaningful gifts this holiday, I've been making/testing some natural beauty remedies to possibly hand out at Christmas.  Some of the ingredients can be a little pricey, but luckily a lot of them are stuff I already had on hand and they go a long way.  The recipe that I used (below) is from Angry Chicken.  It was very easy and turned out well - I think everyone will like it!  Callie doesn't like the peppermint smell (which I LOVE!  reminds me of Burt's Bees) so I promised to make her a lavender lip balm of her own.

Halloween Treats!

The non-candy kind!  We made these cute little "treats" for Gallie's Halloween party at school next week.  I just printed the template from here and used a hole punch for the two sides - then just slide the glow stick through the holes.  Pretty easy!  And cheap - the glow sticks are $1 for a box of 15 at Michaels!  We wanted to personalize them a bit, so Gallie decorated the back of each one :)

Trick or Treat!

P.S. The template looked cuter in color, but I was too lazy to walk out of my office to the color printer down the hall.

Lunch Box Activity

I always tear out the recipes I want from my food magazines then just recycle the rest.  I decided to save a pile for Gallie to cut stuff out of and came up with this lunch box idea - it's very easy and cheap.  She "packed" three lunches before she tired of it, but it kept her entertained for over an hour so I thought I'd pass it along.

Here's what you do:

Draw a lunchbox.  Basically a square :)

Cut out foods you like.  One time we even made sure there was something in each food group just to practice that concept.

Glue stick the food to your lunchbox.

That's it - done!  This particular lunch included juice, white frosting, pink frosting, a portion of a kiwi (I think?), corn on the cob, an entire bottle of maple syrup, and a lobster (WHAT?!!  Like she would ever even consider taking one bite of lobster!  So funny!).

Just for fun... my lunch!  So wish I was motivated enough to pack an actual lunch like this to work everyday!

Over the weekend...

We had one busy day and one lazy day - perfect!  On Saturday Gallie and I drove down to Seattle for one of her little friend's (Ady) birthday party.  Caleb had to work so it was just a girl's day!  Ady's parents are also our friends so we always make a day of it when we go down.  We left around 9 am and got home around 9 pm :)  Gallie had so much fun with all of the girls - I love to see that!

On Sunday we had a leisurely breakfast, did some playing, did some laundry, ate some lunch, walked to the park, ran (well, drove) to the market, enjoyed chicken curry for dinner, and had a glow in the dark bath.  Pretty nice Sunday.

**********

When I got home from the store I caught Gallie watching music videos (TS of course) on Caleb's phone - headphones and all!

School Uniforms

I wasn't going to buy one of these plaid jumpers this year because they are quite expensive ($49!!!), but a couple girls in Gallie's class have them (passed down from older siblings) and she always comments on how much she would love one.  I finally broke down knowing that she would wear it at least once a week and for hopefully 2 years before she outgrows it... so that makes it only $0.66 per wearing - not so bad when you think of it that way :)

Anyway, I think she looks very cute in it and she was very proud to wear it to school.

Field Trip

Today Gallie went on her first field trip to Fire Station #1!  One of the little boy's dad is a firefighter, so her class got an extra special tour!  It was also t-shirt day which she loves cause you get to wear whatever you want with it!  And speaking of uniforms, I have some new posts coming up soon.

Gallie is always holding hands or hugging someone!

The sirens were loud :)

Just putting out a fire - all in a day's work!

Gallie's class of 20 kids!

She had a great field trip and can't wait for the next one in the spring!

Apple Farm

Today was a really nice day - sunny and warm.  Most weekends we go out and do some kind of food sampling.  It's a cheap outing and fun to try different local foods - kind of like a version of wine tasting when you have kids :)  Today we started out at Appel Farms for cheese - Gallie loves the "squeaky cheese," Caleb loves the gouda, and I love the feta!  We tasted a little of everything but came home with Greek olive feta and smoked gouda.

Next we stopped by Bellwood Acres to get some apples.  We tasted a few different varieties, along with sparkling cider, and apple spice donuts!  We came home with some of the bubbly, a spaghetti squash, and a bag of honeycrisps!

We spent the afternoon snapping some family photos and went to dinner with our friends Chris & Julie.  Hope tomorrow is just as nice!  We have baby shower #2 to attend!