After the carnival Alice was feeling rather vengeful. She put everyone in time out. Daddy went first. Then Andrea, then myself. We also had to go into the bedroom to have a talk with Alice. She dragged us in the room. Sat us down, and told us to be nice.  It was very cute and very hard to keep a straight face through it all.

Every year my mom's school has a halloween carnival and this year they really stepped it up. There were some of the most intense bouncy houses I have ever seen! Alice and Jude were loving the shark one. You climbed to the top of the shark and slid down and came out of his mouth, great teeth and all. Then we tried to go down the gorilla one. Jude loved it but Alice lost her mind. It was a little deflated and when you stepped inside it kind of wrapped around you. So I thought maybe she was feeling claustraphobic. I went around to put her under the gorilla where it was more of a flat jumpy part. SHE SCREAMED!!! She screamed so loud and just did this speedy scuttle crawl over to the other side and ran off into the night. I had to ditch Jude and chase after her. Poor thing was traumatized. Anytime I got even semi close to the gorilla she would just panic. Anytime we would mention the gorilla she would just say "NO NO NO!!" It was very cute but also very sad.  We just enjoyed the rest of the carnival sans giant gorillas.

Now the grocery store is something all new everytime. Its a 3 ring circus that keep you constantly on your toes. Alice is one circle, Jude is another, and the actual shopping is the third. I am supposed to keep it all together. Sometimes I do a really good job and sometimes it all falls to bits in my hands. On this certain day things were going really well. The touch but no grab rule was having a really beating but they were keeping the other rules. No running, inside voice, and stay by mommy. The no grabbing rule is hard because they want so baddly to help. They see me grab things and put them in the cart, so they try and grab things to put in the cart. They see me open a frezzer door, so they open up a frezzer door, etc. About 75 percent of the time I would say our shopping trips go realy well and this was one of those times. Good job my darlings!

Anytime we go to pick something up at the store the kids insist on making a pumpkin pit stop. We have to set aside at least 5-10 minutes for them to looks, touch, and explore. The rule is that you can touch as much as you want but no picking up. I have to often remind them of this rule, but on this day they had just recieved a batch of mega pumpkins. They were all way to huge for a toddler to even think about hefting. So it was nice to just let them enjoy themsleves.

Another big bonk for Alice. We were running around having a good time playing and Alce trips and cracks her head open. Blood everywhere. Derek was the first to her rescue and he ended up with blood on his hands, on his shirt, and on the carpet underneath him. Alice also had a fair amount of blood on her hands, face, and shirt. Luckily head wounds always look worse then they really are. When we finally got her cleaned up and the bleeding stopped the cut was only about an inch. A cute little bandaide was all we needed to make it all better. Geez, Alice, be more careful!

It's that time of year. Spooky, scary and a whole lot of fun. The kids love hide and seek with a firey passion. We play it all the time and for them it never gets old. Well I wanted to give it a little twist. I waited until dark, turned off all the lights inthe house and gave the seeker a red flashlight. Thus flash light hide and seek was born!The kids were loving it to bits and pieces. We must have played 20 rounds. Even though our house is only 2 bedrooms there are a lot of places to hide. There were a couple times where Derek and I had the kids stumped. When that happened we would make ghost noises until they could find us.Such a perfectly spooky Halloween activity. YAY!! 

Pumpking carving! We let the kids pick there own pumpkins and everything. Our whole family went with sort of a oval theme it seems. Then I asked the kids and they designed their own pumpkins. They picked the eyes, and expression, everything. Well almost everything. As much as they wanted to do it themselves I handled the carving. I also helped with the scooping. Alice didn't mind getting right in there but Jude was feeling a little hesitant. I got a big hunk of pumpkin goo and shoved it into his hands. Oh I got in trouble. He did not like that. So in penance I finished cleaning out the rest of his pumpkin for him. We were carving well into the night and by the time we finished it was the perfect time to light them up. The kids were so excited. Still everytime we go out the door they have to go and look at their pumpkins. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!