Halloween's a-comin'

We've had a busy week, mostly because Halloween is this month. Mondays are my laundry/cleaning/grocery shopping days, so they're not really fun for the kids. When Emilia was at school, I decided to spend some quality time with Mira. She wanted to build with legos and we made a house and a cake. She was very proud of her creations. (And she loves a good "cheese" smile these days.)

When we got bored with Legos, Mira grabbed my phone and wanted to take pictures.  So we got a little goofy.

On Tuesday, Emilia's class had a field trip to "Pumpkinland." We've gone there for the past two years as a family, so I knew it was a fun little place for the kids. Emilia wanted me to come with, so I volunteered to help. I told her teacher that I would have my two other girls, but I would be able to watch a couple extra. We were supposed to be at the school at 8:30am, but of course, I didn't make it there with the three of them until 8:45. Mrs. Miner had assigned me two other girls from Emilia's class, which was quite do-able, I thought. "Make sure you keep track of the kids," she tells us. The kids, including Emilia, loaded up on the bus at 9am, and I put the other two back in the car and we all drove up to Pumpkinland. Mira was not happy that she couldn't ride the bus with Yaya (Emilia). But I wrangled her in. Then, as soon as we get out of the car, she throws a fit again. But it's a screaming, nobody-can-understand-anything-at-that-pitch, type of melt down, and all the other mom's are there to witness it. I can't spend 10 minutes reasoning with her, because I have to go get the girls from the bus, because somehow everyone seemed to get there faster than me and Emilia and her friends are staring around wondering if I forgot about them. Mira, still screaming at the top of her lungs is going back and forth between pounding her fists on the ground in a tantrum and running after me, screaming that I'm leaving her. I finally get her to calm down as we're walking into Pumpkinland, but by now the two other girls are paying no attention to me. There is a short corn maze to start out the Pumpkinland experience, so we head in. About 3 minutes into the corn maze, my diaper bag starts sagging down and rubbing on the wheel of the stroller. I bend over and figure out a way to keep it from falling down again, and by the time I look up, the other two girls are gone. Disappeared. I look down every aisle and there is no sign of them. I'm calling their names. Nothing. Emilia's calling their names. Nothing. Great. I'm the mom who lost the only two kids she was in charge of. I run into Mrs. Miner, and she's really nice about it, but I can tell she's not going to trust me with kids on an outing ever again. We finally found them at the playground that's all the way at the other end of the park. Everybody is supposed to load up by 11, so at 10:40, I make them pick out their pumpkin and stand by the bus, so we can't lose anyone again. Emilia is riding home with me, so someone else can have the spot on the bus, so after the other two are loaded, I get my girls in the car. As I'm loading, two buses from another school pull into the parking lot. They are directly behind my car, but I can't wait for two buses worth of kids to load up and get settled before I leave, so I back out, slowly. Wham! I totally run into one of the buses. Turning around, I quickly pull forward, but I see two women giving me the "Oh wow!" look. I figure there is no way my car did any damage to a school bus, so to avoid any more humiliation, I just pull out of the parking lot. It's not until I pull into the gas station at Costco that I realize a plastic covering on the back of my car fell off somewhere. I drove back when I was done with errands and found it, thank goodness. But I am never volunteering to help with Emilia's class again. Not if I have to take the other two girls with me. Nope, not ever.

Emilia, Mira and other kids from Emilia's class by the giant pumpkin. This is before I lost the other girls.

Emilia and Mira in the smelly "petting zoo" area. They had fun.

For some reason, Tuesday afternoon, I randomly decided Mira needed to try potty training again. This torturous experience is just too traumatizing to put into words.  Therefore, I will skip to the part where Steve and I decided Friday morning that, for the sake of the sanity of our entire family, we will just have to try again another time.

This decision made our trip to "Barnyard Boo" Friday morning much easier on me. We've been to Barnyard Boo as a family for the last couple years, too. This time, we went with my mom, Megan and her kids, and Haylee and her kids.

Both my girls decided to be cats this year.  Emilia has decided that cats are the coolest animals ever, and Mira just wants to do everything Emilia does.

Their costumes were really easy.  Just all-black clothes. I painted their faces with inspiration from the face painting at Steve's work party a few weeks back.

 Emilia rode the pony, but Mira was having none of that.

 There are a couple buildings that resemble an old western main street.  One of them was called "Miss Kitty's Dance Hall."  I'm pretty sure Emilia really thought she and Mira were co-owners of said building.  Here is them dancing with Cari in the "dance hall."

 We did the wagon ride as well.  Here's a picture of Megan's brood.  She took a picture of mine, so I don't have it. :)

 They had a couple games set up that the kids could play.  I was a little disappointed.  In previous years, they had face painting and each game gave the kids a little prize.  No face painting or prizes this year.  Here's Emilia and Mira "boo-ling."

Then Saturday, we went to the zoo with Nick and Wilda.  We had a wonderful day.  They took us out for lunch at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries before heading up to the zoo.  They took Emilia and Mira on the carousel, and let them buy a souvenir before we headed home. Then, when we got back, they took us out for ice cream at Farr's Fresh, one of mine and Emilia's favorite ice cream places.  It was exhausting, but we had a great time spending the day with Grandma and "Bumpa" as Mira calls them. And we made it the whole day without any misadventures. Thank goodness!

The gorilla's were on the same level as us.  When one started walking toward Mira, she was so cute! She started crying and ran the other way.  She's no dummy! That guy was big!

Emilia didn't mind the big animals.

Mira really likes elephants. You can see one behind her.  They had a mommy, a daddy, and a baby elephant at our zoo.

Emilia was SO excited to sit by the big cats. There may or may not have been tears because someone else was on them when we got there.

Grandma with the girls.

Daddy and Mira. The only time they'll be taller than a giraffe. :)

A little hard to see, but there is a sea lion there behind us.

The grizzly bear didn't bother Mira nearly as much.  But he wasn't looking at her either.

Today, we had church, Nick and Wilda came for dinner, we Skyped with the Nelson cousins, and some friends/neighbors came over to play Dominion after the girls were in bed.  Life is pretty good.