Halloween 2012

I always have a deep aspiration to journal, blog, scrapbook, and really any form of archiving. However, as you can tell, I'm not very good at it. For a while now I've had this idea of pretty much a photo blog with captions. So I'm going to give that a shot. We'll see how it works out. 

First round of the photo blog... Halloween.

The Saturday before Halloween our church had their annual Trunk-or-Treat event. We went the the Morgan's and Miller's wards so the cousins could be together. As soon as we arrive Isabell sees someone in a scary masks and freaks out and won't leave the coat closet. I finally convinced her to come in the gym with me to go to another room (but really to show her that there was nothing scary in there) but she didn't believe me. It wasn't until Spencer explained that she couldn't do any of the games or go Trunk-or-Treating if we didn't stay. Then she decided that she wanted to stay. By this point she had freaked out Ellie and Ellie had her signature death-grip hold on Spencer and cried whenever she saw the doors to the gym. But that's ok because not long after being in the gym Isabell saw the mask again and didn't care about the candy anymore, she just wanted to get out of there!! 

We made a quick run to Safeway to get treats for the girls. Halloween isn't a holiday I'm too excited about so my girls being scared of it doesn't really bother me. At least that's what I thought until it was time that we DIDN'T go Trick-or-Treating. I was surprisingly bummed. I know in the end it was for the better, but it's always so cute to see them bounce up to the doors and say, "Trick-or-Treat." Oh well, they went Trick-or-Treating to Mom and Dad's three times that night. 

So in light of these recent events the Hunt Family thought they would start a new tradition of making caramel apples on Halloween. I think it went pretty well.

The girls before we left the house. Gotta love the Western Washington weather  where the costumes get covered up by rain jackets.

Caramel apples were done at Grandmama's house (Kim and Mark). This is Josh giving me a great pose for the camera. 

Sam and Isabell dancing to the 'Monster Mash' while waiting for the caramels to melt. (After this pictures get a little out of order.)

Isabell helping to unwrap the caramels. She's dressed up as Snow White. Dress and shoes were already in her dress-up trunk. Score for Mommy!

Ellie found something better to unwrap...

... a tootsie roll!

More dancing...

Ellie just wanted to sit on the floor.

Getting the sprinkles on that way was very hard. We decided next time we will put them on a plate and roll the apple in them.

Spencer said I was crazy for getting Oreos. That turned out to be everyone's favorite. 

Kim hates to waste anything. So this is the left over caramel, the left over peanuts, and the left over Oreo crumbs.

Lessons from Sleeping Beauty

Isabell is at it once again. Today she watched one of her favorite movies; Sleeping Beauty. Afterwards she felt the need to dress up in her Sleeping Beauty dress and shoes and has been running around the house calling herself Aurora. Well, about 20 minutes ago Peyton arrived at our house to spend the night. Instantly Isabell wanted him to play Prince Philip. Well, Peyton has been very into the Batman Beyond series so Isabell settled on him being Aqua Man. 

As I was cleaning the kitchen I started listening in on what Isabell was saying to Peyton. She was in the hallway bathroom and Peyton was leaving, so Isabell told him she wanted a kiss. After Peyton left I saw Isabell lean against the edge of the doorway, sigh, and look longingly after Peyton and saying in a soft romantic whisper (by the way, none of that was an exaggeration, that is EXACTLY as it happened), "He's so handsome. He's the handsomest super hero in the whole wide world." She then came out of the bathroom singing the song from Sleeping Beauty, "I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream." Then she came dancing into the kitchen and said, again in the romantic sighing voice, "Mama, I have the most handsomest super hero man in the whole wide world." Me- "And who is that?" Isabell-"Aqua Man" *big love striken sigh*

I later sad to Spencer, "We'll have one daughter who goes around yelling at everybody and probably beating them up and the other will be falling in love with every boy she sees." He responded, "I'll take the younger one. I'll just put her in a sport that will tire her out and she won't have energy to yell anymore."

I guess I shouldn't be too concerned because now they're playing The Three Little Pigs. 

She picks up so easily what she watches. She got Barbie and The Three Musketeers and for the next few days she kept fighting bad guys and punching and kicking the air. 

It's so cute but at the same time so scary to see my little girl so overtaken with love interests and romantic things. I will be in big trouble when she becomes a teenager. 

I Think I Wanna Marry You

"It's a beautiful night. We're looking for something dumb to do. Hey baby. I think I wanna marry you." 

This is a song by Bruno Mars. I first heard it when it appeared on Glee about a year ago. It's one of Isabell's favorites. She could sing it all even last year after listening to it over and over and over again. About a month ago I even heard her singing it while going to the bathroom.  

Well, from this song and the encouragement of Disney Princess movies Isabell has become obsessed with marrying and kissing. And who is the apple of her eye? Who does she want to be her Prince Charming? Her cousin Peyton of course!

She talks about it quite frequently. One time while Peyton was in the car with us, she asked Peyton if he would marry her. Peyton respectfully declined. However, Isabell refuses to take "No." as an answer. She replied with, "But I'm going to wear a pretty dress." while turning her head a little, putting her hands up to her cheeks and batting her eyelashes. (And no, that is not a joke. She actually did that.) And she actually  fluctuated her voice like Lucy does to Schroeder on the Peanuts cartoons. 

Last Wednesday all this talk finally became action. Peyton was over to spend the night. They were playing outside and I was getting ready to go to my Young Women's activity at church and all of a sudden Isabell comes inside and says, "Wahoo!! A wedding today! A wedding today!" I of course follow her to her bedroom to inquire about this statement.

 She replies, "I'm having my wedding today!"

Me- "Who are you getting married to?"

Isabell- "Peyton."

Me- "Why are you marrying Petyon?"

Isabell- "Because he's handsome. And he thinks I'm beautiful."

Then Isabell puts on her flower girl dress from Alesha's wedding.

Me- "Well, what you going to do after you're married?"

Isabell-" We're going to KISS!"

Me- (after smacking my face and shaking my head)- "What are you going to do after you kiss?"

Isabell- "We're going to dance."

Me-" And what are you going to do after you dance?"

Isabell, in a secretive whisper- "We're going to eat our wedding cake."

Well, at least this girl's got all the important parts down.

She then goes and tries to get Peyton to dress up in a Peter Pan/Robin Hood costume we have, but he wanted to pretend to be dressed up. 

Isabell in her dress.

Isabell trying to get Petyon to come and marry her.

Iz showing Petyon that she is in her wedding dress and is not playing Maria from the Nutcracker (they watched the Disney version and love to pretend play it.)

Isabell frustrated because Peyton doesn't want to marry her.

After some convincing, Isabell finally got Peyton to agree to marry her. And apparently in Isabell's weddings you just go straight to the kiss. No "I do's" or anything. The next few pictures are the kiss sequence.

And just like Isabell said, after they kissed they had their dance. 

I must say I was pretty impressed with this spin move by Peyton.

They however, did not have their cake and right after dancing both quickly moved on to something different and completely forgot about being married. This whole situation was so hilarious. For the most part I didn't even try not to laugh, because it was no use. The way Isabell says things, with the fluctuations in her voice and how she bats her eyelashes and all. I'm starting to think she is watching WAY too many princess movies. She's very into kissing right now. Today she was playing with her little people and married them and they kissed a lot. I'm not sure if I should get worried about it or just shrug my shoulders and say, "She's only a little kid." (And no, Spencer and I don't kiss a whole bunch in front of her.)

All of this does however bring memories back to my childhood. I have a cousin who is a year younger than me and when we were little my sisters and a few of our other older girl cousins were always trying to marry us. They loved to get us dressed up and put on a pretend wedding. Theirs however involved more than just the kiss. We usually had someone marrying us. If I remember correctly I was usually pretty easy to convince to take part in the scheme but it took a lot of convincing and forcing to get Nate to agree to it. 

I find it funny that the same thing is happening with my daughter. So I posted some pictures below of me and my cousin Nate at about the same age as Petyon and Isabell are right now. 

This is me and Nate playing in the sandbox at TumTum.

Giving me a night time hug before bed.

And here he is giving me a smooch on the cheek.

Two Peas in a Pod

That's exactly what Isabell and Ellie are. They fit so perfectly together. Isabell sometimes isn't the best morning person or just waking up from a nap person. Not sure where she got it (it couldn't be from her mother...). She'll be trying to cuddle with me all tired like, then Ellie hops into bed with us and just flops on Iz laughting and giving Iz kisses. At first Isabell is upset and pushes Ellie away. But Ellie persists and not long after Isabell is laughing and playing wrestling with Ellie.

Isabell is enjoying this game even if it doesn't look like it. Ellie would jump on her back then Is would fall backwards on the couch. Both enjoyed it very much.

It's so much fun to watch these two grow together. Even now they are dumping out toothpicks then putting them back one by one into the dispenser, all the while taking turns. How easily amused little kids can be. 

The both even have the same lifeless face while watching T.V.

The other day we were listening to Disney music. "What's This?" from A Nightmare Before Christmas came on and Isabell started running around the room going from place to place hiding from the scary song. Next thing I know Ellie is following her. Ellie was always in the last place that Isabell was; just laughing and having such a good time being exactly like her big sister. It's amazing to see how much Ellie looks to Isabell for unspoken advice, even though they are so young. You can almost always see her watching Isabell and seeing what she's doing and what Iz thinks of the situation to see how she should be acting. 

As always, there are ups with the downs; these two can get along just beautifully one moment and the next both are screaming at each other and crying. They help bring out the best AND the worst in each other. But all in all I love those two so much and enjoy watching them learn and grow together. And one of the sweetest things the do now is hold hands while walking. Ellie LOVES to hold Isabell's hand. If I'm caring her she will say "Walk. Hands" so I put her down and she runs to her sister and holds out her hand; usually Isabell grabs a hold of it with no problem and a "You want to hold my hand Ellie? Ok." Yesterday Iz had spend the night at Madison's house. While she was gone the first day Ellie kept asking, "Where Izzy at?" And when she woke up in the morning first thing that's what she said. Then we went to pick up Isabell from preschool and Ellie pushed her way through the crowd of parents to get to her sister and Isabell did the same. They gave each other a great big hug and then Iz grabbed a hold of Ellie's hand (grabbing her away from Parker) and walked out of the classroom. In the car she said to Ellie, "I missed you Ellie." "Mama, Ellie missed me to I know it."

Family Snow Day!!

It's the first time since I think Spencer and I have been married that our little family has had a snow day together. Usually he gets stuck at school and I'm down in Ony. We enjoyed it very much. I just wish the snow had gotten here a little earlier so all the Christmas lights could still be up. There's not much prettier than snow covered Christmas lights.

It was quite strange for Onalaska, (at least I think it was) at how quickly our snow accumulated. In just a half an hour on Sunday we had a good few inches.

Isabell was VERY excited to go play in it. She wanted to make a snow man and put a hat on his head so Frosty could come to life. We told her we didn't have a magic hat, but she kept insisting. Spencer was more than willing to do most of the work. He loves the snow and even went back to play in it after his run once it was almost dark.

Iz again kept insisting on a hat, so Papa came up with this.

So with a little work from Spencer, he used it to make a hat for our snowman.

We think it kinda looks like a train engineer hat. This is also Isabell dancing with the lucky Snowman while singing, "Frosty the Snowman".

After a while Ellie just liked eating it.

So I don't know if you've ever heard of the website called Pinterest. Tressa introduced me to it, and I LOVE it! It has everything under the sun. Random pictures, and mostly what I use it for, is ideas; Ideas from crafting, to parenting help, to hair ideas, workout, food, date nights, picture taking, and so much more. Well, I've seen a couple of pictures of things done in the snow and said,"I've got to try it." And for once in my life... I DID!!! And here are the pictures to prove it.

It's an upside down snowman. :)

And what I like to call, "A Car's car". From the Pixar Disney movie, Cars

And this is Ellie in her snow get-up. It was adorable watching her trudging through the snow.