Halloween, Piano Recital, and a Sick Baby

Annie had her first ever Piano Recital this weekend.  

Unfortunately, her Mom is a video camera idiot, so not only is this first video blurry, but I somehow (without my knowledge) didn't even RECORD the second song she played (a more difficult, "In the Jungle.")

Isaac, Ellie and Annie enjoying the refreshments afterwards.

Then pictures from yesterday, before Trick or Treating.

The weather could not have been more perfect, and the girls enjoyed over TWO HOURS of trick or treating last night!  (One hour in our neighborhood, then up to my parent's neighborhood for a spook alley and some more trick or treating.)  Poor Isaac though, never even got into his costume last night.  He's been so very, very sick (almost necessitating a hospital visit on Sunday, but fortunately, he finally stopped throwing up and we've been able to keep him hydrated since), and was down for a nap the first half of trick or treating, and was up screaming during the second half.  The kid is guzzling down the pedialyte (to the tune of about 50-80 ounces a day), and starting to eat a bit more, so amazingly he hasn't lost any weight.  (I was SHOCKED when we had him weighed at the doctor's today, that he hadn't lost anything since last Thursday when we had been there last . . . apparently pedialyte, crackers and bananas are somehow enough to keep him from wasting away.) Him staying the same weight is really saying something, when you realize that just from blow out diapers, we went through every last crib sheet we own between 5AM-8AM this morning; we're changing diapers 3-4 times an hour during his waking hours, and we've had two nights we've run out of clean pajamas . . . and that's with us doing about 3 large loads of laundry a day since Sunday.  It's been really heartbreaking to see him this sick, and I'm hoping the latest tests they are running at the hospital will get us some answers, but this may just be a case of a particularly nasty stomach bug we have to wait out.  It's been kinda funny to see him with a bottle -- the kid has never taken a bottle before, other than the one I cut the tip off of that I serve him his morning spinach smoothies in.  But suddenly, he's attached to one 24-7, and is drinking from a pedialyte filled bottle pretty much around the clock.  Watch, he'll end up attached to one at 16 months old and I'll have to wean him from it :-)
Isaac, Ellie and their two week old cousin Bailey were all supposed to be matching pumpkins for Halloween, but unfortunately Isaac never got dressed up and there's no way we're bringing a two week old anywhere near anyone at our house, so unfortunately we have no pictures this Halloween of the tiny trio.  Maybe we'll do a makeup photo session next week?

Pre-Halloween Festivities

Ellie had her first Preschool Halloween parade this week.

Rapunzel-Ellie behind her friend Kate.

 Ellie and Kate with Ms. Jenny

I helped plan Annie's Kindergarten Halloween Class party . . . which means I didn't take many pictures, 'cause I was kinda busy handing out cupcakes and whatnot.  The parade beforehand was interesting though -- I had two GRUMPY little kids to entertain while we waited FOREVER for the thing to start. Fortunately I'd enlisted both of my parents to come help me out -- my poor Dad walked Isaac around the entire party and I don't think that kid ever calmed down!

Here's grumpy-pants Ellie with Grandma Karine.

 Cinderella-Annie walking past during the parade.

 Ellie ate one of the black frosted cupcakes.

 Smith's takes their food coloring serious -- Annie ate as meticulously as she could, and still had her mouth and lips turn a bright purple color to match the frosting.

 

For Annie's party I'd come and taken 'Fall Pictures' of each of the kids in her class to use in the craft we did in class during the party (a picture frame).  Here's Annie's picture . . .

Annie and Ellie posing this week at bedtime -- Ellie in her 'So cute, it's scary' Halloween pajamas.

 The girls decided to be witches for our Neighborhood Fall Festival this week.  We didn't actually buy a single thing for Halloween this year, but using our large dress up chest, each girl has worn at least three different costumes so far this week.  :-)

Here's Annie and Ellie as witches -- Ellie was being the 'mean witch', and Annie was being the 'nice witch'.

 Isaac the pumpkin.

 The one and only picture of him not screaming with his hoodie on.  :-)

 There were a lot of carnival type games -- both Ellie and Isaac excelled at the 'frisbee toss' one . . . that's Isaac clapping for himself.  Then right after the picture was taken, he grabbed the last three frisbees, set them all in the basket and clapped again.  Yay for efficiency!

 My cute boys!

 Ellie with more sugar -- she was one happy girl!  :-)

 Our two witches, with their friends the fairies.

Ellie and Kate doing a dance of happiness outside on the way out to the cars; probably because of their bags of freshly gathered loot!

And right now, the girls are at a Costume Birthday Party, in matching Belle gowns . . . and we haven't even decided what they're wearing on Monday.  Is it just me, or does Halloween last awhile?  :-)

Halloween Comparisons

Isaac and Quinn here in the same and similar outfits -- except that five and half month old Quinn is wearing 0-3 month outfits and almost four month old Isaac is wearing 6 month ones :-)  I'm not exactly sure, but my guess is he's roughly double her size right now -- of course, he started out 8x her size at their birth weights, so she's catching up well!


Jessi suggested we take these pictures out again 16 years from now when they go to prom together ;-)




The rest of our Halloween pictures/post are here . . . I just posted these two posts back to back . . .

Season of Halloween

As a family, we attended two different Halloween parties.  We bailed on one we were invited to on Friday night (grumpy, overly tired children would've made it NO fun at all).  And Annie wasn't able to attend her Preschool Halloween party since it was the same morning we took Cody to the airport.  (Shhh!  Don't tell -- she doesn't know she missed anything there!)  On Saturday alone Annie had a costume Birthday party to attend and a costume Halloween party.  (Gotta love that my four year old has a significantly busier social calendar than I do!)  So, it was eventful, the kids got to wear costumes all week, and it really made it a fun, drawn out Halloween season!

Ellie as a ballerina with Daddy before going out Wednesday night.

I was really lazy about costumes for Isaac this year.  Like, REALLY lazy.  :-)  My Mom owns 3-4 that fit him, and I didn't go get them until Saturday night at 5:45PM.  He wore this little winter outfit with Tigger on it as his first 'costume' on Wednesday.

Annie and some of her friends.  This is one of four or five different dress up outfits Annie wore this week -- her actual costume was a "My Little Pony" outfit, but the rest of the week she'd rummage through her dress up clothes to get ready for parties!

Thursday night Isaac was again costume-less -- but he LOVED staring at his feet on these Halloween jammies.

Ellie as a ballerina again, Issac with Pumpkin Feet, Annie as Samantha from Bewitched -- with Grandpa KC

Pumpkin-butted Isaac with Grandma Ruth

Flying Ballerina!

Awww, Grandma kisses! So sweet!

Saturday night Isaac tried on his new hat (that Aunt Star gave him)

And it matched his Phantom onesie . . .

Annie in her My Little Pony outfit

Not so happy phantom . . .

This is Star and I trying to get my grumpy younger children to pose for a picture -- I love how Ellie is mid-flip-out-tantrum and Annie's' just grinning happily.

Isaac never cheered up for these pictures -- he was NOT a fan of his first ever Halloween costume.  Ellie was still pretty pissy too -- but I threatened a time out and a late start to Trick or Treating if she didn't smile for the next picture .  .  .

Taken approximately a second and a half after my last threat . . .

Grumpy Pumpkin with Mommy

Grandma and her little pumpkin

The girls out trick or treating.  Grandma Ruth and Grandpa KC came out to take them, since Greg had to work that night.  Aunt Star came to hang out with me while I passed out candy and took care of Isaac.

Star and I sat out on the front porch handing out candy, since the weather was pretty decent (when it wasn't raining).  We had Isaac bundled and in his Winnie the Pooh hat, and he fell asleep.  When it cooled off a bit more, I brought him in and laid him on the couch and had to get a picture of him all bundled up.

Then he woke up and freed himself and looked adorable in his chunkiness.

My happy ghost baby

Hyped up and happy going through their loot.

The Last of the Halloween Pictures. I Promise.

This was at our Ward Trunk or Treat party, Annie and Sarajayne were making the rounds with their Daddies.

Warming up inside with hot chocolate!

Ellie wanting more hot chocolate (Mom wasn't very nice and gave her a pretty empty cup.)

Ellie was much grumpier than Sarajayne's mellow little sister Kate.

Here's Ellie with some random bits of chocolate on her face.

An excited Annie (with a very smeared face painted star on her cheek).

On Halloween Day, we got together and made Haunted Gingerbread Houses. Uncle Cody, and his girlfriend Taylor, were devouring their roofs once they realized it wasn't staying on.
And Cody painted his face with black icing. He's odd like that.

Annie and I with our nearly completed Gingerbread House. Notice the ever growing gap between the two pieces of the roof. It finally slid off about 15 seconds after this picture was taken.
We all may have been a bit impatient in not letting the icing dry before we got to decorating . . .

Here's my girls right before we went out trick or treating! My two little pumpkins.

Annie and Aunt Talina swappin' attitude or something.

Out on the front porch waiting for our friends to come over!

Daddy and an excitedly surprised Ellie.

Ellie happily turned herself blue with this sucker for the next block or two.

Annie and Sarajayne going from house to house. I only have a few pictures of their friend Kian with them, because he was a real go getter and ran from door to door. The girls were a bit more laid back. Annie was practically a snail.

At Grandma's house later that evening, playing with Ellie's favorite Dracula doll.

Here's Annie on Halloween night when she finally fell asleep. With a ton of glow sticks brightly shining on her wrists. You could see the glow from outside her room in the hall.

So happy, and healthy looking. Amazing they both woke up just hours later with raging fevers!


Here they both are first thing in the morning on Sunday.
Ellie perked up really quickly, Annie looked like this for most of the morning and early afternoon. But now they're both really happy and hyper. As long as the tylenol is keeping their fevers below 102.5 or so.

Here they are on Monday morning. Ellie's rockin' some exceptionally good bedhead.

Happily playing the computer together.