Juliet Preschool Photos and Everyone Dresses Up for Halloween

Juliet got official preschool photos and I don't know what they do to make these so adorable but they get me every time with these. I looked back and I purchased all the older kids' three year old preschool pics as well.

Granted, they had some pretty good material to work with here but the fact that they can get three year olds to cheerfully pose like this is nothing short of amazing.

Especially when her regular pose for photos is more like this:

Fun Juliet quote from the other day: Juliet, "Is it still raining?" Me, "Yes." Juliet, "Awwww, I'm TWAMATIZED!" It took a minute for me to realize that my three year old had used the term traumatized, used it correctly, and that I had definitely taught this to her. 

Also, we were at a park a few weeks ago and a little boy started throwing wood chips in her general direction. She yelled, "STOP! I like to be fashionable, not messy!" It worked - I think the boy was mostly just confused but he stopped throwing wood chips. 

We have been going nuts on testing out new games in October. Most were Christmas themed games, which is funny to do with Halloween decor all around us, but it was worth it because Eleanor really likes Sleeping Queens 2 so I have a new game that she actually wants to play with me!

And I got Nathan Long Shot: The Dice Game for his birthday and he's much better at it than me so that's nice too. 

My dad had Juliet hang out for lunch after one of their weekly outings and he got to discover how my children like to take off their clothes and once they realize they're cold they just want blankets and the clothes are still optional. She's in her undies being read a book, which we just call living the life!

We made it to the High School Homecoming parade at the school because I had scheduled flu shots for the kids that afternoon and needed to be there a little early to pick them up anyway. Juliet loved cuddling with Eleanor while watching the parade.

Eleanor has started agreeing to matching clothes with me from time to time and I'm trying not to make a big deal over it but I love it SO MUCH.

My parents wanted to take the older two kids to Worlds of Fun on a Friday evening when we usually have family dinner. So Nathan and I decided to take the younger two to Dave & Buster's!

Patrick made a friend and played a Minecraft game with him on repeat.

Hungry Hippos

We had a fabulous time!

The older two started out strong with my folks but then the lines got really long and things got cold and scary. They have quite the Halloween setup for the month of October. 

So they just got in two real rides. Oh well. It was worth a try!

The next day was Nathan's birthday and the day started out strong with Bradley cuddles. I don't know who is happier in this photo. 

Eleanor had a girl scout event so we spent most of the day together. 

It was called Girl Fest and it had a ton of booths and was much more of a big deal than I thought it would be.

This is a pacing car for Nascar. Guess who was a terrible example and honked the horn and then all the little Girl Scouts who followed her copied her? Hilarious. Honestly, what do they expect when they have a car for the kids to sit in? It's the only button in the car that really matters when the car is off!

Burns & McDonnell booth

This was probably our favorite booth. We had fun building together!

We got back in time for me to head out for a fancy birthday dinner with my sweetie. 

And Bradley read to sweet Juliet for bedtime. 

Shopping with Juliet is a bit of an experience now. She has realized that hiding in clothes stacks is the most fun ever. 

We boo'd eight friends' houses that evening. It's basically a ding-dong-ditch with candy and I think it's the best new Halloween tradition ever. We drive around and each kid gets to hop out and do the honors when we're at their friend's house. Juliet was quite insistent on helping but got a bit overly excited and ran away early at Ava's house so she wouldn't be caught. She actually tried to run around the side of the house instead of back into the car, we had to yell to get her to come back to us. Patrick was hanging out the side of the front seat of the car with the door still open when we drove away from Mabel's house because he ran back to the bag after he had already rung the doorbell in order to remove an item that would give away it was him. However, by doing so he ensured that Mabel would make it to the door in time to see that it was him and we drove away. Ah well. I made sure all the kids knew that it was okay to get caught, people were happy to get candy.

Eleanor had a Girl Scout overnight campout because her troop does awesome activities on a regular basis. Here she is getting a piggy back ride from her friend Faith who is in her Halloween costume. 

A stargazing badge was earned!

Fun ice cream cone s'mores type dessert at the campfire! 

Apparently the cabin wasn't very well insulated and it got very cold that night. Fortunately I helped Eleanor pack up a ton of blankets and warm clothes so she was able to take care of herself and help out a couple friends who were cold. 

Some of the crew the next morning! I love the girl scouts but they were crazy hyped up the entire time I was there the evening before and I wasn't exactly heartbroken that I didn't get to spend the night. 

I went home because ... Nathan had gallbladder surgery the next day! It all went smoothly but apparently he had quite a few large gallstones so it was very good he had the gallbladder removed. We're hoping this helps make him feel quite a bit better. Food hasn't been kind to him for the past while. Although the doctors keep mentioning that he should improve his diet to help with these things and I perhaps get a little vehement about how he already has a good diet and maybe they should just help fix whatever is wrong with his body. I'm a delight at these appointments. 

I left a healing Nathan at home on his own for a few hours the next day while I took Eleanor to meet up with a friend at the Louisburg Cider Mill fall festival. Was it questionable to leave him? It might have been, but the other kids just played around on tablets and watched some shows so I don't think it was too terrible. 

Eleanor and her friend Cate had a rather lovely time, especially when I sent them with some cash to buy whatever popcorn they wanted and they came back with this.

Successful conquering of the corn maze!

Nathan worked from home on Monday and Layla would like to say that she hopes he continues to have non-essential internal organs removed if it means she gets these cuddles on a more regular basis. 

I kept Bradley home from school because he seemed to have a really bad cough but then he sounded a lot better by lunch time so I took him with me and Juliet on a Costco errand. We kept things calm and classy. 

Robotics practice the next day! Eleanor has been loving being on the team and is quite the coder despite being younger than everyone else. It's also been some great Grandma time for her. 

It's been a gorgeous fall. So much fun outside time.

Nathan had moved up his gallbladder surgery so we could attend a memorial service for his cousin Bree's husband the following Friday. It was in Omaha so we made a day trip. Many thanks to my parents for watching Juliet for the day and for picking up the kids after school and taking care of everything until we got home late that night. Patrick loves weaving and I've been getting lots of cute little hot pads these days whenever he has some time to work on a project at Grandma and Grandpa's.

And they were able to take the kids to their neighborhood fall festival, which was so great. Patrick actually ended up being picked up by his friend Timmy's family to go to Urban Air and Juliet almost got herself invited along because she loves Timmy's dad and begged to go. However, the grandparents wisely decided she should stay with them and check out the Lionsgate fall festival. And despite the appearance of the photo below, she had a lovely time. 

Boy buddies together!

So it was nice to know the kids were in good hands while we were at the memorial service. Bree's husband was 33 when he died from a brain tumor and it was a rough funeral to attend, but it was really good to be there. 

We also got to see Britney, Bree's sister, and meet Britney's husband. We had been talking a lot about being gone for this funeral so we had some interesting conversations with Juliet before our trip. 

Juliet: Can you hold me when you die so I can be alive and see heaven?

Me: ... sure.

Juliet: And can I hold your bones in heaven?

This is very different and a more analytical approach than I'm used to when the kids talk about the prospect of me or Nathan dying. 

After the memorial service and the reception we went up to Fremont to have dinner with my Uncle Ray and Aunt Myrna. It was really great to see them too. Nebraska isn't so far away, I can't believe we haven't been able to make it up more often. Well I mean, I can, the schedule and logistics involved with small children is a lot sometimes. But I'm really glad we got to go. 

Then we had a pretty lovely family weekend around sports and other commitments. Patrick and I love playing Bandido together and had a very impressive game. 

Layla helped us play Dragonwood. 

And we had a really fun game night with our friends the Watts. I have a company that keeps sending me free games, it's a good deal. 

And in funny news, Diana sent me a box of books and I accidentally thought this was the box for the kids so I had them pose with the box and took a video of them opening it.

Eleanor was not amused to discover it was full of Agatha Christie books for me.

We spent a warm and very windy Sunday morning on a family outing to the Lousiburg Cider Mill. Eleanor didn't mind going back a second time. She was also the one who insisted on a kid picture in front of the How Tall This Fall sign.

Juliet wanted a bonus picture.

We had donuts for breakfast, like the champions we are! A few days later Juliet suggested that we get donuts again and I told her I thought we already had had enough donuts. She said, "What if we got donuts and I ate the ones you don't like?" I said, "I have bad news for you ... I like every donut." Juliet got a big smile on her face and growled at me in response. She followed this up by proudly telling me about all the boogers she ate at school. This information was freely offered, shockingly enough I didn't have any booger related questions for her leading up to this. I love this child but I live in terror. 

Nathan and I had a lovely chat time while the kids played sweetly in the corn crib. Then I went over to check on them and discovered as I was taking this picture that they were entertaining themselves by putting as much corn as possible in Patrick's ear. I tried to remain calm as I told the children "nonononononono" and we're reasonably sure all the corn was removed.

Girl picture on the wagon ride.

Happy and cute boys. Please note Patrick is in my sweatshirt because we thought it was going to be a bit warmer at the cider mill than it ended up being. 

Juliet demanded that Nathan go down the big slide on the hill with her and he obliged. 

Then I asked her if she wanted me to help her on the little obstacle course and she said, "NO, I want Dada!" and he couldn't get over there fast enough and had a big grin on his face as he walked around with her. She is at times selective with her preferred person but oh the honor of being the one selected to be worthy of her favor!

The whole crew walking around together. 

They have a fun tire swing. It's huge and the best way to ride it is certainly from the inside. 

I do love how these kids just gravitate towards each other wherever we go. They all had free reign to run about as they pleased but the boys were excited to join the girls on the swing. 

Oh Patrick.

We conquered the corn maze! I credit our success to Patrick picking up giant corn stalks and trying to harvest any corn he could find. He had an armload of precious items by the time we left the corn maze. 

Family picture for the day!

The kids all loved posing at the different photo op spots.

Juliet being strong!

Patrick managed to ring the bell on the mid-level one of these. The boy is strong. And he will do anything on repeat until he masters the skill.

Juliet had made many requests to get to boo her friend Caroline so I coordinated a play date and we did a sneaky boo bag and ran away before walking back up to the door for the play date. Check out Juliet's face right before we did the booing. 

Nathan left on a work trip so I had a movie night with the kids and we watched Carmen Sandiego. I had decided it would be my Halloween costume when we were invited to a costume party and none of the kids knew who she was. There's a new Netflix show about her and it's pretty cute! It's been fun watching it. Layla likes family tv time ever so much. 

Juliet went to Deanna Rose Pumpkin Hollow with her grandpa and ran into her friend Juni from preschool!

Juni's mom took a cute photo of Juliet and my dad together. These Monday mornings they spend together are so cute and fun. 

Dance party that evening!

I tried to get the kids in bed in good time but it's really difficult to bust up adorable children playing sweetly together. 

The only thing that helps is when bedtime involves another cute sibling activity. Patrick wrote a rather epic story called "The Smoke Jumper" and he's been reading it to Juliet most nights before bed. She's a big fan, as well she should be. It's very exciting and there's a lot of good info about how fire can become hot lava and vice versa. And he worked so hard on this book and is so proud, I'm really glad he's found a good fanbase for his book! 

Nathan came home from his trip and was delighted to have a bunny helper the next evening as he helped cook dinner! Yes, this is Juliet's Halloween costume. She wears it a lot. 

Fun story: I got a last minute Halloween costume option for Eleanor and she ended up loving it. It's a Hocus Pocus witch costume. She had been asking to be a cat but wanted a new cat print dress that I felt was in questionable taste. I felt bad about not getting her a new outfit though and spotted this at Target on a Thursday afternoon (three days before Halloween) and thought it looked like something she would like. That evening she was trying on her old cat costume and it was both scratchy and definitely too small. She had been resistant to a non cat costume when I told her I had gotten her something else and I said, "Listen, this is from a movie that you like and I think it's trendy cool and cute. Can you just try it on?" She sighed and agreed and a couple minutes later came out of her room doing fun poses with her cool sleeves and I knew it was a win. She wore it to piano that night, she wore it to school the next day, and she wore it for all the parties over the course of the weekend. It was so fun to have something she really liked! And the boys didn't exactly suffer - because both the girls got new Halloween costumes this year and they were wearing repeat costumes they each got to have a big pack of the Halloween booster decks of Pokemon cards we had gotten. They were thrilled. A win for everyone!

I got to take Juliet to the Deanna Rose Pumpkin Hollow fall festival on my own that Friday. She loved the area where she could jump around on logs and hang out with goats. 

She also loves her friend Aria. We went with with a couple of MOPS friends and it was lovely. 

We spent the afternoon at the elementary school for class parties. She was very popular. 

I don't know who was happier about her being there - her or Eleanor. 

She walked with Eleanor and Ava in the all-school Halloween parade. 

Patrick in the parade.

And sweet Bradley. 

I ran a rather chaotic game of On a Scale of One to T-Rex in Patrick's classroom, which was cute and very loud. Then we had a nice evening at my folks' house before going to the school fun run. Because there weren't enough activities already on Halloween weekend ...

Bradley's new absolute favorite activity is having his grandpa spray whipped cream directly into his mouth as part of dessert.

Patrick had his final soccer game of the season and the whole team got medals!

Patrick crawled up on all fours to his coach to get his trophy, prompting other children to do the same. Then he insisted on biting his medal, prompting other children to do the same. Is this what it feels like to have a child who is a natural leader? Yay ...

They even made personalized cookies for the kids. Suburbia is so fancy. 

And in an act I can only call a spell of madness, I invited 10 kids over to watch Hocus Pocus 2 at our house that afternoon. They came. It actually went better than expected because every time they got a little squirrely we gave them a new round of snacks during the movie and we let the very active 2nd graders know that they were welcome to run around and play instead of watching the movie but that meant they would have to play outside in the front of the house and honestly they would probably just go home at that point. Kids these days - how is it hard to sit still for a movie?? Our kids were little zombies and were delighted to watch the movie. 

Juliet loved cuddling up with our neighbor Harper. 

Then it was madness and chaos after the movie and the 2nd graders invented some sort of version of tag where they all ran around with sticks and found hiding spots and were all over the hill in our backyard. I think monsters were involved? They were SO happy. And everyone loved the giant leaf pile in the front. 

There were eight second graders at the movie party and Eleanor got to have her friend Ava over and Bradley had his friend Noah. It was a lot but it was so fun. 

And after all that, it was time for the Halloween costume party! 

We went over to the Neil's house, we met them through the boys playing basketball together and now Xavier does robotics with Bradley as well and they are very good buddies. Nathan really enjoys Jayson, the dad. 

And I mean, it was a super fancy party! They had blood bags filled with juice punch. 

Many festive treats!

We very much approved. 

Carmen Sandiego with her Bavarian cutie!

We squeezed in carving pumpkins in the midst of Sunday activities. Halloween is a jam-packed weekend when you have young kids! 

And by "we carved pumpkins" I mean "Nathan carved pumpkins." I happily had nothing to do with this besides getting the pumpkins to carve and then taking a few photos of the team at work.

Yes, there was actual happy screaming taking place during this photo. 

Kitty pumpkin!

All the pumpkins. Kitty (Eleanor), bunny (Juliet), Among Us character (Patrick), Pikachu (Bradley).

And we spent the afternoon at the church trunk or treat! Nathan ended up with the girls and I ran around with the boys. 

The girls were delighted to find the face painting booth.

Juliet got little pink lines by her face. We left them on for two days after this because she cried when we suggested washing them off. 

They found Juliet's friend Caroline earlier in the afternoon!

Meanwhile, I discovered that I was expected to dole out the chili I had made as part of the chili competition. I made a very nice recipe I found online and was positively astounded by the number of grown men who complained that there were carrots in it. I had to give a number of mom lectures about how the carrots all tasted like the meat they were cooked with and dear goodness it's just one carrot with a bunch of meat and beans and surely it won't kill you. I made a lot of friends. 

Meanwhile, the girls got candy!

They even won some big prizes at a trunk that did fair type games. 

Juliet also legitimately won this prize! We were so impressed!

Meanwhile, the boys ran around causing some chaos. I had some early time where I got to follow them around and take pictures before the chili job responsibilities took over. Little Aaron, then pastor's son, had the same costume as Bradley and they were both so excited about this. 

And I don't know what came over Patrick but he got excited and growly and in the face of our friend Jordan who was making balloon animals. 

Bradley with a candy apple. He sure looked cute in his costume. 

The next day Eleanor had a Girl Scout trunk or treat, which I refused to go to because if you go you're required to decorate your car for trunk or treat and it took place right before the trick or treating is supposed to start happening on Halloween night. However, lucky for her she has friends and I sent her with her buddy Faith. This was her friend crew from her troop for the trunk or treat. I know she looks like a shrimp in this picture - the girls are all taller than her and I think the parking lot is at an incline and she was at the bottom end of it. Regardless, she looks teeny tiny in this photo. 

Then she raced home, ate some pizza, and we got the crew ready to go trick or treating!

I wanted a picture of just me in my costume. But the boys happened. How are they so cute when they're naughty? 

Nathan took the kids around trick-or-treating while I stayed home and handed out candy. There's a house down the street that goes all out for Halloween with skeleton decor so Nathan had the kids pose afraid in front of it. 

They picked up Patrick's friend Oakley as they ran around the neighborhood. 

It was a warm night and everyone had a marvelous evening. 

It was nice to see so many smiley faces. 

Eleanor ended up going around the neighborhood on her own with her friend Faith, Bradley and Juliet came home and watched Scooby-Doo episodes with me, and Nathan took Patrick over to his friend Timmy's house to check out their beyond amazing Halloween display. 

Halloween is a lot of activities and work with young kids but it's just getting more and more fun and I think this was our happiest Halloween yet.