Birthoween 2020

This meme perfectly sums up my brain since polls closed last night. I need a distraction, and I figure you do to, so now is the perfect time to blog about our most recent Birth-o-ween celebrations.

For those of you who are new to this blog, Birth-o-ween is the name for the mash up of Charlotte and Lydia's birthday and Halloween. It's not just confined to October 31st. It usually spreads over a few days before Halloween and even a few days after. 

Charlotte and Lydia turned 10 this year which is incredible to me. Have I really been a parent for a decade? That went fast (in retrospect, not in real time.)

I wanted to make sure we filmed the kids telling this joke while their ages lined up perfectly. So we did that on Monday night. 

Get it? Seven "ate" Nine.  Ha Ha Ha. 

Earlier on Monday I'd been cleaning up the house/putting away laundry while listening to the most recent episode of Baconsale. It started out normal enough, but as the episode went on I realized something out of the ordinary was going on. I found myself sitting on the bed listening with rapt attention. By the end of the show it was one of my favorite episodes ever. I loved it so much that I had Brandon listen to it with me that evening. He really liked it too. You can listen to it here. 

The first part of our week was fairly uneventful. Homeschool was feeling a little overwhelming - mostly because even after all these weeks I still wan't quite sure what was required of us each week. I said, "This calls for a chart!" And so I put this together really fast.  It has helped SOOOOOOOO much. 

Lydia has been extra crafty lately. She made lots of fun doll furniture. This is her oven. I like the dishtowel that she made out of a paper towel. 

I secretly took this picture of Charlotte and Veronica playing together. They were acting out some elaborate scenario with Veronica's "stuffies."

Here's more of Lydia's kitchen. 

AND she also has been making lots of clothes for her OMG Doll. She hand sewed three outfits. The doll is wearing one of the outfits and the other two are in the "shopping bags" Lydia made from paper. All the girls like to watch the Lalilu Channel on Youtube for doll craft ideas. I can't stand the narrator's voice, but I like how the show has inspired my kids so I guess it's worth recommending. 

This picture is to show all the kids eating pringles and making duck faces. But if you look closely you can see that Charlotteis wearing her roller skates. I'm honestly surprised all the kids aren't wearing skates in this picture. Because for a few days there it felt like they wer constantly e rolling all over the house. They were wearing skates during homeschool, wearing skates while they did the dinner dishes, and skating in front of the house all afternoon long. I was living in fear of getting my toes run over.

The first part of our week was pretty normal. Work for me and Brandon, therapy for Derrick, homeschool, symphony rehearsal, etc. 

Wednesday evening was the first deviation from the normal routine. I attended nearly 3 hours of training to be a registrar at the polls on election day. I'd called the county elections office back in August to volunteer to be a poll worker. They'd put me on a list of alternates and signed me up for training. Then about a week before training I was assigned a polling location. 

The training was long, but informative. All the voter records would be electronic this year so we were learning how to use special I-Pads to check voter status and to register them. Plus we were getting acquainted with the rules.  

The evening got me excited for election day.

It wasn't till about Thursday that I realized Birth-o-ween was that weekend and that I'd put a lot of things off until the last minute. I had A LOT to do. Here is my to do list on Thursday morning. 

Go to Work

Bake Charlotte and Lydia's cakes

Do Homeschool

Buy birthday wrapping paper and balloons. 

Buy black food coloring or fondant for Charlotte's cake

Buy white candy coating for Lydia's cake.

Buy fur for Lydia's costume

Sew the fur for Lydia's costume. 

Carve Pumpkins with the kids

With that list in mind I did what I often do when I'm super busy.

I got an idea for a blog post. 

Yes, in the shower that morning I had the excellent idea to write a post for East Idaho Mom's Blog with info about voting. Thanks to my training the night before the post basically wrote itself. I got out of the shower and messaged the website owner to find out if there would even be room for the post on Monday.  Then I jotted down the ideas for the post, got ready for work, and went about my day. 

I heard back from Gigi later that morning. Yes there would be room for the post. 

When I got home from work we mixed up the boxed cake mixes and started cooking Charlotte and Lydia's cakes. (Yes, they each got their own cake this year.) Charlotte wanted a dome shaped cake so we did an experiment and cooked hers in a bowl. It worked, but it took a long time. 

I didn't want to be running up and down the stairs trying to do homeschool and keep track of the cakes so I told the kids that we'd be staring school a little later than usual. I had something I HAD to write. The kids left me alone for about an hour and I banged out the post while getting up every few minutes to check on the cakes.  The cakes turned out great and so did the post. I went over it again in the evening and then sent it off. It was published on Monday November 2nd. Here it is.

With that unexpected inspiration out of the way I was able to focus on the other Birth-o-ween stuff. After we finished the day's homeschool stuff the kids and I ran some errands. Thursday is always our errand day. The kids all come with and hang out in the car while I run into each store. Sometimes different combos of kids come inside with me. 

First we went to Hobby Lobby. Lydia and Veronica came inside with me. We bought 1/3 of a yard of fur for Lydia's costume and black fondant for Charlotte's cake. Veronica bought a little stuffed animal dragon with her own money. 

Then we went to the dollar store and Derrick went in with me to pick out wrapping paper and balloons. 

Finally we dropped books off at the library (We coudn't go inside to pick new ones because rising COVID numbers made the library close again. They do curbside pickup, but I didn't have anything ordered and waiting.)

Finally we stopped at Smiths and Lydia and I ran inside to buy the candy coating. She saw rootbeer and reminded me that we needed that for her birthday. And we also grabbed toothpicks because Charlotte had told me in the car that she needed them for her pumpkin design.

And then we rushed back home. We walked into the house and I let out an audible sigh. The kitchen was a DISASTER. Our cake pans and bowls were everywhere. The breakfast and lunch dishes were still on the table and counter. There wasn't even a spot to set down the bags of things I'd just bought. 

I went to work cleaning the kitchen. Fortunately, my sister Emily called and we had a great conversation while I cleaned everything up and started making dinner. We are both so busy that it's nice to find time to chat. 

I made quesodillas for dinner because I didn't want any dinner dishes that night. When Brandon came home we ate really fast and then got to work carving pumpkins.

The kids were so excited to do this. They've each had their own pumpkins before, but this was the first year that all four pumpkins were from our garden. (The previous record was three in 2018.)

I'd picked up toothpicks for Charlotte so I had them on the table. Veronica saw them and started putting them into her pumpkin. She made a "hedgehog."

Charlotte and Lydia were both able to cut out the majority of their designs this year.  

Derrick drew a complicated smile. He wanted it to have teeth like his. He carefully felt the teeth in his mouth and then drew them onto his pumpkin. Brandon and I took turns cutting out his pumpkin's mouth. 

Charlotte had been pretty secretive about her pumpkin design. So I was very suprised when she turned it around and showed me the cat she'd created. I was very impressed by the eyes.  

The stem on Veronica's pumpkin fell off and she used it as a nose for her hedgehog.

This is Lydia's design.

Here's Veronica's in the dark.

And finally here is Derrick's. We kept saying it was a "scary pumpkin," but Derrick would correct us and say "No, its a HAPPY pumpkin."

It was dark outside by the time we were done carving. So I had the kids line up on the couch for our traditional picture. Veronica was pretending to be poked by her pumpkin.

Here are the pumpkins outside. 

And with the lights of.

Brandon and I put the kids to bed and then I disappeared into the basement to sew the fur for Lydia's costume. Thankfully it was a simple project. All I had to do was sew four seems for four "cuffs."

Friday was a BUSY BUSY day. I probably shouldn't have gone to work on Friday, but I was already planning to take Tuesday off so I wanted to get ahead of things for the next week. Plus it was the end of the month so I wanted to process any payments that came in. 

I came back home and realized we had so much to do. I was trying to upload some school work to Google Classwoom and it.was.not.working. Lydia was telling me she was bored and asking me if we could decorate her cake and I nearly lost it. Looking back, I can't really remember what was making me feel so stressed out, but in the moment I was definitely feeling some stress. 

We attempted some school and were able to check off most of the things on our chart. (Hooray for charts!)  Almost before I was ready it was time to get into costumes for an even with our Homeschool onsite program. I'd had the kids lay out their costumes on the couch earlier so it was pretty easy to get into costumes. 

Here's Charlotte in her witch costume. She was so proud of it. 

And here are all the kids. 

I wrote this on Facebook later about a different picture, but we'll put it here.

Its always so fun to help my kids with their costumes.

Veronica was so proud of her super creepy skeleton costume. I laugh every time I ser her because I can't believe a 7 year old girl is under that mask! She won my award for the easiest costume of the year.

Derrick loves his astronaut costume. The jumpsuit was size 4-6 so I had to do a lot of strategic adjustments to make it bigger, but it turned out great. There's a helmet too, but it was getting a crack repaired when we took the picture. He won the award for the most complicated costume.

Lydia wanted to be a werewolf, but we couldn't find any second hand costumes. We ended up using an old coat liner and buying a mask on Amazon. We bought 1/3 or a yard of fake fur for the forearms and legs. It turned out so cute. She won the award for the costume that seemed simple, but wasn't.

Charlotte wanted to be a pretty witch. We found the orange dress at Goodwill (with the other costumes) and added a black over skirt. Orange is her favorite color so she is in love with this costume. She won the award for keeping track of her accessories the best.

Our activity was a parade at two extended care living center. It was clear on the other side of town so it took a while to get there. When we arrived we were supposed to help color pictures to put on the residents windows. That was cute and all, but none of us had anticipated the weather. We'd started the week with a cold spell, but the last two days had been warm and sunny. The kids were all starting to sweat in their costumes.  Here's Derrick modeling his with the helmet down. 

And the helmet up.

He took his helmet off and put it on a window sill. A few minutes later it fell off the window sill and landed on the cement. The helmet visor cracked!  Derrick actually handled it really well. He didn't freak out or have a tantrum, but the cracked helmet definitely dampened his spirits. I told him Dad could glue it, and I carried it around the rest of the activity. 

Finaly it was time do our parade. I'd been hoping this would be a good replacement for the Halloween Parade the kids would have had at the elementary school, but this ended up being a sad imitation. We just kind of slowly wandered around the outside of the building. I would have been nice to have music or something. 

Here's a solo picture of Lydia. She loved her cuffs.

Here's Veronica. She wasn't smiling under that mask. In fact, she was probably in the early stages of heat stroke. That black costume was so hot. She ended up taking the whole costume off before we even walked over to the other building. 

We nearly left before we made it to the other building. But I told the kids if we stayed they would get some treats from the leaders. So they voted to stay. 

I think the treats were worth it, but we were so done with the whole event by the end. We were pretty happy to get back to the car. The kids were super thirsty and we had only a small amount of water in th car. Charlotte was telling me that we needed to always make sure the waterbottles in the car were full and I was telling her that I don't usually have to worry about that in the summer. 

I'd texted Brandon to see if we could drop the helmet of at work for him to glue with stuff there. We'd had a bit of miscommunication where he thought I was talking about fixing a bike helmet and he kept telling me that wasn't' recommended.  We both had a good laugh when he realized I'd been talking about the costume helmet. 

The drive back across town and to Brandon's work seemed to take extra long. We finally got there and dropped the helmet off. Then we went back home. I told the kids that I was taking a nap and that they could do whatever they wanted. 

I took a nap that was not nearly long enough. Then we had a quick dinner of Sloppy Joe's I'd made in the slow cooker. Almost as soon as we were done eating it was time to get back into costumes and head to our ward Trunk or Treat. 

I'd been of two minds about this Trunk or Treat ever since it was announced. I loath Trunk or Treats to begin with so doing one during a Pandemic just didn't seem like a good idea. But I wasn't sure what real Trick or Treating would be like during the pandemic either. I wanted the kids to have a chance to get candy and the Trunk or Treat might be their only chance. So we ended up going. 

And it actually ended up AWESOME!

The leaders had asked everyone to park one space apart from eachother and the bishobric was there early to help everyone park. The Bishop even parked his truck to block anyone from driving into the trunk or treat area unawares. Also I really appreciated that we were doing this at 6:00 PM when it was still light. The organized parking and the light really helped the Trunk or Treat feel safer than ones we've been to in other wards. 

Here are the kids right before they went around to the other cars. 

And here they are after.

Oh and there's a blurry Brandon in the back of this one. He'd come after he got off work.  

I wasn't dressed up, but I told someone, "I'm a hot mess - and it's not a costume."  I think I'm going to put that on a shirt and wear it every year. 

We went back home and the kids ate some of the candy. Then Brandon and I had them put it in bags and we hid it until after breakfast the next day. (We've learned from years past.)

The kids went to bed and Brandon and I stayed up working on the girls cakes. I've watched tons of How to Cake It videos with the girls so I felt like I knew a lot about working with fondant. But instead I ended up really scared to work with fondant. 

So Brandon told me to take care of Lydia's cake and he started working on Charlotte's cake. We worked on our separeate cakes for a little bit. Veronica started crying about something so I went into her room and sat on her bed until she fell asleep. I could hear Brandon using hte mixer and I imagined that he'd messed up the fondant and was trying to mix it again or something.  My tired brain imagined having to fix that cake as well as finish Lydia's. When I came out of Veronica's room I was shocked to find this perfect little cauldron on the table. Brandon had done it! 

I really should have just let Brandon do both cakes, because Lydia's didn't turn out as cute. But it had everything she'd asked for on it so she was still really happy with it. She'd specifically wanted a wolf cake so it would go with her wearwolf costume. 

Here's a close up of her cake. 

And a close up of Charlotte's Brandon had been mixing up more frosting so he could add the flames. I think we might use fondant for all of our cakes from now on. 

While Branodn finished up the cake I blew up balloons. I decided to surprise the girls by putting the balloons on their door. This ended up being more of a trick than a treat. I didn't know they were still awake. They both had to pee, but they didn't want to mess up the balloons. So they were kind of stuck in their room until they gave up and came out to use the bathroom at 3:00 AM.

I was so happy to go to bed that night. Brandon wanted to watch Sleepy Hollow so he put that on the laptop for us to watch in bed. I was asleep within the first 15 minutes. 

On Saturday morning I slept in and then stayed in bed for a while. All my stress from the day before was gone and it was just time to enjoy the twins birthday and Halloween. 

Here are the birthday cakes on display. Both girl were so excited for them. 

Here's Veronica showing off her "traffic light suckers." (She wasn't thrilled about the picture.)

Lydia wanted to pose with her cake and her costume. So we staged a picture.

And we did one with Charlotte too.

Brandon parents came up to see the girls. They've never been here on the girls actual birthday so they wanted to do that this year. We'd had plans to go to a local farm for a corn maze and haybale slides, but COVID nixed those plans. My plan B had been to go to the small pumpkin patch and corn maze we'd gone to last year. It wasn't as crowded so I figured it would be easier to social distance there. Well that plan got cancelled when that farm announced they'd run out pumpkins and were closing for the season.

Plan C was to go miniature golfing And that one didn't get cancelled. This actually worked out really well. Charlotte and Lydia were in a group with Steve and Jacque and Derrick and Veronica were with me and Brandon. 

We were anble to stay pretty close together the whole time. The kids had a blast doing this with their grandparents. 

Pizza Pie Cafe is right across from the mini golf place and I'd ordered pizza online. I'd scheduled it to be picked up at 12:00, and it was only 11:30 when we finished our golf. So we walked the half block or so over to the canyon rim.I keep forgetting how spoiled we are to have a view like this next to our town. 

Then we walked back, picked up the pizza, and headed back home. 

The pizza was great, but we realized that Oreo Pizza + Halloween Candy = no one wants cake. So we decided to skip cutting the cake and just sang Happy Birthday instead. (We'd get around to cuting the cake on Sunday.)  Then it was present time.

The girls got so many toys - there's been a OMG/LOL Doll population explosion in our house. I kind of went a little overboard on the presents. But I was feeling sad that COVID had cancelled so many things and I figured COVID couldn't cancel presents.

Steve and Jacque had to go back home to get ready for their trick or treaters so they left soon after presents. Brandon watched Beetlejuice with Derrick. Veronica played with her stuffies, Charlotte and Lydia played with all their new toys, and I took a nap. I was determined to be super lazy all afternoon to make up for all the craziness the day before. 

My friend Kaymie came over and gave the girls a present. We stood in the driveway and talked for a while. We decided to go over to my neighbor Diantha's and visit with her. It's been months since all three of us were together. 

Eventually it was evening. We were supposed to have mummy hotdogs for dinner, but that was too complicated so we just had hotdogs. I started setting up a treat area outside. 

I accidently had the camera facing me and I liked how I looked so I took a picture. (This is an improvement from my hot mess look the day before.)

Then the kids got into their costumes one last time. I put makeup on the girls and Charlotte wanted another picture with her cake/cauldron.

Here are all 4 trick or treaters. I still laugh when I see Veronica's costume. 

She's definitely a unique 7 year old girl. 

Here's Derrick showing off the repaired helmet. 

And Lydia posing as a werewolf. She was so excited it was a full moon because that went with her costume. 

Close up of Charlotte's make up.

Brandon took the kids and I stayed home to hand out candy. I'd set our table up close to the street so kids didn't have to come all the way up to our porch. The nigth was so nice, it felt like Halloween always did in the south. I was looking forward to sitting out side and greeting all the trick or treaters like I used to do in Texas and Alabama. 

I brought a book outside and was reading while I was waiting for kids to show up. An hour passed before the first group went by. And guess what, they were my own kids!

Brandon said that there were only about 3 other groups of trick or treaters out and about. But there were many people giving out candy. The kdis were reapping the rewards. He and Charlotte headed out for round two while the other three kids stayed home and started sorting.

Here's Lydia's loot all sorted out. 

Brandon and Charlotte came home to empty her bucket and then go out again. Lydia and Veroncia decided to go out again. Derrick decided to go to bed. I helped him go to bed and then went upstairs and answered the door for a few trick or treaters. 

Brandon and the girls came back around 9:00. They had so much candy! 

Like so much!

We stayed up a little bit longer, I had fun scrolling Facebook and Instagram looking at everyone's posts about costumes and celebrations. After such a devisive year it was nice to just see people having fun. 

Soon went to bed. It had been another great Birth-o-ween. Chartotte and Lydia said it was a perfect birthday. 

And guess what I realized. This 10 year mark is roughly the half way mark for having kids living at home. In another 10 years Charlotte and Lydia will be 20 and  Derrick will be 18. Veronica will be 17 and in her Jr year of high school. All that seems far away now, but I'm guessing it wont look so far away from the other side of the decade. 

I'm excited for all the great memories we will make over the next 10 years!

Thanks for reading.