The 7 days of Halloween.... or something like that.

This year Halloween was a lot of fun and lasted for several crazy days and a couple of insane nights as well!

Every year the big decision is what to be for Halloween. We usually start discussing it a couple of months ahead of time in case they want to be something really intricate. This year was pretty straight forward. We had a vampire, a witch (the mean kind), Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and a pirate.

Taylor decided she wanted to be a vampire pretty early on, so I whipped up a silky red vampire cape. Having the big stand up collar was an important part of the costume and the only thing she really requested. But she was also pretty happy to wear her fancy red dress since we don't go to a lot of occasions that require wearing a fancy red dress. We made the spiffy necklace out of an old brooch I have and a silver chain we had lying around. She made up lore about the necklace and how it was the reason she could go out in the daytime even though she was a vampire. Its just not Halloween without a little made up lore to go along with your costume!

Taylor practiced this scary stare for a long time, don't look too deeply into her eyes!

Olivia at first wanted to be a pirate, but then she saw a cute Dorothy costume in the Spirit store and decided that would be the ticket. Of course what sold it was for an accessory you could buy a basket complete with Toto. She almost changed her mind when I told her that we weren't getting the Toto basket...I'm not paying 15 dollars for a stuffed rat dog in a tiny little basket! After discussing it she decided she could use one of the animals we had at home and borrow a basket from Diane. I made the dress for her so it would be adjustable and fit over her coat if it was a cold Halloween. (It wasn't)

Dee Dee wanted to be a princess because she is always a princess, but then decided to be a witch... "a Scaywee witch!" So I reworked the dress I made last year for Olivia, bought a new hat and daddy painted her green so she could be a super terrifying witch.

Lucas was the hardest... he wanted to be a fireman, no- a policeman, no -a delivery man, no -a UPS guy. We finally found a pirate hat for cheap and told him he was going to be a pirate. At first he wasn't too sure about it, but he got on board the pirate ship after I bought him a pirate tattoo.... I hope he's always so easy to bribe:)

For the week before Halloween they wore whatever part of their costume that they wanted, but the first day of Halloween was on Oct 25th when we visited the:

Haunted Sorority House...

It was a dark and snowy day in the city of Boulder when the children ascended the steps to the haunted sorority house. Inside they found a chamber or horrors filled with pretty girls, games, crafts and worst of all... CANDY!

Every year the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house hosts a party for the kids that benefits a local charity. The kids always have a good time and this year was no exception. They had fun winning cupcakes, making bats and hammering golf tees into a pumpkin.

The second chance to dress up and have some Halloween fun occurred on Fri. October 30th. We attended the trick or treat street in Olde Town Arvada. This is one of my favorite events, all the kids are so cute dressed up in costume and the shops always have a lot of candy to hand out to all the ghouls and goblins who are out wandering around in the dark. Its a fun night for the parents, the kids and I think that most of the merchants enjoy it as well.

That same night we went to a Halloween party and enjoyed snacks, games, (including doughnut bobbing)(pirates really are cheaters), a haunted house and participated in a costume contest (we didn't win)

The next day was THE DAY.... Halloween! We went to another trick or treat Street in Denver at Highland's Square and showed off the costumes to friends in the neighborhood. Had we mustered up the stamina we probably could have easily visited a dozen different venues on Saturday. Lucky for the kids Chris and I were pretty much wiped out at that point! So we went home and took the traditional Halloween nap...its an important part of getting ready for Halloween night.

FINALLY we went trick or treating for real in our favorite neighborhood as soon as it got dark. It was a little cloudy, a little creepy and a whole lot of fun was had by all. The kids collected so much candy they complained about carrying their pumpkins and we were out long enough that the kids were begging to go home. At that point Chris felt like he had won a small but important victory in parenting:) It's always nice when you can end a fun evening with the kids being grateful to get in the car and go home.

I think I'm still a little exhausted from all the celebrating and I'm glad it's over but I can't help but wonder what costumes I'll be making next year...

School Snow Days

Wednesday and Thursday the kids heard those 2 sweet words of childhood, "SNOW DAY!!" Snow dumped over Denver and the surrounding area for 2 days making a wonderland filled with snow angels, snow balls and lots of sledding. It was a little too wet for snowmen, maybe we can do that next time:)





Even daddy had some fun:)

mmmm....Beer.....

So, today I woke up with the need to do something new and most importantly, not in the house. We got the kids ready to go, piled into the car and Chris said, "Where should we go?"

OK, planning isn't always our thing...

After some thought and a little driving around, I said, "lets go to Golden", we could always go to a museum or something. Up to Golden we drove, as we were passing the Coors plant it occurred to us that the brewery has a free tour and more importantly, free beer! Considering the Coors brewery isn't all that far away we've never done the tour.  The brewery fit the bill perfectly... something new and it wasn't at our house.

The Brewery is located basically in or at least near downtown Golden, right on Clear Creek... fresh mountain spring anyone? Tee Hee, actually they assured us they use water from a source deep in the mountains, under the plant. This water is only used for cooling...

The kids were pretty excited to go, when we told them what we were going to do.  It had all the elements of a fun time: It was up in the mountains (yes Golden is in the mountains and you better not tell my kids different... it saves me a bundle in gas not to have to go to an actual mountain town! LOL), we rode on a 'school bus' (Coors shuttle), we went in a big building, rode in an elevator and had soda... all the components needed for an adventure.

The tour is a self guided tour with a little device that tells one (uno, solo, solitary) person what is going on.. and you have to be over 12 to get one.  Oh, joy, only mommy and daddy got the fascinating device, leaving the kids to argue who got to help listen.  As a bonus, no matter how loud you try to make it, you have to hold it up to your ear to hear.  Luckily the babies lost interest pretty fast and the girls were pretty good about sharing when needed, after the initial volley of, "ME, NO ME, MY TURN!!!" it wasn't too bad.

We learned the history of the brewery and I found it interesting they make everything there. The beer, the bottles and the cans. You really do learn something new everyday.

A lot of the plant was shut down since it was Saturday. But there were still some interesting things. The copper vats where they cook the grains was my favorite. It looked like the innards of some alien ship. The shiny copper vats put out a lot of heat and it was a little humid as well. There was also a high tech control room to monitor everything... all alien ships need one!

 At the end of the tour we got to see some finished product ... for all of you who drink Coors Light, here it is coming off the line.

After about a half hour of looking around we found the lounge and enjoyed a fresh cold one... tasty...I had a Killian's Red.

The kids had soda and assured me that it was very yummy.  Lucas was convinced he had found paradise, a factory that makes 'soda', where you get to see how it's made and then drink some and then ride on a 'soda bus'... I'm still not sure what tour he took.

 

Dinosuars...Where?!? (Picture heavy, because I can)

Saturday dawned as a bit of a dreary day... clouds, slightly chilly and the threat of rain. Despite that, we decided to have an outing to the Denver Botanic Gardens, what with it being a free day and all. What we didn't know is the DBG had been invaded by Dinosaurs which made it way more fun than usual. (OK, its always fun for me... prehistoric creatures or no.) There was also a lot of construction, the parking lot was a big giant pit (literally... it was a hole in the ground surrounded by concrete) and the front entrance looked more like a disaster area than a metro spot of peace, beauty and tranquility. Luckily after oohing and ahhing at the crane,(the metal kind, not the feathered variety) preventing the kids from scaling the chain link fence and distracting them from staring at the construction workers while they tried to enjoy their lunch we made it inside the gardens where things were just as pretty and tranquil as they've ever been. Although my kids were able to take care of that pesky quiet, tranquil feeling:)

Right off we were greeted with hundreds of tulips in full bloom, as well as dozens of other blooming spring bulbs. All the bright colors immediately started to dispel some of the gloom of the day.

red tulips

grape hyacinths

fritillaria

scilla

pretty tulip

more tulips

dutch iris nestled in silver artemesia

daffodills

And there were spring blooming perennials showing their colors.

brunnera macroflora

drumstick primrose

pasque flower

aubretia

anemone

aspens with daffodils

evergreens in the oriental garden

The dinosaurs were made of some sort of colorful material and a few were quite large. Each was accompanied by a plaque that gave information about each dino. The kids were thrilled to run from statue to statue learning a little bit before they darted off again.

I'm not sure what kind of dinosaurs the above are... possibly sillious hammasaurus.

Above are my kids 'acting' scared... yeah they are going to be stage actors, there's no subtlety in their method at all.

there were even dinosaurs inside! As well as a lot of other pretty things. All in all the botanic gardens was a great way to light up a dreary day.