Halloween

Halloween was on a Monday this year. Meaning we had school!  My PE department all dressed up as superheroes. I was proud of them and the fact that only 1 person didn’t participate (grouchie butt Mr. Wade!)

We got home after school and work, ate some dinner and got ourselves ready to head to the Gerke’s for an evening of Trick-Or-Treating. Usually Halloween is pretty hot…but this year we finally got a chilly one.  So we were adding the layers of clothes under the costumes.

Harry needed his hair sprayed dark…and my little mermaids were cute as can be!

 

Picture time..its always a crazy moment.

Then we were off.  With it being on a Monday…we were all a bit tired. And the fact that we got SO much candy from our Trunk-or-Treating we made the night an early one…actually we got home the earliest we ever have.  We even got to hand out some candy ourselves (which is a first!)

And I loved seeing Owen and his buddy since birth Addi. We have spent a lot of Halloweens with them in Eastvale…and lots with our friends in Corona/Yorba Linda too!

 

Our Halloweens from the past…from the Cildermans Corona house to the Gerke’s in Eastvale, back with the Cildermans at their Yorba Linda house, and back to the Gerke’s Eastvale house. We bounce around!!

The more kids we have…the easier it is to stay close to home! lol  Maybe one of these years we’ll trick or treat around our own house…or maybe not. The kids like being with their friends…so we’ll do that as long as we can!

I love Halloween…and this year we had no parties or pressure to dress up BUT I did tell Yosh…I want to start being that parents that dress up with their kids to walk around trick-or-treating. I want our kids to know that just because you get old it doesn’t mean you should stop dressing up! You can be old, and cool and still enjoy the holiday!!!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!!

Pumpkins

I have mentioned a time or two how much I HATE carving pumpkins. People always say “but ERIN…you HAVE to carve pumpkins with your kids!!!!!” Aka you are a SHITTY mother if you don’t let your kids stand around while you work your ass off cleaning all the guts out, separating the seeds, baking them so they taste like cardboard and of course carving a funny/stupid face that they won’t really like anyway!  Judging me like crazy right:?!?  Well this year I WAS that shitty parent…not really because my kids LOVED decorating them with the thingies I got from Target!

Day before Halloween we had a LAZY day..it felt awesome. We watched tv and hung around in our jammies all day.

I was having some guilty feelings about really not wanting to carve pumpkins…remember I said it was a lazy day.  Then I remembered that I bought some decorating thingies from target…JUST IN CASE I didn’t want to carve. Yessssss. 
I busted those bad boys out and the kids were SO excited. They hate getting their hands dirty too…so these were a win/win!!

 

Pick a character…use the toothpicks and BAM…we have a cute pumpkin!!!!!

Kids were happy. Mommy was happy. It was a great experience for all!
#winning

#souzascampingfun–Chula Vista

 

One of our camping group of friends have done a Halloween Weekend camping for the last few years. They always talk about how great it is. Last year Maggie was too little to go…but we were invited and went this year.  I have never been to a campground when they have activities going on.  It was AMAZING. 

Look at all this fun stuff!!!

Its been a while since we had Sally out…it felt nice to be out to get some camping memories made. We were headed to the Chula Vista KOA campgrounds…about a 2 hour ride down past San Diego.

First activity after setting up, and realizing that one of Owen’s classmates was in the RV directly across from us (small world…and Owen was so excited!) was the bike decoration and parade activity….eh. The kids liked it.

This was my first camping trip were I could enjoy an adult beverage! We got the trailer when I was prego…and have been nursing up until last month….SO…it was nice to be “free” to drink what I wanted and when I wanted!!

On top of all the fun activities this weekend for the kids…the campground had an AWESOME general store (I felt like I was in a store in a hotel in Vegas)…they have a heated pool, playground, basketball courts, bike rentals, cabins (lots of cabins), bar, cafe and GREAT sites. Concrete and grass…YESSS!
But they also had these jumping pillows…the KIDS LOVED them! We made lots and lots of trips over to these pillows.

An activity that Owen was pumped for was some laser tag…it wasn’t the coolest thing every BUT the kids liked it. So thats all that matters!

Night 1 was fun…Ella was very excited that we decorated the trailer with some lights and halloween decorations.

Big group of people…so lots of fires pits.

Saturday we had to wake up early and get moving! The hayrides to the pumpkin patch were going to have a long wait. So breakfast…then Daddy stayed at the trailer while Maggie napped and I took the big kids to pick out pumpkins!

The hayride and pumpkin patch were fun. We had the option to carve pumpkins…I was praying the kids would say no BUT of course Ella wanted to carve. grrrr

‘'

Told the kids that they had to pick a pumpkin that they could carry back to the trailer…it was a long walk and we didn’t have a wagon or stroller or a Daddy to carry anything!

And carving would be cool….if THEY carved! But I cut the top off and they pretend to take the guts out…and then I’m left to carve a damn pumpkin.  NOT one of my favorite things to do! Kids were thirsty and hot…so we hustled through the carving and checked that off the Halloween checklist.

Miid-day brought the corn hole tournament. I’m not sure how many people were in it BUT a TON!!! It took a few hours.

We watched (I didn’t play…Yosh did). Kids had craft time.

Then my favorite part was to make tye-dye shirts for the kids!! Some of our friends have them from last year and I really wanted to make some for our kiddos too!!! Owen wanted to do his own. He picked the “bullseye” pattern…and did pretty darn good (with a little help from Mama)

Trying to get a picture of these sisters is near impossible. Maggie is ALWAYS on the go go go!

Then we had a HUUUUGGGGEEEEE potluck before getting the kids ready for some trunk-or-treating.
Its not easy to get this huge group organized. Our friend Kerri takes on the task of getting all the sites reserved and then assigning all the families items for the potluck. S’s were appetizers. And I went super easy for a few fruit trays and veggie trays. The food was awesome. And SO much of it.

It was one of the coolest things to get the kids dressed up for trunk-or-treating, parade around the campground and then get them going while it was still daylight out. That was pretty awesome. Ella LOVED it…there was nothing to be scared of!

Daddy stayed back and passed out candy from our trailer…

The kids got SO much candy. Owen and Ella both LOVED it. Maggie went to bed at her regular time…but the big kids got to stay up a little later.

Most of our friends stayed 3-4 nights…we did 2 nights…kinda the Souza norm. Next morning while Daddy was loading up we went on the barrel train rides around the campground. Again…kids LOVED it.

Owen rode with Catch (his friend from school) and Ella rode with Presley and Maybe (her new friends). They didn’t even KINDA wanna ride with mama….sad right?!? haha

Maggie girl LOVED it. She wanted to drive the thing!

We ended our time playing at the park before the rain moved it.

And it was a long, quiet ride home!! Best part about camping is the kids are BEAT when we get home!!

SO this has probably been my favorite camping trip so far!! The kids LOVED it so much…we are talking about it almost on a daily basis. Happy to hear we have been invited back for next year as well!!