Hallowtide

I saw Jim Gaffigan say somewhere, "When did October 31st become the last day of Halloween?" So true! On the Friday before, I took Maggie and Betsy to a little preschool Halloween carnival at our town's community center. Claire's school had a Trunk or Treat event after her last soccer game that evening. 

We spent the weekend jumping in leaves and carving pumpkins. Never again will we let each child pick out a pumpkin to carve! Well, at least not until they're old enough to actually help. Claire and Maggie kept talking about getting Halloween decorations, but thankfully were content with one $3 package of fake spider webs this year. 

On the actual holiday, Claire got to wear her costume to school for the kindergarten Halloween party, while Betsy and Maggie were invited to wear theirs to music class. 

We had our second annual "spooky dinner" before trick-or-treating. The mummy hot dogs and skeleton veggie tray were a big hit. 

But the mummy apple slices could use a bit of work. Trying a different fruit idea next year! I also branched out by making these jack-o-lantern smoothies, which will not be appearing on the menu again. Way too labor intensive (I used melted chocolate to paint the jack-o-lantern faces on each cup) and, of course, my kids barely drank any (they were orange banana flavored). 

Claire and Maggie rejected all of my family costume ideas (Peter Pan, Charlotte's Web, the Ingalls family) because they really wanted to dress up as Skye and Everest, the two girls dogs on Paw Patrol. I wasn't quite willing to let the themed costume tradition die yet though, so we rolled with it. Betsy was a member of the kitty catastrophe crew, perfect for our mischievous toddler. Apparently there's an episode in which the Paw Patrol save a walrus and his pregnant wife, the inspiration for the adult costumes. We found the walrus hats on Etsy and the girls' outfits at Target. 

We trick or treated at about a dozen houses and then the girls were happy to pass out candy at home for a little bit before bed. A successful Halloween in the books! Although, if you're Catholic, you've still got two special days to celebrate. We all went to the School Mass first thing Wednesday morning for All Saints Day. That evening, we gathered all of our saint icons and statues onto our prayer table and sang a litany of saints. We went to Mass again on All Souls Day and got a beautiful candle blessed. That evening, we looked at pictures of our relatives who've passed away and prayed for the repose of their souls. I like to think the fact that our kids are named after saints and relatives help make these two holy days more meaningful for them at such a young age. 

Lent & Easter

Let's back it up all the way to Fat Tuesday, when I made crawfish etouffee and king cake. 

And then Ash Wednesday, when I made lentil soup and soft pretzels. 

We also celebrated the Annunciation with waffles for dinner. (I added more whipped cream after taking this picture, ha!)

The first half of March was dominated by Claire's birthday and the second half of March was taken over by a peg doll painting project. A group of friends from church got together to make a last supper scene, along with the three Marys who found Jesus' empty tomb. 

I was assigned St. Andrew and St. Mary Magdalene. I got an HBO subscription to watch Big Little Lies and The Young Pope while I spent many evening hours painting these guys.

 

The finished product! When we got together on Palm Sunday afternoon for the exchange party, I told Adam I would be back in like two hours, around 3:00 pm....and I actually got home at 6:15. He knows by now to add a couple hours to whatever time I give him when I'm going out with friends!

The first week of April, Claire was off from preschool and catechesis on spring break. The highlight of the week was going to see the famed cherry trees at the University of Washington. We went on a whim on a rare sunny afternoon and I am still so surprised that the whole outing went so well. Visitor parking was very far away from the quad, I didn't bring the double stroller, and I didn't know exactly how to get to the quad. The quad was much more crowded that I was expecting, so it was challenging to keep an eye on all three girls running around while pushing an empty stroller and trying to snap pictures. I kept thinking that at some point things were going to go south (would I remember where we parked? would Claire be able to walk up the big hill to the parking lot?) but strangely they never did. It was a great afternoon, except for the nagging worry that things were going to go terribly wrong at any minute...



On Holy Thursday, Claire and Maggie had their last little dance and gymnastics class of the year. They just did the two middle sessions, from mid-November to mid-April. I know they will miss going, but I will not miss having a late afternoon activity that requires me to have dinner ready to go beforehand. Parents watched the gymnastics portion from a second story viewing area above the gym - Betsy wanted to climb down the stairs so very, very much and it was quite challenging to prevent her from doing so. Claire liked the gymnastics portion better, while Maggie preferred dance. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in the future! Next school year, I'm hoping to put them in more formal swimming lessons - they enjoy the summer lessons at the local pool, but I think they'll need something more structured to really be able to swim independently anytime soon.

I made hot cross buns for breakfast on Good Friday. We dyed eggs when my parents arrived that afternoon. We had movie night that evening, enjoying pizza and The Miracle Maker.





We finished our traditional confetti eggs on Saturday morning, except we fill them with Fruity Pebbles instead.



And then we spent a sunny afternoon at the zoo, along with the rest of Seattle.







Easter baskets all set up! The girls each got an Easter book, a stuffed animal, and something from the Janod (a French toy company) sale on Amazon - pull along ducks for Betsy and circus and farm story boxes for Claire and Maggie.



We were thrilled to have made it through Easter Sunday Mass in one piece, with a very active 14-month-old and Adam helping out the children's choir.



The girls' dresses are from Janie & Jack and mine is from Kohl's. I can't believe we actually got a family picture with everyone looking at the camera!







 

Hunting for eggs back home, getting all the grown-ups with confetti, and enjoying lots of candy.

 



For Easter lunch, I pretty much copied the menu at Mel's Kitchen Cafe - sweet baked ham, cheesy potatoes, roasted asparagus, honey lime fruit salad, and carrot cake. We are still enjoying the leftovers, which is awesome, because after dinner tonight I am going to pick up my sister from the airport!

Advent & Christmas

Finally getting this up on the eleventh day of Christmas!

We're going way back to the first Saturday in December, when we went to our town's annual tree lighting. Before bed, Claire and Maggie put their letters to St. Nicholas out by their shoes. 

The next morning, they found that he'd left some candy and Christmas books! We celebrated St. Nicholas Day a few days early because of our trip to Florida. 

 

Sunday evening, I took Claire and Maggie to see the Nutcracker. We went to a special one-hour kids' performance with my friend, Libby, and her daughter, Paige. 

The girls really love that the dancers come out to meet their fans after the show. They were so excited to meet Clara and the Nutcracker Prince!

The last weekend of Advent was equally eventful. On Friday night, Adam and I had dinner at our favorite French restaurant, Le Pichet, and went to see Handel's Messiah at the Symphony. We'd seen the PNB Nutcracker two years in a row - the last year of the Maurice Sendak version and the first year of Ian Falconer's - so this was a good change of pace. It was was actually our first time seeing Handel's Messiah and it was even more beautiful than we'd expected. 

I spent many hours watching The Crown and the Gilmore Girls revival while painting twenty angels for a peg doll nativity swap. I hosted the exchange party on Sunday afternoon while Betsy napped. It was a really fun few hours of chatting and eating delicious holiday treats. During the party, Adam took Claire and Maggie to ride the holiday carousel at the mall, have some hot chocolate, and pick out our tree.

The week before Christmas, our parish had two great events. On Monday, we went to a posada, just like the Tomie dePaola book. The girls' favorite part was the pinata and our favorite part was the tamales! On Tuesday, we went caroling. It was the third year in a row our parish has done this - Claire specifically remembered going last year. Well, she may have really remembered the hot cocoa and cookies in the social hall afterward, but we're glad she thinks of it as an Advent tradition nonetheless.

My parents and little brother, Scott, arrived early on Christmas Eve. That day, we made gingerbread cookies, trimmed the tree, and decorated our cookies. We had cheese and chocolate fondue for dinner, lighting our Advent wreath for the last time.

 After dinner, the girls unwrapped the new Christmas pajamas and were immediately forced to pose for pictures by the tree.

The presents under the tree before bed on Christmas Eve! 

We actually had to wake the girls up at 7:30 on Christmas morning, so we would have time to open stockings and eat breakfast before Mass. 

 I made the perfect cinnamon rolls from Mel's Kitchen Cafe for breakfast. They were absolutely gigantic but, of course, very delicious.

 

We went to 10:00 Mass, which is always beautiful and, most importantly, not insanely crowded. 

Claire and Maggie were thrilled with their princess dolls, cash register and tea set. Betsy loved her xylophone and cute little soft dolly. Those were all gifts from both sets of awesome grandparents - we actually just gave them some books that I'd picked out from an Usborne party and the Scholastic book order. We originally ordered a bigger play table for them, but returned it when we decided to go to Disney World. Thankfully, they're not old enough to realize we didn't get them anything exciting. And thankfully they really like books! 

We had steak, roasted veggies, and twice baked potatoes for dinner. Those paper crowns are from our traditional Christmas crackers. (Scott, I didn't intentionally leave you out of these pictures! Blame Dad for yours being super blurry.) That evening, my parents and I snuck out to see Jackie. I've been a big admirer of Jackie O. since like fifth grade so it was really fun to see the film with the people who know the full extent of my obsession, ha!

I feel like I've been moderately stressed since the beginning of November with all things Thanksgiving and Christmas. The week after Christmas was soooooo relaxing. At least as relaxing as possible while still caring for three small children. We went out for lunch a lot and had leftovers for dinner. I read The Nightingale in less than twenty-four hours. We went to the aquatic center and tried a couple new indoor playgrounds. On New Year's Eve, we went to the children's museum in Everett with our good friends, the Clarks. On New Year's Day, we had our friend, Linnea, over for dinner and then we left her in charge while we saw the new Star Wars movie. We finally made good on our promise of gingerbread house decorating on Monday, the very last day of Christmas break.













Now it's back to reality. Winter is so boring once Christmas is over, right? Luckily we've got two winter birthdays to liven things up - one of which requires me making a quilt over the next six weeks. I should probably get started on that...