Despite a stormy start to the week (and a complete lack of preschool – oh my how I missed preschool) we managed to have a pretty good week.

Sunday:

If our church wasn’t so pretty, I don’t think we would go nearly as often.

I lose a staring contest with this fish.

Who is ever unhappy at Five Guys?

Monday:

The wind was blowing the rain sideways into our screened porch

Windy

Hey, so when can we stop watching the boring news and go play outside instead?

Tuesday:

Weather checker

How do I look?

Time to take the baby cage down

Wednesday:

Oh no! A dragon has invaded gymnastics class!

Look, we caught a fairy!

COME HEEEEERE CHILDREN! WE HAVE CAAAAAANDY!

Thursday:

Block building is all fun and games until someone smashes someone else’s tower

These (in the 3rd floor master bedroom) are the only windows in the house low enough for them to look out of and they’re obsessed.

I swear I feed this child more food than anyone else in the whole house. She just burns ALL THE CALORIES.

Friday:

Boss of the mall hooligans

One of Caroline’s many wonderful friend-helper-playmates #cardigansforever

I like this movie sort of a ridiculous amount

Saturday:

I’ve been buying 3 dozen at a time but keep running out. This is what happens when you give up carbs.

Suspicious of being dragged out in the cold to look at decorative gourds.

A mind-blowing number of decorative gourds. I got some fantastic pictures for Monday.

I spent three full hours running errands blissfully alone on a Saturday – although I had forgotten how crowded everyone is on the weekend. I also forgot how expensive it is to do two weeks worth of grocery shopping at once, and might have had a tiny heart attack at the checkout. This is our last week before E’s schedule goes back to being totallycompletelymiserable for a while, so we’re splurging on doing nothing but enjoying our extra hour of sleep on Sunday. I have it in my head I’m going to brutally clean out of my closet – everything I don’t love goes! – but I suspect I’ll only get as far as putting away half the laundry before I lose interest.

Did you take iPhone photos of your week? Link up with one or several below! I’ve been doing this for more than 2 years now, and I’m a little sad it seems to be dying out now that Amy handed the linky off to me. So PLEASE please consider joining, even if you haven’t done it before. I’ll be around to read everyone’s posts and comment.

I’d sort of been dreading Halloween. Caroline isn’t the biggest fan of costumes and when she doesn’t want to wear something she ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT WEAR IT. Evan changed his mind 15 times on what he wanted to be, so getting him into a costume we actually had in the house was doubtful. We failed at trick-or-treating at Sesame Place, they had no interest in dressing up for the Seaport or the Aquarium events, and the idea of drag-carry-pushing two kids up and down the hills in my neighborhood was giving me a migraine in advance. I’d been looking for excuses to get out of it pretty much all week, but they managed to behave JUST well enough that I couldn’t take away their Halloween after the Little Einsteins got them so jazzed up about it.

His shirt says “Will Trade Sister For Candy”

It turns out that sometimes lowering your expectations is the best thing you can do. Since all I was hoping for was one block of non-complaining children who said “thank you” after getting a piece of candy, I was blown away by my super polite, super friendly, willing to take turns, willing to walk on their own 2 feet, pleasant, costume-wearing children who made it three blocks before we came home and handed out candy instead, since leaving a bucket with a note that said “Please take 2 pieces!” led to an EMPTY BUCKET after only half an hour. Either we had 200 trick-or-treaters in 30 minutes or some people are douchebags who can’t follow directions.

Since I was pretty much expecting that to happen, I actually saved the good candy for Evan and Caroline to hand out. BOOM. That’s what you get for being jerkfaces, neighborhood kids. Enjoy your fireballs and generic lollipops. Too bad your parents never loved you enough to take you trick-or-treating themselves and teach you how to get whole handfuls of candy from old ladies who think you are absolutely the cutest thing they’ve ever seen.

You know, like my kids:

Caroline vetoed the tutu that was supposed to go under the skirt, but wore the wings all night – which is more than I was hoping for. I’m still ridiculously proud I made her costume.

We only had one person totally baffled by Evan’s costume. I said “It’s from ‘Where The Wild Things Are?'” She said “Oh, my kids are grown up, I don’t know about these shows kids are watching nowadays.”

E made it home in time to come with us, which made the kids super happy

A little flashlight thrown into one of those $1 pumpkin buckets makes a GREAT light for trick-or-treating.

We had a great time. We gave out $35 worth of candy from our house, even to the way-too-old kids who couldn’t be bothered to dress up. At one point, three teenage boys wearing hats and scarves stood on my steps and sang “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”, then asked if I had any candy canes or figgy pudding (they turned down my very sincere offer of a whole handful of candy since I got such a kick out of them). We let the kids eat several pieces of candy and enjoy their sugar buzz for an hour before Caroline went into a trance in front of Mickey Mouse and we made them go to bed.

I hope your Halloween was just as fun! Now please excuse me while I throw myself FULL FORCE into Caroline’s 2nd birthday party.

Obviously I enjoy Elmo’s World too.

It might have been technically fall for a while now (er, maybe? I just asked E when fall started and he didn’t know. If only there was a website where I could ask questions and get instant answers!) but this was the first week that felt like fall. I’m enjoying the crap out of it.

Sunday:

Plaid! Leaves! Headspolsion of autumn!

Most adorable family who walks to church in our town. Possibly the ONLY family, but that’s a technicality.

Wine for mommies, cookies for the kids.

Monday:

Big girl does all her own walking.

Caroline takes fake-boating safety very seriously

She is skeptical that hayrides to feed cows can be considered “fun”.

Tuesday:

This llama is a crazy drama queen, Mommy.

Caroline insisted on a giant pepperoni stick. I already ate it all.

DOES THIS CHILD EVER SMILE???

Wednesday:

There it is! Being upside down does it every time.

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!!

My three favorite tushies.

Thursday:

A little educational iPad time while mommy gets 10 more minutes of sleep.

This crayon is not the right shade of pink for me.

I think we should refloor the kitchen in a lovely hand-hewn cherry.

Friday:

Dancing in the craft store (to the beat of her own drum)

All those unsmiling faces from the previous days ended in three hours of THIS.

Cheap curtains + embroidery hoop = instant play tent.

Today we’re at Sesame Place, hoping to have a lovely magically amazing Halloweeny time despite a loooooong week. Luckily my folks are going to come share in the child-minding fun and mini-roller coaster riding. I heard Elmo does a Sesame Street version of Thriller, which I might be looking forward to a little too much.

Did you take camera photos this week? Share one day or all the days by linking up below. You can grab the code for your own site too!