halloween begins

saturday was almost entirely halloween themed. we began the day with a halloween play date at kyle and lacy's house, home for quick 'naps', church, and then to "boo at the zoo".

in case you can't tell from the pictures, mason is flounder and madelyn is ariel (from the little mermaid). i was pretty proud of mason's outfit that i made - he had to wear a bib at the party because i don't want to wash it before next weekend and more halloween festivities. i made madelyn a long, red yarn wig, but we didn't wear it to the play date because it is pretty hot and not really good for wearing inside. instead she wore her ariel crown and necklace that we brought back from our trip to disney this summer. since madelyn's costume doesn't really fit in her car seat i didn't dress her until we got there and couldn't get her and mason together for a picture with all the distractions of the party. i plan on getting some of them together next weekend when they wear their full costumes.

i had posted pictures of the 'treats' and snacks i made for the play date but the hostess is like martha stewart! she had all kinds of themed snacks and drinks, gift bags for the kids, and homemade pumpkin body scrub for the moms! (did i mention that she works full time too?) she had also set up a craft table (with color sheets and a halloween foam craft) and a play-doh table (with orange, yellow, green, and black play-doh). she is truly amazing.

we had a very nice time and it was fun to see all the kids that we haven't seen in almost a year. there have been a whole new round of babies since the last time we got together for a play date (which is part of the reason that it has been so long).

here is mason and his new friend, evelyn. evelyn is three days younger than mason.

and here is madelyn playing at the play-doh table with her friends kyle, paige and miss lori.

after 'naps' (more about this in a separate post) we went to church and then "boo at the zoo". we weren't really too sure what to expect with this event and couldn't decide if going to the zoo after dark was a good idea or not because madelyn has been complaining about "monsters" lately. we also had second thoughts when the traffic for the zoo was all they way back to the interstate. madelyn was too excited about going to the zoo to turn back so we sat in traffic for quite a while - people were walking faster.

i think madelyn enjoyed it. we had packed pb & j sandwiches for all of us to eat for dinner which is always a hit. madelyn loves a picnic. the zoo isn't really set up for after dark guests and it was really crowded. if you didn't know what you were looking for and where, it would have been hard to find what was going on. we were originally going to go on friday night but it was still raining. i am not sure if it is always this crowded or if it was double the traffic because of the rain out on friday. i don't think that this is something we are going to again any time soon, but there were some amazing jack-o-lanterns and that made the trip enjoyable (even for matt who really hates anything where there are crowds). and madelyn showed no sign at all of fear which made it all the better.

the only activity madelyn participated in was making an origami bat. she actually did a good job at following the instructions and the staff worker was very kind and patient with helping her. once the bat was folded madelyn got to draw on a chalk face before saying a very sweet "thank you" upon returning the chalk. love.