Halloween, Birthday, Halloween

This time I am not going to start out this post with an apology and a promise to do better. I can't believe that it has been close to two months since my last post, but our lives are kind of crazy right now. It seems like things have been kind of non stop and I know that the next couple of months will only be even more hectic. Hopefully I can squeeze in several posts, but I just can't make promises. :)

So, today is about Halloween and my birthday. The Halloween holiday started out with an event called "Hall-zoo-ween." It is an event held at our local zoo and this was our first time going. There was a long treat or treating path through the zoo, face painting, a costume contest, a magic show and plenty of food tents. Unfortunately, all of the animals were put away for the night, so we only got to see the giraffes and some monkeys.

We didn't enter the kids into the costume contest since they just had store bought costumes. Chloe was a ladybug and Colby was Dash from The Incredibles. Cute, but nothing too original. :) We went to the magic show. However it was so boring that the only good thing that came out of it was an excuse to sit down and get into the candy!

The following weekend we went to Huntington to celebrate my birthday with my family. We arrived Friday afternoon and dropped the kids off at my parents' house. Curt and I then went out to a movie and dinner and then stayed overnight in a hotel. It was the best thing I could have asked for! A whole night with my husband, we don't go on dates nearly enough!

Saturday we went back to my parents' house where we had a small birthday party with my grandma, aunt, uncle and cousin and her family. It is kind of a tradition and always a lot of fun! The kids' favorite place to play:

Colby and Izabella actually posing for a picture!

Of course I had a lot of little helpers opening my presents. :)

One of the few pictures of me with one of my babies. (Please ignore the pregnancy double-chin. Gag.)

Every year my mom makes a red velvet cake from scratch. It is the most delicious cake in the world. Colby thought so too.

After the party and dinner, the little kids put on a Halloween costume fashion show for us all. It was too cute! Unfortunately, by that time in the evening they were getting tired and wound up so it was really hard to get good pictures.

The weekend after that was actually Halloween. Curt's parents were able to come spend the weekend with us. We had a blast! Saturday started out with pumpkin carving.

I drew the designs and Curt did a lot of the actual carving. I had drawn a ladybug for Chloe's pumpkin. It had several small holes, and my smart engineering husband thought of using a drill. It worked perfectly!

Then in the evening it was time for Trick-or-Treating. Chloe loved it, but Colby's shoes were hurting his feet so we ended up only going through about half of our neighborhood. We still had a good time though. Here they are with their pumpkins right before the candy gathering started.

October was a really fun month, and November is shaping up to be a good month too. Hopefully it won't take another month to get a post up, but remember I'm not promising. :)