The Chicken Most Def Came Second...

Happy Halloween from the Burke house!

Izzy decided early on this year that she would be Sleeping Beauty and Cambri would be a bunny rabbit. But I already had this amazingly cute chicken costume. I make such cute chickens.

 Not the actual costume, I'm not that crafty. I leave the hard part up to Old Navy. I just help mold the people inside.

Aren't they cute?

This year, the Golicova girls invited us to their church Halloween carnival.

Where we had our hair dyed...

 And our faces painted!

There is more to this story though. We won a goldfish. When I say "we" I mean Izzy. And she blatantly cheated but the church officials deemed it appropriate enough to still let her "win." In her defense, she really didn't understand that she cheated. She was told the objective of said carnival game was to get the ping pong ball in the bowl. And it wasn't clear to the 4 year old who was hopping around on a high fructose corn syrup high that she couldn't just walk over and drop the ball in from a few inches away.

Now I have a fish to take care. And a four year old who is in love with the fish that she lovingly named "Ryan" after her uncle. If I hadn't just quit my job, this fish would put me over the edge. I feel such an obligation to this thing, I mean it is a living creature of God, right?

This is more commitment than I can stand.

Flappers 09

Isabelle wanted to be a butterfly for Halloween. Unfortunately for her, kids in our house don't get to pick their own costumes. I really wanted Izzy to be a flapper girl and Chase wanted her to be Cousin It (???!?!?). But guess who won out? Yours truly. Cambri was going to be a pumpkin because I still have that costume left over from Izzy but then my grandma whipped up these matching costumes. They look so cute but Izzy refuses to stay in hers for very long. I feel another Abby Cadabby moment coming on. Izzy was throwing a fit about putting in on in the first place so I could take these pictures so I asked her if she was going to throw a fit and make Mommy cry and the little devil looked up at me and smiled. I guess this is payback for not letting her be a butterfly. Maybe next year, I'll let her decide what she wants to me. Maybe not.

Boo at the Zoo

I had high hopes for yesterday. I thought it would be really fun to take the kids (Braxton & Izzy) to Boo at the Zoo. All the kids come to the zoo in their Halloween costumes and local businesses hand out candy in between animal exhibits. My mom lovingly rearranged her schedule so that she could help me out. Braxton and I went to pick up Izzy from the daycare and she was super excited when she saw him dressed up like Batman and kept saying, “Let’s go see the animals.” So naturally I assumed this was going to be a fun experience. It wasn’t. To say the least. By the time we got home, Izzy’s mood had done a 180. She refused to put on her costume. When I finally wrestled it on her, she laid on the ground screaming for 10 minutes. I was set on her wearing it and I thought she would calm down but when she didn’t, I conceded defeat and pulled it off. This did nothing. She was still hysterical. Finally, my mom and I loaded her into the car in her ordinary clothes. If we hadn’t already told Braxton what we were doing, we would have scrapped the idea entirely. By the time we got to the zoo, Izzy had (miraculously) calmed down. So we took her in. She was the only child, in any age group, that wasn’t dressed up. My mom had tried to tell me that it was natural for 2 year olds to not want to dress up but after arriving at the zoo, I realized this was a lie. I saw plenty of young kids dressed up and looking adorable. When I pointed this out to my mom, I told her that I should have come with a sign around my neck saying that my kid refused to dress up, it wasn’t that I was too cheap to buy a costume. My mom told me that I should start the sign out with “Don’t judge me!” We had a good laugh but I still felt like a bad mom because Isabelle was in jeans and a sweater. But the story doesn’t end here. For those of you that know that Idaho Falls zoo, you know that the petting zoo is almost as far away from the entrance that you can get. This is the exact place my two year old picked to freak out. She started screaming and crying and running into people in her hysterics. I picked her right up and we left. She and I sat in the car for a half hour while we waited for my mom and Braxton to get done. She cried the entire time. It was horrible. On my way home from work, I realized that I left my camera in my office and I was kicking myself. Now I am almost glad that I don’t have a photo reminder of the affair. So much for planning something fun for a 2 year old. I tried my best!

Abby Cadabby Appears

Introducing Abby Cadabby! Izzy was so excited to put on her costume that I had to pry it off her at the end of the night. She kept looking her self in the mirror saying, “I’m Abby, I’m Abby Cadabby.” It was really sweet. My camera wasn’t charged the first night I put her in it, so I had to dress her again the next day so that I could take this picture for Chase to see how adorable she is. The ironic part is that she refused to put it on the second night and fought me the entire time. Such is the life of a two year old. Izzy went to my mom’s house for a sleepover last night and it was kind of surprising how lonely I was. Unless I’m traveling for work, that kid has been attached to my hip for the past two years. Don’t get me wrong, a break is always nice (!) but as I went to check on an empty bed last night I had an empty little spot to fill. Good thing The Office was on!

Missed The Boat Again

It's kind of early in the month for me to start feeling like a bad mom again, but what do you do? Ryan and Nicole were gracious enough to invite me over to dinner on Sunday night and I got to see Jade's Halloween costume. It's adorable! She's going to be Velma from Scooby Doo complete with a red wig and glasses. Nicki also said that Ryan was going to have to suck it up and wear a Shaggy Doo costume that is a little too small. I can't wait to see that! But back to the point, this made me realize that I had no idea what Izzy was going to be. I suggested that she be a chicken again and Chase told me no because that is what she was last year. As almost everyone knows, Izzy loves Elmo. So I thought Elmo would be a good fit for her. But I can't find the costume! I seriously thought I could breeze into Halloween Bootique and pick up Elmo or something equally cute. How naive! This is a competitive business and everything cute it sold out and/or backordered! I turned to the internet and Elmo is completely sold out on every single website I visited. And when I did manage to find one a used one, it was $60 and it got bad reviews because its extremely heavy and scratchy for a two year old. So Izzy is going to have to settle for Addy Cadabby this year. It's fairly cute, but I'm worried that it won't be heavy enough for an Idaho Halloween! Luckily, we will be having Trick-Or-Treating at the mall this year, so we should be good to go for Halloween night. For Boo at the Zoo, I'll just put lots of layers underneath. Wish me luck! Next year, I will either order her costume in January or throw a white sheet over her head the day of...