Halloween Ideas?

So ever since the babies were born, my wheels have been spinning about Halloween. I'd really like to coordinate the kids for their first Halloween together. Here's what I've come up with:

Three blind mice...farmer's wife

Three bears...Goldilocks

Three little kittens...Mother Cat

Three little pigs...Big Bad Wolf

Three monkeys (See/Speak/Hear no evil)...What would B be?

sheep...Bo Peep

Dwarfs...Snow White

Munchkins...Dorothy

I'm also on a budget. I really don't want to spend much money. Most of those baby costumes I can make from solid colored sleepers or sweats. However, those have been hard to find. You'd think it'd be easy to find 6-9 month black sweats, but nope, impossible! Sleepers too...never solid. Always patterned or with something embroidered on it. B does already have Snow White and Dorothy costumes.

Currently, I'm leaning towards Dorothy and Munchkins. This may be the last Halloween that her Dorothy costume fits her. The babies can be the Lollipop Guild. I recently bought them matching striped onesies that could work for this purpose. I can certainly find an oversized lollypop or two to put in the stroller as we Trick-or-Treat. I was also thinking I could cut some yellow poster board "bricks" and attach them to the stroller too. The only things I'd need to purchase would be coordinating pants for the babies, and red sparkly shoes for B.

So any ideas? What could they whole gang be? How can I get it done? I'm creative, but I don't sew. I'm more of a glue gun & felt kinda gal! Any other themes I missed?

Post comments, please!!!!

Ch...ch...ch...ch...changes!

Bridget really wants to be a "big girl" and to her being a big girl means behaving and getting nice things. We've been working on actions/consequences with her lately. She's been getting away with too much and learning how to play the system. She knows if I'm busy feeding babies, I can't go dragging her butt back to the naughty stool a million times.

So Shawn and I have been trying to focus on following through with her. One warning, and of she doesn't behave, then she gets the consequence. Of course, B is fighting it and she really hates the naughty stool. We may have turned the corner with her...

Yesterday, Bridget had some toys and books scattered around her room. It wasn't in the worst shape it's ever been in, but it was messy. The babies were waking up from a nap, and needed to be fed. I was in B's room with Liam, and I said, "Bridget, could you please pick up your toys?" Usually this provokes the typical, "I DON'T WANNA!" accompanied by foot stomping and throwing whatever object is closest to her. Followed up by me yelling at her and putting her on the naughty stool. This time she just said, "but..."

"Bridget, you're a big girl now, and you know where all your toys go. You can put them away."

"Can you help me?"

"No, I need to feed Holly, Liam and Megan."

"But I don't want to clean up by myself."

"Well, I can't help you. Your brother and sisters are hungry. You can do it. You know where your toys belong."

"Ok."

"Come and get me when your room is all cleaned up."

I really didn't expect her to do much. Maybe she'd only put away her doll house toys, or a few little things. She gets distracted easily, and usually ends up playing with the toys she's supposed to be putting away.

Off I went to feed babies. I couldn't hear Bridget playing in her room, but I also couldn't hear her cleaning up her room. Things were really quiet. Liam and Megan were fed, and I was almost done feeding Holly, when B quietly came to the kitchen. She just stood by the high chair, watching.

"What's up, B? How's your room? Is it all clean?"

"Uh-huh." very unenthusiastically.

"It is?" not believing her "Are you telling the truth?"

"yeeeesss." still very sly.

"If I go look in your room, will it be clean?" Trying to figure out where her loophole is.

"uh-huh!" a bit more excited now.

"Ok, let's go look at your room."

"sure! come on!" and Bridget skips down the hall excitedly. "Come on, Mama! Look at my room!"

So now I'm starting to think she cleaned up something. When I got to her room I was AMAZED! All the doll house accessories were put in the correct place. All the kitchen things were put away. All the dress up clothes were put in the dress up basket under her bed. All her pillows, blankets, and dolls were back up on the bed. Her dirty pajamas were off the floor and in the laundry basket. All her books were on the book shelf. Nothing was left on the floor. I was SHOCKED. I began screaming with delight. "I'm SO proud of you Bridget, I'm very impressed with your room! You did a great job!" etc. etc. I gave her a huge hug. Bridget was beaming with pride. "See Mom! I did it. I did it all by myself! I'm a big girl! I did it."

She ran downstairs to tell Shawn. I think Shawn was pretty stunned that Bridget had cleaned her room on her own too. I had planned to take Bridget to Portillo's for dinner then Target to get some school supplies for Preschool, so I told her my plans. Then Shawn said, "If you continue to behave, after Target, we'll get some ice cream!"

As it turned out, this was the first time the babies have been to a restaurant. We brought two in the double stroller, and carried the third in. We got lots of attention from employees and customers. Most just curious. That's ok, we're getting used to it. Besides the questions, dinner was uneventful. Bridget was well behaved, Megan was asleep, and Liam & Holly just watched the people and drank their bedtime bottles.

After dinner, Shawn decided he'd just walk across the parking lot to Target with the double stroller. I was going to drive the van over with Bridget and Megan. This is where things exploded. B got all upset that Daddy was walking and we were driving. She wanted to walk with Daddy. She began kicking and screaming while I was trying to get her into her car seat. Since we're really focusing on actions/consequences, I warned her that if she didn't stop the bad behavior, we would not get ice cream. Of course she continued to scream and cry and followed that up with a punch to my arm. So that was it, I told her no ice cream. Let the melt down begin. "No Mommy! I want to behave! I want to be a big girl! I want ice cream! I want to behave! Don't take ice cream away! No Mommy, no! I'll be a big girl! I'll behave."

Fortunately, she calmed down by the time we entered Target. Shopping was fine, but when we left, she started up again. By the time we got back home, Bridget had lost bedtime stories, bedtime music, and her doll house. Ugh!

Today, Bridget knew she had to behave to earn her doll house back. She behaved beautifully! She was an angel. She thanked me for taking her to Grandma Joan's house. She told me she had lots of fun there. We had talked about how she COULD have had a nice evening after Portillo's but since she misbehaved, she didn't get to do those nice things.

So after tonight's dinner, I took her to the store and out for ice cream. We talked about how good she was today, and how I enjoyed doing fun things with her when she behaves. I think it is beginning to make sense to her.

She said, "I don't like when the babies cry. It's not fun when they're crying. It just makes me angry sometimes."

I said, "I don't like when YOU cry either. It's not fun when YOU'RE crying."

"Yah" she said. "I don't like crying. I want to be a big girl and behave and get nice things."

"Like ice cream? and shopping with Mama?"

"Yah!"

Then she said, "This ice cream is DELICIOUS! The girl made me DELICIOUS ice cream!"

(Two tables of customers turned to look at B when she said that.)

I hope this marks the beginning of the end of the "Trying Threes". Wouldn't that be nice? I need SOME reprieve before having to go through it all again...times three!

Splitting up

Almost anything we do these days requires that our family be split up. It's really frustrating. For instance, Monday, I had a doctor appointment, and Bridget had tumbling at the same time. So Shawn took B, H, and M to tumbling and L and I went to the doctor appointment. Monday afternoon Holly wouldn't take a nap, so Bridget, Holly and I made a quick run to the store. Let me tell you...life with just two kids would be a snap! I threw a diaper and small pack of wipes in my purse, and we were out the door. It was nice only lugging one car seat carrier around. Once at the store, I snapped Holly on the cart and off we went. The whole trip took less than 20 minutes. With all three it takes 20 minutes just getting everyone and everything loaded into the van!

Now Thursday, B has a party at Splash Station for the summer reading program. Sure, we could all go, but all 6 of us couldn't be in the water at one time! It looks like B and I may have to go without Shawn b/c we can't find a sitter for the triplets.

Saturday is Joliet's Kid Fest. That's something that we did with Bridget when she was the triplet's age. But I don't think H, L, M are going to go this year. Again, we'll be split up. Someone will take B while the other stays home with the triplets.

Even the simplest things: going to get ice cream cones on a hot summer night, going to the park, playing in the kiddie pool in the back yard, getting Happy Meals at McDonalds, playing outside, visits to grandma's house...these are the things that the triplets are missing out on because it's so darn difficult to do. So either we split up, and half goes and does things while the other half stays home, or no one does it.

On another note, I have a feeling that Holly is going to be the one we'll make several trips to the ER with. She's such a little dare devil. She keeps pulling up on the gate, but because it's metal and slippery, she loses her grip and falls face first into the gate. She'll pull herself up on almost anything. She especially likes to pull herself up on my legs (when I'm on the floor with her) then she tries to climb up my body until she can grab my face! It's crazy! Yesterday, Liam was laying on the floor, she pulled herself up to standing by using Liam's belly. Then she traveled over to his face and was standing up with support from Liam's head. When she did that, she started laughing, "huh-huh! huh-huh! huh-huh!" It was quite amusing.

Surprise!

The babies don't get out of the house much, and we all went out yesterday, so I guess that deserves mentioning.

Shawn & I decided to go to the mall because I needed to pick up photos at Sears. So after an hour of getting everything ready, we load up the van and head out. When we got to Sears, who's in the photo room? Uncle Dave, Aunt Tina, Kaitlyn and Ann! What a nice surprise! Needless to say, Bridget was very excited to see her cousins!

So we let them finish up their photos, and we all decided to have dinner together at Panera Bread. Ugh! Bridget is SO LOUD! We really need to work on that with her. Fortunately there were only a few others eating in, and they didn't seem to mind, but still! Bridget, Kaitlyn, and Ann had fun eating their sandwiches together, and talking about whatever 2, 3, and 4 years olds talk about. Meanwhile, Liam was tired and fussy. He's becoming quite a mama's boy. He screams like a girl when I put him down, and wants me to hold him all the time. Megan and Holly were doing well, drifting off to sleep in their stroller.

After dinner, we went to check out this new mini golf place that opened up in the mall. Glow Golf, 54 holes in one storefront. Kaitlyn was quite disappointed that they could not golf with us, but we made plans to golf together some other time. But as it turned out, we were too late to start golfing. It was too close to closing time.

The Goode's went home, and the 6 of us went to the play area. Bridget burned off some energy and I hit the clearance sale at The Children's Place. I've decided that the only new clothes I'm buying for the triplets would be special occasion outfits and matching/coordinating clothes. They have plenty of hand-me-down clothes through 18 months. I ended up finding quite a bit: matching dresses for Holly and Megan, matching tanks/shorts for Holly and Megan, an outfit for Liam that coordinates with H&M's tank/shorts, another shirt for Liam to go with the girls' dresses, and finally matching onesies for all three. The onesies should fit them soon, and all the other clothes are for next spring/summer. All that for under $40. Not too bad!

So that's our exciting life. A day out is a trip to the mall. I really can't wait for next summer when Holly, Liam and Megan will be in regular car seats, walking, we'll be able to use the quad stroller to contain them, and we'll have more options for family nights out!