Halloween 2014 - Frozen Characters

Caleb, Abby, Ellie, And Elijah

I kind of love getting to dress my kids up in a theme! It's just so fun! :) 

For previous Halloweens, we've done The Four Seasons, Superheroes, and the Peanuts Gang. This year, we did all Frozen Characters. Yes, I know that there were 5 million Elsas running around on October 31st, but my kids, especially my girls, really love Frozen, so who was I to say no?

In the past, I've made all of the kids' costumes. It's a fun fall project for me to work on, and the results have generally been pretty good! But this year, I just couldn't rationalize the huge amount of time it takes to put costumes together, so I did them half and half. Half store bought, half homemade.

Caleb

Caleb's Olaf costume was definitely store bought. I hit September still thinking that I was going to make it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was just setting myself up for a bunch of frustration. I can't sew, so if it can't be made with a hot glue gun and stitch witchery, it ain't gonna happen. Olaf looked like it would take more than a hot glue gun, so I put on my big girl panties, when to Party City, and coughed up $25 for that costume. Gag me! How can they get away with charging so much?! But in the end, Caleb actually loved it! He still asks to put it on. And it will go in the dress up trunk for lots of future playing. $25 for my sanity....well spent!

Abby

Abby dress came from Walmart. $20 for a Princess Anna dress, and I knew that, without a doubt, she would be totally in love with it! She has worn this dress just about every waking minute since Halloween. She is wearing it so much, that we are probably getting a better value (price per wear) out of that dress than we are put of any other article of clothing she owns. I went ahead and made the cape for her. All stitch witchery and hot glue in that cape. It's a little big, but she can wear it for awhile.

Elijah

Honestly, the Kristoff costume was supposed to be Caleb's costume. Elijah was supposed to wear Olaf. I figured that with Caleb's issues, he would need something a little more "normal" to wear. But when I pulled out the Olaf costume and showed it to Elijah, he gave me a very emphatic, "NO!" At the same time, Caleb grabbed it and ran off with it. Okay....not quite what I thought was going to happen, but as long as the costumes were worn, I didn't care who opted for which one.

Elijah's Kristoff costume was entirely homemade. I looked for Kristoff costume online, but the only ones that I could find were on Etsy, and they were incredibly expensive. The ones I saw were easily $75-$90+, and there was just no way that I was going to pay that for a costume that is going to be outgrown in short order. Instead, I followed this easy Kristoff costume tutorial that involves using a grey tshirt as a base, and hot glued my way through it. The most expensive part of his costume was the fur trim, but the rest of it was pretty inexpensive. I just used a bit of Abby's cape fabric to make the sash, added a little decorative ribbon, and stuck a winter hat on his head.

The mark of whether or not a costume works is if people can figure out what you are trying to dress up as. Happily, people figured out that he was dressed as Kristoff, so I consider it a success!

Ellie

Ellie loves her costume too! The dress, the cape, the fact that she can finally BE Elsa. Seriously....she answers to Elsa now. I bought her costume from Walmart as well, but made her cape from scratch. I made it long and flowing, just like in the movie, and Ellie loved it for...oh....about 10 minutes. Then she walked up to me and said,

"Mom! My cape is too long to sit on the couch!"

Mom fail. *sigh* So I chopped that beautiful cape in half, and moved all of the felt snowflakes up higher so that she could sit on the couch at her leisure. Lol! At least she really did love the cape once it was more her size!

It's adorable to watch the girls run around the house in their dresses and know the money was well spent!

And, of course, we had to make sure that the grandparents had a chance to see the kids all decked out in their costumes! We used it as an opportunity to grab a couple of group photos! :)

Abby, Pa (Sean's Dad), Caleb, Ma (Sean's Mom), Ellie, and Elijah

Elijah, Cita (Becca's Mom), Caleb, Abby, Grandpa (Becca's Dad), Ellie

This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, please see my disclaimer page.

Caleb, Abby, Ellie, And Elijah

I kind of love getting to dress my kids up in a theme! It's just so fun! :) 

For previous Halloweens, we've done The Four Seasons, Superheroes, and the Peanuts Gang. This year, we did all Frozen Characters. Yes, I know that there were 5 million Elsas running around on October 31st, but my kids, especially my girls, really love Frozen, so who was I to say no?

In the past, I've made all of the kids' costumes. It's a fun fall project for me to work on, and the results have generally been pretty good! But this year, I just couldn't rationalize the huge amount of time it takes to put costumes together, so I did them half and half. Half store bought, half homemade.

Caleb

Caleb's Olaf costume was definitely store bought. I hit September still thinking that I was going to make it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was just setting myself up for a bunch of frustration. I can't sew, so if it can't be made with a hot glue gun and stitch witchery, it ain't gonna happen. Olaf looked like it would take more than a hot glue gun, so I put on my big girl panties, when to Party City, and coughed up $25 for that costume. Gag me! How can they get away with charging so much?! But in the end, Caleb actually loved it! He still asks to put it on. And it will go in the dress up trunk for lots of future playing. $25 for my sanity....well spent!

Abby

Abby dress came from Walmart. $20 for a Princess Anna dress, and I knew that, without a doubt, she would be totally in love with it! She has worn this dress just about every waking minute since Halloween. She is wearing it so much, that we are probably getting a better value (price per wear) out of that dress than we are put of any other article of clothing she owns. I went ahead and made the cape for her. All stitch witchery and hot glue in that cape. It's a little big, but she can wear it for awhile.

Elijah

Honestly, the Kristoff costume was supposed to be Caleb's costume. Elijah was supposed to wear Olaf. I figured that with Caleb's issues, he would need something a little more "normal" to wear. But when I pulled out the Olaf costume and showed it to Elijah, he gave me a very emphatic, "NO!" At the same time, Caleb grabbed it and ran off with it. Okay....not quite what I thought was going to happen, but as long as the costumes were worn, I didn't care who opted for which one.

Elijah's Kristoff costume was entirely homemade. I looked for Kristoff costume online, but the only ones that I could find were on Etsy, and they were incredibly expensive. The ones I saw were easily $75-$90+, and there was just no way that I was going to pay that for a costume that is going to be outgrown in short order. Instead, I followed this easy Kristoff costume tutorial that involves using a grey tshirt as a base, and hot glued my way through it. The most expensive part of his costume was the fur trim, but the rest of it was pretty inexpensive. I just used a bit of Abby's cape fabric to make the sash, added a little decorative ribbon, and stuck a winter hat on his head.

The mark of whether or not a costume works is if people can figure out what you are trying to dress up as. Happily, people figured out that he was dressed as Kristoff, so I consider it a success!

Ellie

Ellie loves her costume too! The dress, the cape, the fact that she can finally BE Elsa. Seriously....she answers to Elsa now. I bought her costume from Walmart as well, but made her cape from scratch. I made it long and flowing, just like in the movie, and Ellie loved it for...oh....about 10 minutes. Then she walked up to me and said,

"Mom! My cape is too long to sit on the couch!"

Mom fail. *sigh* So I chopped that beautiful cape in half, and moved all of the felt snowflakes up higher so that she could sit on the couch at her leisure. Lol! At least she really did love the cape once it was more her size!

It's adorable to watch the girls run around the house in their dresses and know the money was well spent!

And, of course, we had to make sure that the grandparents had a chance to see the kids all decked out in their costumes! We used it as an opportunity to grab a couple of group photos! :)

Abby, Pa (Sean's Dad), Caleb, Ma (Sean's Mom), Ellie, and Elijah

Elijah, Cita (Becca's Mom), Caleb, Abby, Grandpa (Becca's Dad), Ellie

This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, please see my disclaimer page.

Happy Halloween 2012!!

Happy Halloween!

I'm super excited to share our costumes for this year! If you follow the A Beautiful Ruckus FaceBook Page, then you've already seen a sneak peek. I just couldn't wait to put up the photo!

Yep, it's true. I was the most excited person in the family! Hehe! :)

We Dressed Up as Superheros!!

Abby was Supergirl, Elijah was The Hulk, Caleb was Captain America, and Ellie was Robin, The Girl Wonder

I was really pleased with how well the costumes turned out! It took W-A-Y longer than I anticipated to put them together though. I ended up hand-sewing quite a bit on the costumes. Pretty much I either need to learn how to use a sewing machine, or pick something much less complicated next year...I'm thinking maybe I'll cut eye holes in four paper bags and call it good!

But it was worth it because the kids were adorable!

Captain America

Caleb was quite possibly the cutest Captain America I saw all evening (Biased? Absolutely!) I made him a really awesome Captain America hat with wings to go with his outfit, but he wasn't interested in wearing it. His costume took the longest to make because of all of the panels that had to be sewn on to his shirt and pants. I could have stitch witchery-ied them but I wanted him to be able to wear the clothes normally afterward. Of course, now that I spent all of that time sewing the pieces on, I don't want to take them off! I might see how long it lasts with my rudimentary sewing skills...

Click for directions on how to make a Homemade Captain America Shield!

Supergirl

Sheesh, Abby had a rough day! I think we have reached that point where she wants her way, and she will let us know when we aren't meeting her expectations. (Some behavior modification is in order because Mama can't handle the wailing long term.) So the tears are not her opinion of her costume! I've added a second photo of her that I took earlier in the week when she tried on her costume so that you can see a happy picture of her. She did calm down once we started Trunk or Treating and definitely slept well that night! 

Click for directions on how to make a Homemade Tutu Skirt!

The Hulk

Although Elijah's personality is nothing like The Hulk's personality, he tends to run into things about as much. LOL! He's an absolute riot at home, and that has earned him the nickname Crash Doodle (because he crashes into things and is so goofy about it). The Hulk was the perfect choice for him! And boy was he proud of his costume! While I didn't get any great photos of the girls, I have bunches of great photos of Elijah! He wanted to be front and center in every single one! (And that weird black stuff on his head is "Hulk hair.")

Robin, The Girl Wonder

Sean is our resident comic book authority, so I asked him to pick out the characters for each kid. He chose Robin for Ellie. I was a little confused why she was going to be a boy, but it turns out that every male superhero also has a female counterpart! Huh! You learn something new everyday! So Ellie was Robin, The Girl Wonder who is a "real" superhero, not just one we made up. She also loved her costume, but this was the best photo I caught of her. She was way too busy playing and showing it off to hold still for any amount of time.

Our first stop of the evening was Uncle Todd and Aunt Ruby's house to show Sean's side of the family the costumes. We tried desperately to get them to pose for a photo with their grandparents but they just didn't turn out. It looks like we are torturing them in every single one, so I'll spare you those. We did manage to get this one that includes Cousin Marissa in her unicorn costume though.

Our next stop was church. They had Trunk-or-Treating in the parking lot, and my parents had choir practice inside, so we took the kids in for a quick minute to show off their costumes. Surprisingly, this photo turned out pretty well...and no one is crying!

The Trunk-or-Treating was a lot busier than I thought it would be. That's awesome because it is used as a community outreach project! Except...I kind of forgot that we had quadruplets. Laugh if you will, but it's just so normal to me that sometimes I don't think our public adventures all the way through. Let's just say, if I was worried that not enough people would see the kids' costumes, that is no longer a fear! Lots and lots of people saw them. :) We didn't stay too long because of the people and the fact that it was starting to get chilly, but sweet friends from church did have some fun toddler friendly items like fruit snacks that they were holding back for the little guys. So very thoughtful of them to do that!

We ended the night by hitting Sonic to take advantage of their $0.50 corndogs. It isn't every day that you can spend $4.00 and buy enough corndogs to feed a family of six! I think Sonic has that promotion every Halloween, and I'd love to start that tradition with our kids. It seems like it would be a fun (and cheap) family memory to create each year!

Fun times!!

Seriously though, I have to come up with something far less time consuming next year... :-)

What did your little ones dress up as this year? Head over to the A Beautiful Ruckus FaceBook Page and leave a picture! I'd love to see your family!!

Happy Halloween!

I'm super excited to share our costumes for this year! If you follow the A Beautiful Ruckus FaceBook Page, then you've already seen a sneak peek. I just couldn't wait to put up the photo!

Yep, it's true. I was the most excited person in the family! Hehe! :)

We Dressed Up as Superheros!!

Abby was Supergirl, Elijah was The Hulk, Caleb was Captain America, and Ellie was Robin, The Girl Wonder

I was really pleased with how well the costumes turned out! It took W-A-Y longer than I anticipated to put them together though. I ended up hand-sewing quite a bit on the costumes. Pretty much I either need to learn how to use a sewing machine, or pick something much less complicated next year...I'm thinking maybe I'll cut eye holes in four paper bags and call it good!

But it was worth it because the kids were adorable!

Captain America

Caleb was quite possibly the cutest Captain America I saw all evening (Biased? Absolutely!) I made him a really awesome Captain America hat with wings to go with his outfit, but he wasn't interested in wearing it. His costume took the longest to make because of all of the panels that had to be sewn on to his shirt and pants. I could have stitch witchery-ied them but I wanted him to be able to wear the clothes normally afterward. Of course, now that I spent all of that time sewing the pieces on, I don't want to take them off! I might see how long it lasts with my rudimentary sewing skills...

Click for directions on how to make a Homemade Captain America Shield!

Supergirl

Sheesh, Abby had a rough day! I think we have reached that point where she wants her way, and she will let us know when we aren't meeting her expectations. (Some behavior modification is in order because Mama can't handle the wailing long term.) So the tears are not her opinion of her costume! I've added a second photo of her that I took earlier in the week when she tried on her costume so that you can see a happy picture of her. She did calm down once we started Trunk or Treating and definitely slept well that night! 

Click for directions on how to make a Homemade Tutu Skirt!

The Hulk

Although Elijah's personality is nothing like The Hulk's personality, he tends to run into things about as much. LOL! He's an absolute riot at home, and that has earned him the nickname Crash Doodle (because he crashes into things and is so goofy about it). The Hulk was the perfect choice for him! And boy was he proud of his costume! While I didn't get any great photos of the girls, I have bunches of great photos of Elijah! He wanted to be front and center in every single one! (And that weird black stuff on his head is "Hulk hair.")

Robin, The Girl Wonder

Sean is our resident comic book authority, so I asked him to pick out the characters for each kid. He chose Robin for Ellie. I was a little confused why she was going to be a boy, but it turns out that every male superhero also has a female counterpart! Huh! You learn something new everyday! So Ellie was Robin, The Girl Wonder who is a "real" superhero, not just one we made up. She also loved her costume, but this was the best photo I caught of her. She was way too busy playing and showing it off to hold still for any amount of time.

Our first stop of the evening was Uncle Todd and Aunt Ruby's house to show Sean's side of the family the costumes. We tried desperately to get them to pose for a photo with their grandparents but they just didn't turn out. It looks like we are torturing them in every single one, so I'll spare you those. We did manage to get this one that includes Cousin Marissa in her unicorn costume though.

Our next stop was church. They had Trunk-or-Treating in the parking lot, and my parents had choir practice inside, so we took the kids in for a quick minute to show off their costumes. Surprisingly, this photo turned out pretty well...and no one is crying!

The Trunk-or-Treating was a lot busier than I thought it would be. That's awesome because it is used as a community outreach project! Except...I kind of forgot that we had quadruplets. Laugh if you will, but it's just so normal to me that sometimes I don't think our public adventures all the way through. Let's just say, if I was worried that not enough people would see the kids' costumes, that is no longer a fear! Lots and lots of people saw them. :) We didn't stay too long because of the people and the fact that it was starting to get chilly, but sweet friends from church did have some fun toddler friendly items like fruit snacks that they were holding back for the little guys. So very thoughtful of them to do that!

We ended the night by hitting Sonic to take advantage of their $0.50 corndogs. It isn't every day that you can spend $4.00 and buy enough corndogs to feed a family of six! I think Sonic has that promotion every Halloween, and I'd love to start that tradition with our kids. It seems like it would be a fun (and cheap) family memory to create each year!

Fun times!!

Seriously though, I have to come up with something far less time consuming next year... :-)

What did your little ones dress up as this year? Head over to the A Beautiful Ruckus FaceBook Page and leave a picture! I'd love to see your family!!

Homemade Captain America Shield

I married a comic book fan.

When we moved Sean's things to our new house a month before we got married, it consisted of a couch, a TV, some clothes, and at least 30 long boxes of comic books. It's actually quite impressive because they are filed by type, story line, and chronological order. He can look at one square inch of a comic book cover and tell me exactly who is in it, the story line, the year it was written, and who wrote it.

So when I say that Captain America is his favorite superhero...he has certainly done his research!

This year for Halloween, I wanted to dress the kids up as superheroes. Fun, right? So I called in our resident expert and asked him to pick out a superhero for each kid, and I would work on the costumes.

Of course, Captain America is one of the choices!

I try really hard not to pay retail prices for anything. It's just too expensive to do that. So I made my own Captain America Shield to go with Caleb's outfit! In case you have a kid who needs a shield (because Captain America just isn't Captain America without his shield!) maybe you will find this helpful too! It costs pennies to make, and odds are, you have most of the materials sitting around your house right now!

Materials:

-Blue Fleece

-White Fleece

-Red Fleece

-Four round items to use as templates (I used a table setting and a can of tomatoes)

-Cardboard

-Pen

-Scissors

-Star Template

-Glue

The Materials

Trace your biggest round item onto the cardboard as your shield base. I found that the dinner plate, salad plate, and bowl sets that we have are the perfect size for making a child's shield. They are all perfectly proportioned to each other. Here, I'm tracing the dinner plate.

Then, cut it out.

Take the same dinner plate and trace the same size circle onto your red fleece, and then cut it out.

Now take your 3rd largest object (I'm using a bowl), to trace and cut out another circle out of the red fleece.

So now you should have two red circles: one is the largest and the other is the 3rd largest.

Now take your second largest object (I'm using a salad plate) to trace another circle onto white fleece and cut it out. (I hate it when I download the photos later and realize I forgot to use the flash. Sorry!)

While you have the white fleece out, trace your star template, and cut that out. I just printed a star out from my computer and used that.

You should now have a white circle, a white star, and two red circles from earlier. Almost done!

Take your smallest round object and use it as a template on the blue fleece for the center of the shield.

Now you are ready to assemble all of your pieces!

Drizzle glue all over the cardboard circle. It's a good idea to get a little closer to the edge than I did in the photo below. I went back later and added a bit more glue so that little fingers have less material to pull on.

I chose to put the glue on the printed side of the cardboard to hide it. Carefully position your largest red circle over it, and smooth it out making sure no cardboard is visible from the front.

Next, take your white circle and drizzle glue on it. Attach it to the center of the red circle. I really like working with the fleece here because the glue doesn't show through like it would with other fabrics.

And do it again with the smaller red circle.

And now add your blue circle.

Your star should be big enough to touch the edges of the blue circle. As you glue the star to the shield, make sure that you have each star point touching the edge.

Awesome!

To add a handle to the shield, cut a strip of cardboard, bend to form a handle, and glue it to the back.

Weigh down the glued parts of the handle with something heavy...good thing that large cans of tomato sauce were on sale recently!

And now you have a great new shield for pennies! One word of caution though...wait until the shield is completely dry before posing your kid with it for a photo. It takes about a day for the glue to dry because of  how thick the fleece is. :)

What are your kids dressing up as for Halloween? Please share! I'm already on the lookout for awesome ideas for next year!

I married a comic book fan.

When we moved Sean's things to our new house a month before we got married, it consisted of a couch, a TV, some clothes, and at least 30 long boxes of comic books. It's actually quite impressive because they are filed by type, story line, and chronological order. He can look at one square inch of a comic book cover and tell me exactly who is in it, the story line, the year it was written, and who wrote it.

So when I say that Captain America is his favorite superhero...he has certainly done his research!

This year for Halloween, I wanted to dress the kids up as superheroes. Fun, right? So I called in our resident expert and asked him to pick out a superhero for each kid, and I would work on the costumes.

Of course, Captain America is one of the choices!

I try really hard not to pay retail prices for anything. It's just too expensive to do that. So I made my own Captain America Shield to go with Caleb's outfit! In case you have a kid who needs a shield (because Captain America just isn't Captain America without his shield!) maybe you will find this helpful too! It costs pennies to make, and odds are, you have most of the materials sitting around your house right now!

Materials:

-Blue Fleece

-White Fleece

-Red Fleece

-Four round items to use as templates (I used a table setting and a can of tomatoes)

-Cardboard

-Pen

-Scissors

-Star Template

-Glue

The Materials

Trace your biggest round item onto the cardboard as your shield base. I found that the dinner plate, salad plate, and bowl sets that we have are the perfect size for making a child's shield. They are all perfectly proportioned to each other. Here, I'm tracing the dinner plate.

Then, cut it out.

Take the same dinner plate and trace the same size circle onto your red fleece, and then cut it out.

Now take your 3rd largest object (I'm using a bowl), to trace and cut out another circle out of the red fleece.

So now you should have two red circles: one is the largest and the other is the 3rd largest.

Now take your second largest object (I'm using a salad plate) to trace another circle onto white fleece and cut it out. (I hate it when I download the photos later and realize I forgot to use the flash. Sorry!)

While you have the white fleece out, trace your star template, and cut that out. I just printed a star out from my computer and used that.

You should now have a white circle, a white star, and two red circles from earlier. Almost done!

Take your smallest round object and use it as a template on the blue fleece for the center of the shield.

Now you are ready to assemble all of your pieces!

Drizzle glue all over the cardboard circle. It's a good idea to get a little closer to the edge than I did in the photo below. I went back later and added a bit more glue so that little fingers have less material to pull on.

I chose to put the glue on the printed side of the cardboard to hide it. Carefully position your largest red circle over it, and smooth it out making sure no cardboard is visible from the front.

Next, take your white circle and drizzle glue on it. Attach it to the center of the red circle. I really like working with the fleece here because the glue doesn't show through like it would with other fabrics.

And do it again with the smaller red circle.

And now add your blue circle.

Your star should be big enough to touch the edges of the blue circle. As you glue the star to the shield, make sure that you have each star point touching the edge.

Awesome!

To add a handle to the shield, cut a strip of cardboard, bend to form a handle, and glue it to the back.

Weigh down the glued parts of the handle with something heavy...good thing that large cans of tomato sauce were on sale recently!

And now you have a great new shield for pennies! One word of caution though...wait until the shield is completely dry before posing your kid with it for a photo. It takes about a day for the glue to dry because of  how thick the fleece is. :)

What are your kids dressing up as for Halloween? Please share! I'm already on the lookout for awesome ideas for next year!

What to Be for Halloween?

Today, I ran out to Jo-Ann's Fabrics to grab a few things for the kids' Halloween costumes:

Quite the stack of material. You know the really scary part? I can't sew at all. The outfits are going to be some combination of tying, stitch witchery, hot glue, and if absolutely necessary, I'll thread up a needle and pretend I'm a seamstress.

I'm actually so far behind this year. Last year, I had all of my Halloween costume materials by the middle of September. This year, I'm cutting it pretty close. Here's hoping everything turns out okay, because there really isn't time to change directions if it's a total bomb.

Now that you've seen the fabric color choices, have you figured out what we are dressing up as yet? Sean helped assign characters to the kids, if that's any help. :)

Today, I ran out to Jo-Ann's Fabrics to grab a few things for the kids' Halloween costumes:

Quite the stack of material. You know the really scary part? I can't sew at all. The outfits are going to be some combination of tying, stitch witchery, hot glue, and if absolutely necessary, I'll thread up a needle and pretend I'm a seamstress.

I'm actually so far behind this year. Last year, I had all of my Halloween costume materials by the middle of September. This year, I'm cutting it pretty close. Here's hoping everything turns out okay, because there really isn't time to change directions if it's a total bomb.

Now that you've seen the fabric color choices, have you figured out what we are dressing up as yet? Sean helped assign characters to the kids, if that's any help. :)

Halloween Costume Photos

How sad is it that the stomach flu and being stuck in my room away from the babies is actually what provides me time to blog? I miss blogging, and I’m definitely a fan of a little break to recharge for my mom role, but this isn’t fun at all. Many thanks to Sean for staying home today to take care of our babies (and all of his coworkers/bosses for being so understanding and accommodating), to my own Mom who happily risked being exposed to help feed the babies, and to Cheryl for taking my call to walk me through proper precautions to protect the babies from myself.

This is the first day when I haven’t held my babies or fed them at all…I’m kind of at a loss. So weird. Hopefully tomorrow is back to normal. We definitely would appreciate prayers for protection for our babies though. They don’t have much of an immune system, so prayers sound like the best defense against the flu at this point.

You know how moms say that once the babies are born, you forget a lot of the pregnancy discomforts. Since I’ve spent the day puking and lying in bed…I can’t believe I didn’t remember every nuance of morning sickness and bed rest! Holy cow! I’m SO glad that part of my life is over. Of course, laying here has also served as a reminder of how our fellow believers lifted our little family up in prayer day after day. Again, you guys are the best!

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Today is National Premature Awareness day. We have come so incredibly far! In a few short days, the babies will be 9 months old. Born at 2lbs 5oz, 2lbs 5oz, 2lbs 3oz, and 1lb 14oz, they are all now in the 13-15 pound range! We will be starting baby cereal in the next few weeks and we are teetering on the edge of having crawlers. We definitely have reached the scooting stage! Prematurity actually happens a lot more often than I ever realized. While having quads is rare, prematurity really isn’t. Just a couple of decades ago, our kids would have either not lived or would be suffering from much worse prematurity effects than they are now. I have to give a nod to March of Dimes which puts so much time and energy into researching prematurity, its effects, and how to prevent it. If you would like more information about prematurity, please go here: http://www.marchofdimes.com/mission/prematurity.html

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Now that we are a week out from Thanksgiving, I’ll go ahead and post their Halloween pictures. I wanted to do something with four parts to it rather than individual costume ideas. So I chose to do The Four Seasons! I started making the costumes about a month in advance (keep in mind when I say “I made them” what I mean is that I safety pinned and hot glued stuff to some of their sleepers/jumpers).

Caleb was Winter, Ellie was Spring, Abby was Summer, and Elijah was Fall. 

Caleb in his Santa sleeper that I found at a consignment sale for $2.00! 

Abby in her going to the beach outfit for Summer. The pink onesie is supposed to be a “swimsuit” since I couldn’t find a real one (and I refused to buy one that she would outgrow by next summer). 

Caleb and Abby chilling in their costumes. 

Elijah in his pile of leaves. He was also referred to as Leaf Man. Lol! I hot glued fake leaves all over a sleeper to make this. He was a really good sport! 

I love the last photo that let you see his face, but this is the best one to show what his outfit was really like! 

Ellie in her Spring dress. I safety pinned fake flowers on it and on a head band so that she could be a little flower fairy…or something. :-) 

So those were the first round of Halloween outfits. My SIL, Sarah, texted me a couple of weeks before Halloween with a GREAT idea! She is amazing at crocheting and offered to whip out four extra sock monkey outfits for our kids so that we could do a “Barrel of Monkeys” photo with all of the cousins! How cute is that? Not only did she make hats and leggings, she did it in each of their colors! THEN she helped me put the first round of costumes on everyone, strip, and put the second round of costumes on everyone. Obviously, I have a great SIL! AND she brought her camera and took some great photos of everyone!

Here is the first photo. The extra baby on the far right is Cousin Aly. It’s understandable that she was distracted with all of the extra noise. :-) 

Caleb 

Abby 

Elijah 

Ellie 

This is such a great photo of all of the cousins! Go ahead and put a caption on it! Clearly my kids are trying to figure out where the extra baby came from! 

And a couple of snapshots because they are just too cute!

Sean and I were eating dinner a couple of weeks ago and we looked over and saw the boys like this. We didn’t pose them. They were just hanging out like that watching us eat. 

And then this photo of me and Abby. I got down on the floor to play around on Pinterest (I DO NOT have enough craft time anymore!) and Abby wiggled up next to me to watch what I was doing. She even got in the same position as me! Too funny! Again, it wasn’t posed. 

And this precious photo of Ellie and her daddy. These kids absolutely LOVE being cradled in daddy’s arms!  

--Posted by Becca

How sad is it that the stomach flu and being stuck in my room away from the babies is actually what provides me time to blog? I miss blogging, and I’m definitely a fan of a little break to recharge for my mom role, but this isn’t fun at all. Many thanks to Sean for staying home today to take care of our babies (and all of his coworkers/bosses for being so understanding and accommodating), to my own Mom who happily risked being exposed to help feed the babies, and to Cheryl for taking my call to walk me through proper precautions to protect the babies from myself.

This is the first day when I haven’t held my babies or fed them at all…I’m kind of at a loss. So weird. Hopefully tomorrow is back to normal. We definitely would appreciate prayers for protection for our babies though. They don’t have much of an immune system, so prayers sound like the best defense against the flu at this point.

You know how moms say that once the babies are born, you forget a lot of the pregnancy discomforts. Since I’ve spent the day puking and lying in bed…I can’t believe I didn’t remember every nuance of morning sickness and bed rest! Holy cow! I’m SO glad that part of my life is over. Of course, laying here has also served as a reminder of how our fellow believers lifted our little family up in prayer day after day. Again, you guys are the best!

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Today is National Premature Awareness day. We have come so incredibly far! In a few short days, the babies will be 9 months old. Born at 2lbs 5oz, 2lbs 5oz, 2lbs 3oz, and 1lb 14oz, they are all now in the 13-15 pound range! We will be starting baby cereal in the next few weeks and we are teetering on the edge of having crawlers. We definitely have reached the scooting stage! Prematurity actually happens a lot more often than I ever realized. While having quads is rare, prematurity really isn’t. Just a couple of decades ago, our kids would have either not lived or would be suffering from much worse prematurity effects than they are now. I have to give a nod to March of Dimes which puts so much time and energy into researching prematurity, its effects, and how to prevent it. If you would like more information about prematurity, please go here: http://www.marchofdimes.com/mission/prematurity.html

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Now that we are a week out from Thanksgiving, I’ll go ahead and post their Halloween pictures. I wanted to do something with four parts to it rather than individual costume ideas. So I chose to do The Four Seasons! I started making the costumes about a month in advance (keep in mind when I say “I made them” what I mean is that I safety pinned and hot glued stuff to some of their sleepers/jumpers).

Caleb was Winter, Ellie was Spring, Abby was Summer, and Elijah was Fall. 

Caleb in his Santa sleeper that I found at a consignment sale for $2.00! 

Abby in her going to the beach outfit for Summer. The pink onesie is supposed to be a “swimsuit” since I couldn’t find a real one (and I refused to buy one that she would outgrow by next summer). 

Caleb and Abby chilling in their costumes. 

Elijah in his pile of leaves. He was also referred to as Leaf Man. Lol! I hot glued fake leaves all over a sleeper to make this. He was a really good sport! 

I love the last photo that let you see his face, but this is the best one to show what his outfit was really like! 

Ellie in her Spring dress. I safety pinned fake flowers on it and on a head band so that she could be a little flower fairy…or something. :-) 

So those were the first round of Halloween outfits. My SIL, Sarah, texted me a couple of weeks before Halloween with a GREAT idea! She is amazing at crocheting and offered to whip out four extra sock monkey outfits for our kids so that we could do a “Barrel of Monkeys” photo with all of the cousins! How cute is that? Not only did she make hats and leggings, she did it in each of their colors! THEN she helped me put the first round of costumes on everyone, strip, and put the second round of costumes on everyone. Obviously, I have a great SIL! AND she brought her camera and took some great photos of everyone!

Here is the first photo. The extra baby on the far right is Cousin Aly. It’s understandable that she was distracted with all of the extra noise. :-) 

Caleb 

Abby 

Elijah 

Ellie 

This is such a great photo of all of the cousins! Go ahead and put a caption on it! Clearly my kids are trying to figure out where the extra baby came from! 

And a couple of snapshots because they are just too cute!

Sean and I were eating dinner a couple of weeks ago and we looked over and saw the boys like this. We didn’t pose them. They were just hanging out like that watching us eat. 

And then this photo of me and Abby. I got down on the floor to play around on Pinterest (I DO NOT have enough craft time anymore!) and Abby wiggled up next to me to watch what I was doing. She even got in the same position as me! Too funny! Again, it wasn’t posed. 

And this precious photo of Ellie and her daddy. These kids absolutely LOVE being cradled in daddy’s arms!  

--Posted by Becca