Black and Red All Over

I finally took some pics of the kiddos in their costumes.

I kept putting it off since, frankly, it is hard trying to photograph and crawling/walking teething 9 month old and my camera just plain doesn't take very good action shots (one day you will be mine).

And I haven't had lovey-dovey feelings this year about their costumes.

Well, except this one:

 

I still got complete creative control over this guys' costume.  And I will for at least two more years (and next year I kinda want to do this).   Poor kid.

Here he is from the front:

And no, I didn't get a single pic of him looking at the camera.  Well, I did.  But they were the moving shots.

See, I told ya.

Mr. Porter Pot wanted to be Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  You know, this dude:

Did I succeed?

Kinda.  I do realize he looks more ninja than pirate, but what do ya do?

I got the vest and pants patterns from MADE (this is my favorite blog ever).

He wouldn't go for an eye patch or even a fake, huge earring since Jake doesn't have either.

Arrg.

Then the girls.

If you follow me on Facebook, you may know that these costumes and I did not get along this year.

Like, I may or may not have hit my sewing machine while making them.

Yes, the Practically Perfect Courtney Merrill may have a temper.  But don't tell anyone, k?

There are sooo many things wrong with these outfits, but I figures that Halloween is primarily celebrated in the dark, right?

Adi was worried since her pink shoelaces clashed with her red and black cheer uniform and wanted me to buy her plain white shoes instead.

Psh.  It's a costume kid.  Deal with it.

Do you like the flamingo stance both girls are doing?  Apparently that is how cheerleaders stand now.

And then I tried to get group shots.

 Pipes is laughing at Wyatt 'cause every time she puts his hat on, he takes it off right before I take the picture.

Hilarious.

I tried some more.

And about 37 imperfect pictures more.  It was tough.

I took my newest sister-in-law's advice and took the pics right before the sunset.  The first few turned out awesome, but since I have a slow camera and fast kids, the last ones were a little dark...

I broke the "photographer rule" and used my flash.  But since I'm not a photographer I don't feel too bad about that.

So there ya go.  My four kiddos all tricked-up for trick-or-treating.  And I do realize that all of their costumes do coordinate, but that was done unintentionally.  It's cool, but not done on purpose.  The funny thing is that mine and OP's costumes for the big Lopez Halloween party are black and red.

Again, unintentional.

But hey, who doesn't like matchy-matchy?

Sparks Fly

Oh yes.  We did it.

(Pipe's adorable little hands)

Still don't know?  Hows about this for a hint?

Really?  You still don't get it?

How about this:

AHHHHH!

(That was me screaming in pure delight- which I did a lot of last night and it is why my voice is hoarse this morning)

Yep.  We went to the Taylor Swift Speak Now concert.

And it was awesome and sweet and so girly that I think I'll have hearts and sparkling confetti coming out of my eyeballs for at least a week.

Whitney (my sis) and I got these tickets clear back in April and I have had to keep the secret from the girls for six months.  SIX MONTHS.  For a girl who has a hard time not telling her kids what she got them for Christmas, this was quite a feat.

So yesterday we told the girls that they couldn't go to their school's fall festival since I promised Whit and Chris that we could clean out their garage that night.

Then OP brought in a sparkly envelope from the mailbox and told the girlies that they got something:

There was a large group of adults surrounding the girlies with cameras rolling to capture their delight.

To be honest, it was underwhelming.

Apparently Little-Miss-Too-Smart-For-Her-Own-Good Adi figured out that since Whitney and Chris were going to the concert on Friday and since I have been playing non-stop T-Swift music lately and since I had converted their old Taylor Swift night shirts into fitted, glittery tops... well, now it seems rather obvious.  But I had relied a little too heavily on the thought that they were oblivious.

Learned that lesson.

The girlies put on their boots and sparkly shirts, headbands and belts and we set off.   First we went to Chik-Fil-A to fill us up and give us energy to make it through the late night (meaning I might have had a caffeinated beverage).

 And then we drove forever in rush hour traffic to get to Jobing.com arena.

We wrote "13" on their hands so they could be cool like Taylor.

I don't know why Adi appears to be licking her hand in the background.

We then waited.

Oh, hi Whitney and Chris!

And waited.

Right after this shot I said, "Pull up your shirt, Adi!"

And then we waited some more.

The tickets said the show started at 7.  Miss Swift didn't hit the stage until after 8:30.  We had to endure two craptastic opening bands.  You'd think that for a Taylor Swift concert they'd have some amazing openers, wouldn't you?

The girls were more than a little impatient and started to whine (please keep in mind these girls have a strict 8 o'clock bed time).

But then, she came.

And she rocked.

And the girls were ecstatic.

Miss Pipes was standing on her chair- singing, dancing, jumping, wiggling her booty.

And Adi is more like her Daddy and is pretty much incapable of showing excitement.  Doesn't she look thrilled?

And then there's Pipes that was providing quite a bit of entertainment for those seated directly behind her.

Those are some tired eyes, right?

Look at all of the cell phones:

Taylor started off singing a bunch of her upbeat songs, like Speak Now (which she had a mini-wedding set up and her and her dancers looked like do-wop singers from the 50's- Adorable).

Then she squeezed through the crowds, hugging and shaking hands all the way,

Do you see how close we were to her bouncing blonde pony tail?

Luckily Uncle Chris is the bomb.com and carried the girls up even closer.

(By this time Adi had made her way back to Whit and I) 

 Taylor sat down practically right in front of us and played a few acoustic songs on a ukulele, banjo, and a guitar.

I can pretend like Taylor and I are having a personal conversation here.  Kind of.  Oh, and no those aren't tattoos up her arm.  She likes to write other artist's song lyrics on her body with a sharpie before she performs.  I don't know why.

The songs got slower and so did the girls.

And then this happened:

And this:

They managed to sleep through 14,000 people screaming, fireworks and a giant bell gonging (is that a word?).

They also missed this:

And her closing number of Love Story where she swept over the audience in a balcony.

Good thing Mama brought her camera and recorded it, huh?

You may or may not be able to hear someone croaking along with Miss Swift.  It was not me.  Really it wasn't... ok, it might be me.  Don't judge.

We watched the videos that I had recorded from the concert this morning.  Piper started complaining because she just wanted to watch the songs that she had slept through.  I told her that for what we paid for the tickets, she could watch them all again three times.  She stopped complaining.

It was such an awesome night (I realize I am overusing that word, but I am trying to get the point it across that is. was. awesome).

The sets were so cool and most of the backgrounds were altered art-ish.

And I even started liking some of her songs I never cared for before (namely Fifteen and Dear John).

The girls today are still sporting their Speak Now bracelets and have given themselves whiplash from practicing her hair flips.

Yes, you can pretty much watch the show through my links, but it was so- wait for it- AWESOME that you really should go see it yourself!

More from the iPhone

This new phone is making me lazy.  The thought of walking all the way over to the computer desk to pull out my camera to take a picture seems exhausting.  And then I have to plug it into the computer and transfer the pics over.  And then all the clicking... ugh.  I'll just whip out my phone a snap a photo and then edit it on my Photoshop Express app and... voila!  It's done.  I can post it to Facebook and everything from my new best friend, err, phone.

So here's a sampling of my latest photos:

I'll leave it up to you to decide what captions went with these photos.  As you can imagine, my remarks were always wildly witty and unbelievably imaginative. 

Or if we're friends on Facebook and/or Instagram you could just look back and find most of these on there.

Night, Night

This kid loves his bed.  LOVES.  It is his sanctuary.  It is where no one else is allowed (lest they awaken the fury in their mother).

It is just a plain ol' pack n' play (with literally 12 blankets piled under it for cushioning- they don't think about comfort when they make these things).  I bought a real crib for him.  Unfortunately for this baby, his mom thought she could repaint an old Jenny Lind crib.

She couldn't.  In fact, it was quite epic just how horrible she was at it.

Anyway, he is now stuck in this thing until he graduates to a toddler bed.

But no matter how much it offends my eyes to look at the green and brown pattern against the blue and orange decorations that are slowly appearing in his room, he adores the thing.

And I adore him.

P.S.  Wonder why you haven't seen Wyatt with a pacifier since he was tiny and now one is magically appearing?  We have a strict "no binki outside of bed" policy.  It works.  He only cries for it if he's laying in bed and can't find it (it likes to slip under the corner of the mattress).

Hair School

Orrin and I have been trying to push our kids into independence.  And no, we're not being momma birds shoving our kids out of the nest.  We are merely trying to give them the basic tools to succeed in life outside of our home. 

So we can kick them all out and start traveling.

Anyway, Orrin pointed out that the girls will probably want to learn to do their own hair.  Now, if you know me, you know that I may have some controlling tendencies.  And one of these tendencies is me wanting my kid's hair and clothes to be... I hate to say perfect, but I think the word just may fit here.  I resisted.  Why do they need to do their own hair?  They can visit me every morning while in college so I can curl their locks and put in a waterfall braid.

Finally I relented.  With Fall Break in full swing, we started Hair School (this name is trademarked.  Don't steal it).

Everything needed for a successful hair day:

I tried teaching them to straighten their own hair,

Then I thought it would be better if they did each others'

Now add a braid

A little upcombing

And now pose:

Now please don't judge me by the spots on the mirror.  I didn't even realize they were there until after I uploaded the pictures.  They are now gone and have been replaced with new ones.