Halloween – the perreault family

happy new year

Published on January 6, 2016 by kristenperreault2 Comments

2015 hasn’t been an easy year for our family. However, regardless of the difficulties there has always been joy. Our three boys bring smiles to our faces and laughter to our house on a daily basis and for that we are always grateful. Regardless of what 2016 brings I hope that we can always focus on what really matters, our family. Happy New Year everyone, here’s to a wonderful 2016.

2015 a year in review…

January
We celebrated Luc’s 1/2 birthday, Jay’s 5th Birthday, he requested a “Blue Heart cake with Flames on it”.

February
We read books, we built a ridiculous amount of things with duplo, enjoyed the cooler weather outside and it even got cold enough one night to freeze water outside. The boys set up an “experiment” and were thrilled that some of the water froze.

March
We played outside in the pool and also in the rain, we raced cars and Kristen finished her first queen sized quilt.

April
April was a crazy month. We hosted the annual Shrimp Boil which also served as George’s retirement party, Jamie got a new standing desk, we rearranged most of the office after getting the desk and created a lego area for Jamie and a sewing area for Kristen, we celebrated Easter and decorated a bunch of eggs, did a heck of a lot of lego building and Kristen finished another quilt.

May
We built a bunch more lego, we swam in the pool for the first time in 2015, finished up a the school year at MSEE, Charlie got a new bike, Jay started riding a bike without training wheels and Luc got his first haircut.

June
We spent a lot of time in the pool and we spent the week on Anna Maria Island with Jamie’s family.

July
We spent the week at the beach with my Mom, celebrated Luc’s 2nd Birthday, Jay’s half birthday and our 9th Wedding Anniversary.

August
We enjoyed some time with cousins visiting from Canada, swam in the pool a WHOLE lot, Charlie started a 3 day 3’s program at MSEE and Jay started Kindergarten at Brookshire Elementary School.

September
We adjusted to our new school schedule, took a trip to Terra Ceia and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

October
We played outside a whole lot, dressed up in both Halloween costumes and a ton of dress up clothes and we took Jay and Charlie to Disney for the first time.

November
We had to say goodbye to our sweet kitty, Bella, and we celebrated Charlie’s 4th Birthday for which he requested a “mouth cake”.

December
We prepared and decorated with the Holidays, Charlie learned to ride a bike without training wheels, we took a trip to Jacksonville to celebrate Memere’s birthday and got to see a lot of family and we celebrated Christmas.

Happy Halloween 2015

Published on October 31, 2015 by kristenperreault3 Comments

I am a sucker for kiddos in Halloween costumes, that’s a fact. So it’s no surprise that my favorite part of this holiday is dreaming up costume ideas for our boys and then seeing them come to life. I adore taking photos of them all dressed up and love how every year the costumes end up in the dress up box after Halloween for hours of endless fun!! Big thanks to Mimi for making the pirate costumes (I like to sew but garment sewing is really, really not my thing!) they are fabulous! So here’s an overload of Halloween photos for you to enjoy ;)

Halloween 2014

Published on October 31, 2014 by kristenperreault3 Comments

Hope everyone had a SUPER Halloween!!!

halloween 2013

Published on December 9, 2013 by kristenperreault1 Comment

I have been meaning to post more photos and a few details of the our adorable zoo; however, time just keeps getting away from me! We were down and out for almost 3 weeks right around halloween (preschool germs are nasty) but now that we are finally on the tail end of things and naps are happening (fairly consistently) again I have had a little more “free” time- so here it is, I am sure you were holding your breath ;)

Our inspiration for this year’s costumes was this adorable book, Goodnight Gorilla, and one very sweet little boy who is (although not as much as he used to be) obsessed with keys! I had a vague idea of how I wanted the costumes to look but mostly I wanted to make sure that the boys wouldn’t sweat to death in them if we had a hot halloween. I enlisted the help of my very talented seamstress Mother-in-law to do the hoodie sewing- I really love to sew but please, oh please don’t ask me to make something that someone is going to have to wear! Exact measurements and patterns (clothing patterns specifically) are SO not my thing. However, Mimi is amazing and helped make my crazy ideas the adorable reality that they were. The long and the short of it is that we purchased a hoodie pattern and she adapted it to be sleeveless and then I added the details, mane, gorilla muscles, and a made the mouse ears too! The hardest part of it all, at least in my opinion, was getting Jay to stand still enough for me to adjust the mane and keep it out of his eyes!

Since I adore halloween photos of the kids in their costumes last year I decided to do a pre-Halloween photo shoot with all of them so I am not worried about getting photos of them in their costumes while we are running around trying to get out of the door to trick or treat. Honestly, if you have little ones I would totally recommend it, it’s been the best decision yet! I cherish the photos that I have gotten the last few years and will continue to do it until the kiddos decide otherwise. I did have to take a few more of my Gorilla and Mouse during a second photo shoot since they were still feverish and under the weather during the original shoot so if you see a little change in expression from one photo to the other, that is why.

Enjoy!

happy halloween

Published on October 31, 2013 by kristenperreault1 Comment

from our ZOO!!

happy halloween

Published on October 31, 2012 by kristenperreault4 Comments

Happy Halloween from our tribe to yours!

Charlie loved being pulled in the wagon and especially by his brother

this is his SUPER happy face- he was having a blast

pumpkin pickin’

Published on October 30, 2012 by kristenperreault1 Comment

We headed out the pumpkin patch last week with the boys to go pumpkin picking. In the years past we have headed out to St Lukes they have a great patch and great people working it but since it isn’t close to our house and we were going before supper on a week night we decided it was best to stay a little closer to home (a good choice that was confirmed by the crying and tears from tired hungry boys on the ride home). I fully intended on bringing home a large pumpkin to carve along with a few small ones for the kiddos to paint. However, when we got there Jay couldn’t be bothered to pick a large pumpkin he just wanted to load and unload the small pumpkins in and out of the wagon and pull it up and down the aisles. It definitely wasn’t worth fighting with him to pick a large one when he was perfectly happy towing the small ones around and while he did that Charlie crawled on and around any pumpkin we would sit him next to. We ended up bringing home $2.25 in tiny pumpkins and both boys had a blast- definitely a win as far as I am concerned!

sorry for the overload of photos, I am making up for lost blogging time ;)

this is one of Charlie’s new silly faces

halloween 2011

Published on November 3, 2011 by kristenperreault2 Comments

This is probably the only good photo I got of Jay on Halloween since he was so busy and not too interested in posing for his Mommy. However, I love it!!

We really had a Monster of a good time (sorry couldn’t help myself) this year; it’s been so much fun especially since Jay is a little older and able to participate in the holiday activities. I decided that it was time to let Jay help make and decorate some sugar cookies. I figured that it could be the biggest disaster ever or we could have a great time… It was the later ;) He loved every minute of helping to pour in the ingredients (which he has done on multiple occasions while helping with other baking projects), mixing everything together, spreading the flour, rolling the dough, using the cookie cutters but I am sure that his favorite part of it all was decorating the cookies. He spread icing on a few of them but sprinkles were by far the best part of the whole deal. I am sure that he would have put a whole bottle on each of them if I would have let him. The whole project honestly took twice as long to finish as it would have normally but every time I looked over and saw his little face I was reminded of how precious and totally worth it that “extra” time was.

taste testing some more, don't worry I switched knifes after this...

not to big of a mess — not too big of a mess...

p.s. Aren’t his curls adorable right now??

pumpkin carving

Published on October 30, 2011 by kristenperreault1 Comment

Tonight Maggie and Josh came over and joined us in our pumpkin carving adventure- we didn’t carve pumpkins last year so it was Jay’s first time. He was excited and kept saying “carve pumpkin” over and over again :) Jay helped me to clean out all of the seeds before he headed to bed and Jamie designed and did the carving (it was getting late and I don’t think Jay would have sat for much of the carving). It was fun and such a great end to our weekend.

the finished products- ours on the left, Maggie and Josh's on the right (sorry I didn't actually get a photo of the two of you, just your pumpkin)

21 months

Published on October 27, 2011 by kristenperreault1 Comment

See that face? The one that melts my heart and pushes every button that I have all at once? Well he turned 21 months old today- I know, it’s crazy isn’t it? He is the main reason that I have been such a horrible blogger lately, that and the little one growing in my tummy, the two of them plum wear me out these days!! We have been busy lately, yes it’s true, we’v been traveling, celebrating with family, preparing to add to our family, I’ve been working (I had 5 shoots this month- yay for the work but boo for the extra work) and trying to get client images up but nothing has kept me as busy as my boys.

So give me a minute and I will fill you in a bit…

Jay Bird is non-stop these days… I saw a sign the other day on pintrest that said “a Mother of boys works from Son up until Son down”; it’s true I tell you- so true…
*He runs everywhere- literally runs, as fast as his little legs will take him, all the while saying “race”, “fast” and sometimes “super fast”…
*He repeats virtually everything that comes out of our mouths- this is funny and not funny all at the same time. He also talks non-stop- about everything and nothing all at once.
*He has opinions, strong opinions, about the most random and unexpected things. A few days ago he had a complete and utter meltdown because I tried to put the truck bib on him for breakfast and NOT the fish bib like he wanted.
*He will eat everything on his highchair tray like he is starving and hasn’t been fed in days but only if it’s his idea and if it happens to be placed there in the correct order (did I mention that the order changes daily?); however, if it isn’t in the correct order it’s full on meltdown time. Some of his favorites right now include peanut butter (which he basically licks straight off of the bread and calls “butter”), waffles (he can eat 3/4 of a Belgian waffle or two eggos on his own), yogurt and black olives.
*He is funny and he knows it… he will ham it up for people if he knows that he is being watched and he will laugh this awesome laugh at things he thinks are funny. He also loves to watch himself in videos and smiles at himself the whole way through.
*He loves to dance and will start shimmying whenever he hears music. He does have some serious white-boy moves but I love them!
*He loves to be read to and has an attention span for stories that is astonishing to both Jamie and me. He will sit through lengthy story after story every night before bed and frequently throughout the day parroting his favorite parts and pointing out things he loves to see on the pages. He also makes requests for certain favorite books and will search the house until it is found.
*He knows most of his colors… with the exception of a few he can name colors when asked with very little need for correction.
*He loves to play, mostly with duplo and cars. I am pretty sure that the first word out of his mouth when he gets up in the morning is cars and aside from the kisses and request for juice at bed time it is the last word that he utters. He knows all the names of this cars (some are die casts from the Disney movie Cars and have actual names) others are the names that he has given them but either way we play with them ALL DAY LONG! They zoom around my feet while I make dinner, they “crash” and flip off of the coffee table and they race man do they race. We talk about cars non-stop when we are in the car- he can spot a “jeepie” (a jeep) from a mile away. By the way a jeepie has to be a wrangler and a rag top is preferred.

So basically, I am exhausted most days when Jamie gets home because I spend every moment chasing this little one and as you can see he keeps me pretty darn busy. However, he is precious beyond words. He gives the best big hugs around, will freely give out kisses and tells me “love you”. It is melt your heart worthy, I promise. So even though I am tired and my days are not my own, I know that it won’t be long before I have another one to split my time with so I am trying to cherish every moment that I have with him and ignore all of the things that can wait.

Everything else is pretty good, we don’t have many things to complain about and the things we do have just don’t seem worth it. Hope you all can say the same :)

Here’s a few other photos to help fill you in on our happenings…

playing outside- also something that he loves right now. He always seems to get filthy regardless of the amount of time we are out

helping to blow out the candles on Jamie's birthday muffins

yogurt! — eating yogurt all by himself- it's a messier process but he is getting better by the day

Last weekend, Jamie, Jay and I went to a stable that was hosting a fall festival. They had all kinds of entertainment including pumpkin painting, face painting, music, pumpkins to take photos with and pony rides. Jay rode a pony, enjoyed watching the people and children that were around and carted pumpkins around most of the time that we were there. We didn’t actually pick our pumpkins here (they didn’t have many big ones) but we all enjoyed ourselves.