Poop Bites, Ketchup and Halloween Costumes

We had a fun time at a Halloween party this weekend- some friends and I rented a shelter at Raleigh's big park downtown and we all brought our families to the kids could show off their cute costumes! It was an awesome park, it has a carousel, train and multiple playgrounds. Maddie had a great time with everyone, and Mike and I had fun talking to the other parents while we took turns chasing Maddie down.


My apologies to any of the babies that Maddie stole snacks and/or toys from- her lack of nap seemed to make her super hyper yesterday! I still don't understand how the child crawls across pavement like it's a soft mat. Maddie was giving kisses like they were going out of style yesterday- even to her friend Holly's bunny tail, lol!

Maddie had a great time on the carousel, although we had to wait about 5 minutes for it to start after we got on, so she was kind of over it before it began. Here is a video of her waiting on the carousel to start and one of her during the ride. I was hoping we'd be able to go on a train ride too, but it was late afternoon and Miss Mads was ready to head home.

In other news, I had a total cooking FAIL when I tried to make a toddler snack called broccoli bites for the party. I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong, but they came out looking like piles of mushy dog poop and Maddie almost barfed when I let her try one. The dogs seemed to like them ok.

I had planned on using those broccoli bites a few times this week for Maddie's meals, but since they were nothing short of disgusting, I bought some frozen organic broccoli mini quiches instead. Even though it looked much more appetizing than my poop bites, the smell almost made me vomit when I took it out of the microwave- probably should've guessed at that point that Maddie wasn't going to like it!

Of course, she didn't, but they were kind of expensive and I didn't want to waste it so I broke out the ketchup. That's right, I'm already bribing my 14.5 month old to eat with ketchup. But hey- it worked! She loved the ketchup and ate every single bite of that broccoli quiche. I'll just think of it as a broccoli quiche with a side of tomatoes (and sugar).