A Screamin' Good Time

Happy Halloween all! This month has been great.

Costumes picked. CHECK
Kids Halloween party. CHECK
Ward Chili Cook-off. CHECK
Carved Pumpkins. CHECK
Trick Or Treating. CHECK, CHECK, CHECK

I am actually ready for November to start. But let's check out this fabulous day of All Hallow's Eve...

The girls looked really cute this year. Here is the crew:

Tyler and I barely dressed up. If the Houck's hadn't hosted a party (to be blogged later) we wouldn't even have gotten that picture. It was my idea for the phantom, but my phantom is blind without his glasses, so he couldn't really stay in costume. But let it be documented....that we tried.

The kids dressed up for school. It is not every day that you find a skeleton reading to Cinderella in your bedroom.

The kids participated in their school parade. Here is my skeleton again.

And vampire Ives. I talked her into being a vampire because I think with her front teeth missing, the other ones look like little fangs.

I caught Robyn in her classroom since they didn't follow the parade.

I helped out with June's class party, but somehow never got a picture of her there. I organized a game called Witches' Brew. It consists of using straws to pick up small pieces of paper (cut out as spiders and bats) and depositing them in a bowl. We had two teams competing. (Orange and black) First we had them take turns. On each team they had to wait until their teammate sat down to rush up and move another paper over.

But then we did the 'free-for-all' round. Everyone could rush up and move papers over. These teams meant business and they were ready.

Mrs. Mahoney was a good sport to play with the kids. It was a very simple game, but the kids really enjoyed it.

After school, I noticed the lawn was a bit strewn with pine needles. We have a very large pine tree and instead of leaves, it drops needles, and blankets the lawn. So I raked. But instead of a nice fluffy pile of leaves, it created this prickly nest-like heap. When I mentioned this to Robyn, she begged to make a nest of her own. I even let them line it with leaves to make it softer.

I think it fitting that Robyn had a spotted egg.

June seemed very protective of her egg.

All too soon it was time to go trick or treating. Have I mentioned (besides at the top of this post) that we have never gone trick or treating? Maybe we have taken the kids to two or three houses, but we always do trunk or treat and that is plenty of candy for this mom. But in our new ward, there was no trunk or treat. So that left us with good old fashioned trick or treating. Tyler took them out, and I think they had a fantastic time. Here they are ready to go.

June said her favorite part was at the end when they stopped at a friend's house. Apparently there was a bucket exactly like Daisy's candy bucket sitting on their porch. Daisy had been running around and spotted the bucket and thought she had left it, so she went to go pick it up. Instead of finding her bucket brimming with candy, there was just an old bar of soap dissolving at the bottom. She was heartbroken and sat down and cried. Poor Daisy. June quickly realized what was happening and led Daisy to her actual bucket.

Man, the kids came home with a TON of candy. And so begins my battle of whether I let them eat it all, or take some away. This is my least favorite part of Halloween. But they sure look happy, don't they?

Hopefully we can detox this weekend and look forward to a month of thankfulness and blog posts. Happy Halloween.