Happy Halloween

Actually, I should say, "Happy November" today, but we'll attempt to do some October catching up...starting with Halloween.

The funny thing about Halloween this year was that it just kept on going. I remember dressing the kids up for a couple of occasions each of the past few years, but this year we were on our fourth run of costumes before Halloween even came. Oh well. We have a year to recuperate.

Kicking off the ghoulish cheer this year was a pumpkin carving party at TEC's cousin's (also neighbors of ours) house. We enjoyed good food, visiting with friends and some family alike, and a mass-effort of fancy pumpkin-carving artistry. At the end of the party we lined up and lit all the pumpkins at once. It was quite a sight. Lots of fun. Amazingly, we got a picture of our whole family that evening.


Our ward held a dinner and "trunk-or-treat" last weekend. No pictures, but plenty of candy still to show for it. That was our first official run of costumes. Here's what we (mostly) settled on this year:

RVC: a beautiful butterfly. We cut out wings from an old sheet and tie-dyed them, then attached them to a black shirt. It was fun to make and turned out really well.

CAC: she had no choice in the matter...went as the hand-me-down ladybug, just like her sisters before her. But she sure was one cute bug.

SCC: Minnie Mouse...thank goodness! My sister Val made this costume for her little girl years ago (and aunt Holly supplied the ears) and I'm amazed she chose it just about every time this year. She looked very cute.

TLC: Depending on the event, you may have seen TL dressed as any of the following this year: Spiderman, The Cat in the Hat, a Cowboy (no, wait, he switched out of that 5 minutes before we were supposed to leave to one event), or a doctor. A few other considerations: Darth Vader, Teen-aged-Mutant Ninja Turtle, Thomas the Train. It's a good thing I didn't slave over any costumes for that boy.

Papa invited the kids over on Wednesday for a Spooky Halloween party. They had a great time making "witches brew," making little pizzas, and playing games while Mom and Dad snuck in a little date night. Thanks Grams and Papa!

Thursday was the school parade and class party. Between this and last year, I'm 0 for 2 on getting a good picture of RVC during the parade (this time my camera was stuck in Macro mode for some reason). I tried to snap a good one in the hallway as they walked back to class.


Friday afternoon we got to go downtown to TEC's work for some office trick-or-treating. The kids were excited to see Dad and had the whole look-cute-and-grown-ups-give-you-candy thing down in no time.


And finally, if you can believe it, we actually made it to Halloween. It was a busy day. I took the older girls to a baptism in the morning while TEC got some work done in the yard/garden. We cleaned out two pumpkins--one for pumpkin stew and our giant home-grown "Jack" (one of two that grew in our garden--it was huge!) for carving.

TEC was going to the Utah game that evening, so we ate dinner early and attempted to knock on a few doors on our street (not that we needed more candy; rather, it's our annual excuse to be "neighborly"). We didn't catch too many people at home this year. Nor did we get many trick-or-treaters. Oh well. We sent TEC off to the game, carved the big one, enjoyed an episode of "Casper the Friendly Ghost" on Hulu, and admired our glowing lanterns before saying goodnight.


Happy Halloween and Hello to November!