More Halloween Fun

The Halloween celebrations seemed to keep coming and coming this year! On Saturday night our ward had trunk or treat. This is something the kids look forward to every year. Tori wanted her nails painted red to match her costume, so we did that right before. Here are our two witches and Darth Vader ready to go and get a lot of candy!

I had to join in on the witch theme =)

Alexis invited her friend Kira to come along. Here they all are about to start the rounds. It was so windy at first, and they had to hold their hats on their heads.

Brandon bought this hideous mask a few months ago. He has scared me half to death a few times with it, actually bringing me to tears once! I was nervous for him to wear it to trunk or treat, because I didn't want him to scare all of the kids. It was a hit though. The thing about this mask is that when you first see him, he just looks like a creepy old man! Imagine my surprise one day when I was home alone and that face peered around the corner at me! We got a few comments that night that Brandon was "robbing the cradle" so we had to get a picture of the two of us together =)

The kids were so excited to see Harmony there. She has been such a special party of our lives. No matter how much time passes between when we see her, the bond that our kids have with her is so evident =)

After our ward party we headed inside to my mom's ward party. They had a chili cook off, some fun carnival type games, face painting and trunk or treat! I didn't get my camera out, but fun was had by all! My mom brought her famous Wheat Chili, and she won the award for "b est after burn taste" We weren't quite sure what to think of that! haha

The kids got an insane amount of candy! Today as they were sorting through the hundreds and hundreds of pieces I made a deal with them that I would give them 10 cents a piece. They were so excited for that! Here they all are sorting through decided which ones they could part with.

They actually were able to give up quite a lot! I am a little poorer, but I am sure our dentist will appreciate it =)
I bagged it all up gave it to Brandon and told him to hide it from me =)

Wow! What a fun whirlwind of Halloween celebrations we had this year!

School Parties

On Friday the 29th, all three kids had their Halloween parties at school. Brandon was gone all day, so I had to brave them all on my own! Levi has been planning for quite some time to be Darth Vader for Halloween. I got him a Darth Vader costume, and set it out for him to wear that day. Well when he woke up that morning he had different plans! he said, "Mommy, I think I am going to be Spiderman instead because everyone else in my class is going to be Spiderman too" I couldn't believe it because he had been so excited to be Darth Vader! Good thing his Spiderman from last year still fit him. When we got to school I noticed that there were about 5 other little boys dressed up as Spiderman in his class. They must have all been talking about it at school =)

When we first got there, all of the kids in the school had a big parade around the soccer field. The preschoolers got to lead it, and it was so fun to see Levi walking in his costume and grinning at everyone.

After that we headed to his classroom for a fun little party. There were several centers set up for the kids to go to. I was in charge of the lollipop ghost center. Here is Levi waiting for us to get started. I didn't even comb his hair that morning because I figured he would have his mask on the whole time. Well he decided not to wear it once he got to school, so he had some serious bed head! haha

Here's his finished ghost! He loved drawing on the face all by himself.

I stayed at the ghost center the whole time, but I was able to sneak away a few times to take some pictures of Levi at the other centers. Here is an action shot of him at pumpkin bowling.

After that he made a cute foam pumpkin. Then they got to do pin the face on the pumpkin and listen to some Halloween stories. They also had some yummy treats. It went by so fast and Levi was so sad when it was time to leave. I reminded him that we still got to go to Alexis and Tori's parties later on, and that cheered him up.

Later that afternoon we headed to Alexis and Tori's school. Levi decided that he would wear his Darth Vader Costume now =)

Their school is so big, and their classrooms are on opposite ends, so I was a little nervous about making sure I spent equal time with both of them. We stopped by Tori's room first. She was all dressed in her costume and ready to start the party. She was so excited to see us, and showed Levi around her classroom, and even let him sit at her desk!

The first thing they did was make a Halloween craft. They were given a styrofoam ball and told to make whatever kind of creature they wanted. Tori decided to make a spider.

After that Tori headed over to the cookie decorating table and Levi and I headed down to see Alexis. While we were gone, Tori frosted a cookie for Levi and covered it with sprinkles. He was so excited when we saw it. While he was eating that Tori made herself a sandwich cookie.

Alexis was so happy to see us when we got to her classroom. She wanted to introduce Levi to everyone, and even talked him into sitting on her lap for a minute =)

They had all sorts of fun and creative games planned in her classroom. They had a candy corn catapult, a marshmallow catch game, bingo, stack the golf balls, and cookie decorating. It was definitely more chaotic in her classroom, lol.

Here is Alexis trying to catch a marshmallow. Shortly after this she got elbowed in the nose by another child while they were trying to catch one. I felt so bad! She was trying to be so brave as her eyes welled up with tears =( I wanted to run up and give her big hugs, but I didn't want to embarrass her so I tried to play it cool while making sure she was ok. I hate that she is growing up!

I ran back and forth between Alexis and Tori's classrooms several times, and by the end I was so tired!! I was glad that I could go and be there with them though. Levi was glad he got to tag along too!

A Fun Tradition

All growing up my mom always had a special Halloween dinner for us either on Halloween night or a few days before. This is a fun tradition that she has continued, that our kids now get to enjoy. Last Monday night we headed over there. My mom made all sorts of yummy food and planned some fun little activities for the kiddos. When they first got there they each found a mask waiting for them, along with a treat sack. They got to decorate the treat sacks while they were waiting for us to finish up making dinner. They had so much fun and loved the masks!

I didn't get pictures of all of the food, but here are some of them. This is "Slime" (vegetable dip)

Witches brew

Skeleton Bones (bread sticks)

Here is Michael cutting up the "jiggly brains" (jello) Michael made all of the fun little signs telling what everything was.

These were the delicious ribs of Frankenstein! =)

Even though I knew that these "maggots" were really just rice, I could not bring myself to eat them, haha.

Those were all of the pictures that I got of the food, but we also had "bat wings" (chicken wings), "witches warts" (corn), and I can't remember if there was anything else! It was all so yummy!

After dinner we sang a few Halloween songs, including "I'm a Mean Old Witch With a Hat" which is a childhood favorite of mine. I remember driving down the road singing that song as a kid and when it got to the end where we were supposed to yell "BOO!" My dad would always yell it so loud and scare us all =) My mom always had the best witch cackle impression. I couldn't get her to do it for us this year, but I did catch a picture of her posing as a witch while we were singing the song =)

After the songs the kids got to go trick or treating! Not your normal trick or treating though. They just went trick or treating around the room to different people that had a bowl of candy. They thought this was just great!

We were lucky to have my Grandma and Grandpa Park in town visiting, so they got to join in on all the festivities too!

We had such a fun time! It was fun to do it on a night that wasn't Halloween, because it made it more special for the kids. Thanks mom for planning such a great night!

Lots and LOTS of Leaves

5 big cottonwood trees in our backyard, means lots and lots of leaves, and lots and lots of raking! One day last week Brandon and Levi headed out to rake. Levi had so much fun helping daddy.

Half of the fun of raking leaves is getting to play in the piles afterwards. Levi loved running and jumping in them.

He even had a little buddy chasing after him and jumping in with him!

Who's that new little buddy you ask? Well that's the newest addition to our family, Jasper. Brandon has been trying to talk me into buying a bigger dog for quite some time. I am quite content with our one little dog Misty, but I finally gave in. Jasper is a yellow lab, and has been a fun new addition. Levi absolutely loves to carry him around and wrestle with him. It won't be long before Jasper will be way too big for Levi to carry around like this! We were told he was the runt of the litter, so hopefully he won't get too big!