October 16-30, 2010

Our Halloween celebrations this year started in the middle of the month and went right up through Halloween night. We started off with a party with friend on the 16th. It was a chili cook off, costume contest, dance party all in one. It was a lot of fun and a good start to our sugar overload for the month. At the party, our family won a game and the prize was carmels, apples, and sticks. I have never made a carmel apple before, so this was my opportunity. On the 21st we pulled everything out, looked up the how-to on the internet and went for it. They turned out beautifully-that is until i remembered seeing that some people also dipped theres in chocolate in decided to try. I just melted chocolate chips, and they don't get creamy enough, so we ended up putting globs of chocolate on the apples and smearing it around. It made them look quite terrible in the end, but they sure were yummy!!!! We had fun sharing them with cousins and friends while we watched an episode of the Adams Family.

Brancyn

Brylee

Kayson

The next night was the Elders Quorum Party. Everyone dressed up except me (I know, I'm such a party pooper.) Brancyn was a Knight (or a fight guy as he was calling himself at this point.) Kade was Jack Skellington, Liberty was a Fairy Princess, Jared(our little friend) was a Jaguar, Brylee was Mickey Mouse, and Kayson was a Ninja (He was hillarious with his costume. Every time he wore it he'd start hiding in dark corners, slinking along walls, hopping over fences, etc. He was quite in character!). The party was fun with food and games and all of the kids came home with a pumpkin to carve.

On Monday the 25th, we went to the kids school carnival. They always enjoy that. This year since it was on Monday night, it made for a fun Halloween Family Night.

Finally we got around to carving our pumpkins on Friday the 29th-just in time! The kids had fun helping to scrape out the pumpkin "guts" and also helped to pick their designs. Liberty was big enough to help poke her design in her pumpkin. Then Kade and I went to work carving with plenty of encouragement from the kids.

Brancyn's was a train. Kade had to change this design a little to make it work on a pumpkin. I think it turned out great.

Brylee did Mickey Mouse to match her costume.

Kayson picked a bat.

Liberty thought this cat sitting on the moon was "so cuuute".

And Kade also matched his costume with a Jack Skellington face.

Halloween was celebrated on the 30th around here. We started our day off with ghost, pumpkin, bat, spider, and witch hat shaped pancakes. I started out with just pumpkins and then branched out to ghosts and was soon getting requests left and right!

Brancyn and his fun breakfast.

After that, we packed up and headed to Idaho Falls. On the way there, we saw a fox running through a field. We took a picture so we could show Grammy, but never remembered to. The kids thought it was pretty exciting.

We stopped in at Mimi's so she could cut Brancyn's hair. I was a rocky start, but he soon calmed down and enjoyed himself. ( The sucker that Mimi had for him sure helped matters.)

After that we showed our costumes off to Great-grandma Ruby and then went to Grammy and Grampy's Ward party. They had a cute talent show, dinner, and carnival games. Finally we headed back to Rexburg to Trick-or-treat. The kids made quite a haul even though I swore we wouldn't do as much this year. Oh well-they sure enjoyed it. We eneded the night at a neighborhood candy swap and party. It was a very full day, and I think we celebrated Halloween more than we ever have. Now we are truly ready to start thinking about something else like Thanksgiving and Christmas!!!!!!