Halloween

Four things to note for next year:

1. Make sure your husband does not have 2 finals and a paper due the next day, thereby remaining absent the entire evening.

2. Carve pumpkins before October 31st at 5:00pm. Especially if your husband is studying on October 31st. You will definitely not get pictures of the 4-eyed, 2-nosed pumpkin.

3. If you are on your own for Halloween, make sure you leave to trick-or-treat right at 6:00. Otherwise, you may find yourself unable to leave...as you try to put the finishing touches on costumes while answering the door bell every 5 seconds.

4. Don't let your preschooler wear the lego hat to school--he may leave it there.

These things being said, it was actually a wonderful night. The kids were so excited and I had just as much fun watching and listening. Andrew was always about a house ahead...he was so anxious to get to the next one, plus Natalie was so slow. She finally decided she didn't have to ride in the wagon and that sped things up a bit.

Natalie insisted on bringing her two dogs with her (their names are Frenchy and Biting dog (??)) and there were many patient homeowners who had to move Frenchy aside in the pumpkin to make room for candy.

We made a respectable loop and then made it home, where Andrew then had just as much fun handing candy out to trick or treaters and James got to stretch his legs.

Natalie and her cousin Reagan in the library parade

Ward Halloween Party

Oh, we have such a fun ward Halloween Party every year. Carnival booths, food, horse rides...

Always the highlight...the horses. Natalie was thrilled she got a white horse and then managed to almost fall off because she wasn't really holding on.

In fact, it is so fun that I got up early Saturday morning, drove all day from Utah, and got us all ready for the party...by myself...because I didn't want the kids to miss it.

Andrew was so excited to wear his lego costume and he was followed by murmurs of "it's a lego!" all night. Although, he didn't love that his hat fell off all night or that he couldn't really bend over to pick anything up.

Natalie was floating on air as Belle.

James hated his costume. He hated the ears, he hated the round body. So, I have no pictures of James really in his costume and none with him smiling. Oh well.

John was off with some college friends for the weekend, and his great parents met up with us at the party...I'm sure to lend me a hand. It was great to have them there.

Simpsons

Oh, we love our neighbors and their Halloween party. But, the best part of going to the party was my kids' faces as they watched us get dressed up. They loved it.

And More Halloween Fun

Wow--to be a kid on Halloween! Andrew and Natalie were in heaven. And the fun didn't even start when we started going from house to house. The fun started when people came to our door. Andrew would run to open the door, then run to get the candy bowl, then as he got back to the open door with the candy it would go something like this, "Hi guys! We have canny for you. We have red ones, and orange ones, and green ones." All this narration as he was placing the Mike & Ikes into everybody's bags. He would tell everyone "You're welcome. Bye." And sometimes would throw in a "Happy Halloween" in there also. We would close the door and he would be carrying the candy bowl and saying, "Lots of kids are coming to my house, mom." He was just so excited.

But it was fun to trick or treat also. The first house we think he just rang the door bell, said trick or treat and left before he got any candy. The lady came after him with the candy. He didn't make that mistake again. Andrew was much faster than Natalie so at most homes he would ring the doorbell and get his candy before Natalie meandered up. She was just too cute in that little costume and we even had someone come up to us during the night saying that somebody had told her she had to get a look at that cute Tinker Bell. She finally got into the wagon, but only after Andrew was tired and wanted to ride. As long as he was walking, so was she.

The kids already were digging into their candy on the ride home in the wagon and couldn't open everything fast enough. After we had two suckers and some pixie sticks open I told them they needed to finish what they were eating before we would open something else!


I was struck by how little my kids are, and at the same time, how big they are getting. (make any sense at all?) Especially Andrew. He is really starting to look so grown up. And he had some of the older boys in the neighborhood saying, "Hi, Andrew" as they went by and Andrew replying, "Hi." It just seemed so grown up! And he was running from house to house to get the candy, saying trick or treat, saying thank you. At the same time, I just saw this little 3-year-old Peter Pan. Everything still so new and exciting and fun. I have to remind myself of how little he still is so i don't expect too much of him!

Happy Halloween

We had a ward Halloween party/carnival on Saturday night, so the kids got all dressed up. It doesn't get much better than being a kid on Halloween--getting dressed up, all the candy you can eat... But, being a mom of a 3 year old and a 1 year old is a close second. I think I'm having as much fun as they are! And the ward party is so great. The highlight of the evening for the kids was the horseback riding. Andrew was so excited and just grinned the whole time. But Natalie...she was ecstatic. She had the biggest grin I've ever seen and wouldn't let anybody help her as she rode around. I have to admit, I was a little nervous with her on the back of that big horse and nothing holding her on. But she was just great. And I might as well have been riding that horse too for as much as I was enjoying it. I felt like I was riding it right along with them.

Close second to the horse was the cupcake walk. They just walked right along to the music. Andrew won a cupcake, but luckily Natalie didn't win one and didn't mind because we would have had a chocolate covered tinker bell. I'm not sure if it was intentional that she never won, but no complaints here.

Just so you know how not with it I am, the party started at 6pm and we didn't get there until after 7. We did have a hard time getting us all out the door and of course I was feeding the baby and so we had to wait to leave, but I thought the party started at 6:30. Instead of being about 40 minutes late we almost missed the whole thing! But luckily we didn't and got there for just the right amount.
James managed to have a poop blowout in the 45 minutes we were there and completely filled his pants. I didn't bring a change of costume, so we wrapped him in his blanket and he got to wait until we got home for some clean pants. Poor guy.

"Hawoween" Cookies

We have been having so much fun this Halloween. It's really the first year the kids have been old enough to get it--both of them. They have been so excited about their costumes and Andrew has been looking forward to his preschool Halloween party and to going trick or treating. The kids and I made pumpkin cookies last Thursday and ate a bunch and delivered some to some friends. It was fun. I ended up cutting out and then frosting most of them, but we did have a few 100% made by the kids. Those were very pretty ;-) We didn't make enough orange frosting and made too much green frosting so some friends got green pumpkins, but Andrew only wanted to eat the green ones and our friends with a 3 year old said he insisted on eating a green one too ;-)

Here are a few pictures of the kids having a good ol' time with the frosting.

And here is the cookies recipe. It is one of my old roommate's recipes and is one of my all time favorite sugar cookies recipes. Yummy!

6 C. Sifted flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 C. soft butter
2 C. Sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 C Sour Cream
1/2 tsp Almond Extract

First cream butter and sugar. Mix eggs, vanilla, sour cream and almond together. Then blend butter and egg mixtures together. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together and then add to the butter and egg mixtures. Beat well. Add more flour if needed. Refrigerate dough. Roll out--thicker than 1/4". Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Makes 4-5 dozen cookies.

Icing: Mix 1/2 stick of soft butter, milk and powdered sugar to consistency and 1/2 tsp almond extract.