Halloween festivities

We started our Halloween festivities by going to our neighbor, Brian Pali's to pick out our pumpkins. He is a guy in our ward that really enjoys growing (a ton) of pumpkins every year and then calling all the ward kids to come and pick a pumpkin. The kids like it too. Kace picked a pumpkin that was shaped like a peanut, because his classes theme for their pumpkin walk was outer space so he thought he would be able to make it a pretty cool alien.

The boys wanted to paint their pumpkins this year. I was perfectly fine with that.

Ty is learning how to write his letters and numbers so his pumpkin consisted of his favorite colors blue and green and a variety of "letters". You may see some E's, Y's, X's, T's and other letters. He is getting quite good at his letters and only doesn't recognize about five of them. I was getting worried because he had shown NO INTEREST in learning them, but in the past month he has been writing them, saying them, and wanting to do flash cards with me. I don't know what the change has been, but I like it!

Ty wanted the biggest pumpkin there was. Brian had to load it in a trailer and bring it over on a four wheeler. I love the look of pure excitement on his face!

After our ward carnival (which I was in charge of this year along with the YW...and am sooooo glad it is over :) ) Kace had the grand idea that he should set up a booth at Kent's in the parking lot and try to sell his face painting skills. He got a little bit worried when I told him that he would have to get a business license to do it, but he thought he could make the money back pretty quickly. He practiced his skills on Ty! At first Ty didn't want to have his face painted and Kace was devastated, but quickly gave in (by quickly I mean, 2 or 3 hours later). I think he did pretty good!

For Jessica's birthday we went to Calloway's in full costume and had a dinner. People were giving us crazy looks, but it was fun! I couldn't get enough of Mac's costume. Jess had warned me and said that when I saw Mac I would pee my pants and sure enough it was HILARIOUS! Kace now wants this costume for next year. Probably not going to happen though.

For my costume I just got a wig and sunglasses. I am not much of a dresser upper. I told everyone that I was dressing up as my sister. I think I look kind of like her. I have absolutely NO IDEA what Nate is. He just started putting things on. On the way to the restaurant he kept looking at himself in the rear view mirror to see what he looked like with hair. We almost got into an accident more than once!

Kace's school always does a costume parade on the Friday before Halloween. The kids always get so excited to parade around in their costumes. Kace was in perfect character. He is pretty proud of his costume. He wanted to be something that would bring lots of laughs. I picked it out all by himself. I was ordering the carnival prizes on Oriental Trading he started looking for costumes and found this one. He wanted it as soon as he saw it. I was worried that it might be inappropriate (because of the nipples, they are really life-like!). Nate didn't think it was that bad and Kace couldn't stop talking about it, so we got it. As soon as his friend Easton saw it he wanted it too!

Every year at the costume parade Ty and his friends have had a great time playing in the leaves. This year was no different.



All year Ty has wanted to be black spiderman for Halloween. We went to WalMart as soon as the costumes were put on the shelf and he wore it all over. By the end of the month he no longer wanted to be black spiderman, he wanted to be Optimus Prime. Good think we already had that costume. So he went as a Transformer. Good thing I bought the black spiderman costume :)

Ty was pretty proud of his pumpkin on head trick!

My boys :) I sure do love them!


Kace is ALWAYS in character.

The Sunday before Halloween we celebrated Erik's bday at my parents house. The boys came in their costumes to go trick-or-treating to grandma and great grandma's. When we went over to MY grandma's she was probably flabbergasted because she thought Kace was a pregnant lady. I had to (gently) explain that he was a SUMO WRESTLER (two very different things). I found out later that the younger kids at the costume parade thought he was a baby with a big diaper! Whatever he was he got lots of laughs.

Notice Ty's pumpkin trick!

My whole point in doing the ward carnival was so that no one would do a trunk or treat. I do not like trunk or treat at all. I think it is parents being lazy. We have always taken our kids trick or treating, but are sometimes the only kids that go out. The older people in our ward don't go to the trunk or treat and always look forward to kids coming to their home in costume and then are always disappointed when hardly anyone comes. It makes me feel bad. SO it was decided to ban trunk or treat. That meant there were a TON of kids out trick or treating this year. I loved it!

Even though it was bed time when we got home we still had to sort our candy into piles (i.e. candy bars, tootsie rolls, fruity things, suckers, etc). They then put all their candy in different baggies and they are perfectly organized. I used to do this as a kid. After we would sort our candy the bartering would begin. We would trade the things we didn't like as much for things we did.

Ty is pretty proud of his loot. He didn't want to put it all together this year. He wanted to keep his separate. I think he is going to be sick!