Halloween 2014

Halloween was a fun day.  It was great that it fell on a Friday too!  Seriously though, I am not sure why they don't move the teacher work day to Halloween.  They had one just a week before.  Why not wait till Halloween day?  Moving on....

Elden and Shanna & Haley had fun Halloween activities at school.  I went in to help with Shanna and Haley, though didn't stay the whole time.  Halloween morning/afternoon was super busy for me!


They did some science stuff with pumpkins. Later they watched Legend of Sleepy Hollow and had some goodies.  A ballet company in DC is doing the Legend of Sleepy Hollow...or already performed it.  I would love to see that performance someday!






A little after 5 that night we headed out for trick-or-treating around our town.  They do a great trick-or-treating.  We also stopped at some houses in our neighborhood.  The pictures are a little out of order.


Here are a couple kids before we left.








We stop at the nursing home that is less than a block from our house.  It is so sweet of the residents to hand out candy.  The kids got a ton there in just one stop! We sang Christmas carols there last year, and want to do that again this year.

Back at the garden spot!  We ran into some friends too, and joined up with some other friends for trick-or-treating.


Love the "huge" pumpkin!  Last year it was even bigger!





We haven't handed out candy at our house in years...except for maybe two or three trick-or-treaters each Halloween.  Lee has been handing out candy at the town's trick-or-treating though so that makes up for what we don't do at our house.  He wore his crazy contacts again.  Many people did double takes when they looked at him.  Yeah, those contacts are hard to look at in real life!


Our town is a "golf cart" friendly community.  I doubt we'll stay in town, but if we do, someday I totally want to get a golf cart to drive around town!


A church close to downtown always has a maze, along with cookies and hot apple cider.  The kids love going here.


After trick-or-treating, my friend Jenna and her kids met us at our house. We watched The Ghost & Mr. Chicken with Don Knotts while the kids sorted and ate candy.  It was a fun night.  And the movie was over by about 9:30 too!  I stayed up late that night sorting candy and threw a bunch away.  I should I done the candy sell back for the stuff I threw away!  The next morning the kids were not happy that I had sorted it though.  (I seriously love going through their candy!)  I set aside candy for gingerbread houses, Christmas and Valentine's Day!  They still had so much left over, which I pointed out to them.  Not sure when I'll stop sorting their candy on Halloween.  Hope you all had a fun and spooky night!

Halloween Sugar Cookies!

Every year for family home evening we decorate sugar cookies before Halloween.  We started this tradition back in Missouri I think.  Sugar cookies are easy, but I just don't think to make them a whole lot.  We're more of a chocolate-dessert kind of family. The kids always love helping with coloring the frosting.








Reed, Blake and Rhett were still here and they joined in on the fun too.  Well, not so much Rhett.




































Lee had fun with the camera that night. 












Oh, and one more shot from when the boys were here.  Reed read a book to Blake one morning while the other kids were at school.  So cute!


And the day before Halloween I went and gave blood.  I am so grateful for the three units of blood I received during Elden's delivery.  I literally would have bled to death if not for that blood!  And Elden received many transfusions too while in the hospital.  My friend Andrea and I gave blood several times in high school and I did a couple of times in college.  I haven't given for years though, until there was a blood drive at my church in September.  Hopefully I'll give several times a year now.  The blood drive workers were even dressed up as vampires!  Just kidding.  But that would have been so funny...maybe a little scary. 

Pre-Halloween Festivities & Cousin Visit

We enjoyed some fun activities leading up to Halloween.  For Cal's cub scout pack meeting they met and carved squash and probably did some other fun activities...Lee attended not me.  I did slip in and get a couple of photos.






Meanwhile, the Mia Maids and I did a Halloween Party for the young women.  It turned out cute and I hope that the young women had a fun time! My friend Jenna let me borrow her fun decorations and cool fog machine!


We had some treats they could assemble--like "witches' hats", and played a couple of games too, like bobbing for apples.










Apparently at the middle school you earn a "positive" for doing something good.  I can't remember if I mentioned this on the blog, as I for sure did on instagram.  Since Clark received one "positive" last grading period his name was entered once into a drawing and he won these cool headphones!




Right now he is trying to sell them.  With Black Friday around the corner though, he keeps having to lower his price on craigslist, ha ha.


One night Lee got something in his eye.  He could not get it out so he brought home some dye and  a portable light in hope that maybe I could help him.  No luck.  He finally gave up on trying to find whatever it was, and in the morning it was gone.  Yay!


Lois and Jeff went to Maine right before Halloween for a dental school interview for Jeff.  Their boys hung out with us for a few days. 




I told Blake to smile and this is what he did...so funny.






All eight of us out on the town!






The night of our ward Halloween party we stopped at a park to play and we had dinner there-canned soup.  Not the best dinner, but there was only going to be snacks at the party so I figured something was better than nothing.


The kids had a fun time eating treats, playing games and trunk-or-treating!








Oh, yeah, and I won the pie eating contest!  WOO HOO!






This was my "prize" for winning the contest. Maybe I'll post that video sometime.  It's on Lee's phone though.


The kids brought home a lot of candy!




Rhett is always a popular guy around here.


He was so cute during Sunday school.


Random...but every once in a great while this kids like to build a tower of Duplos all the way to the ceiling. 


On Monday I took Rhett, Blake and Reed to eat with the kids at school.  We didn't go to the middle school though. Sorry Clark.  All the cousins enjoyed the outing.


Chocolate milk with a straw is the best!




Rhett is popular at school too apparently!


Such a cute picture!  These cousins are only a month and 6 days apart!


This was sweet too.


Thanks for visiting boys!!!