Happy Halloween

It's a tradition. Every year on our front porch. Look at my kids ready to go do some trunk-or-treating at the church.

For some reason Eli decided to be a vampire.  I made him a cape and put on some scary make-up. He was contented with the outcome and thought he was about the scariest thing walking the earth.  He was happy...I was happy.

Harry wanted to be a pirate. I wanted to make an original costume for him but just ran out of time. So we pulled this out of the costume box, Raef's old pirate get up from many years ago. And Harry absolutely refused to wear any sort of make-up. I really wanted to do a pencil mustache, but he would have none of it. I think that is about the cleanest, happiest and most innocent pirate you will ever see.

Julia really made my life easy by picking out a costume from our dress-up box.  Every day it was a new costume. At one point, she even wanted to be Spiderman. But alas, it was a doggie in the end. Plus, this gave her a great way of showing off her newly manicured nails.  Julia was a lucky girl because my sister Heather came to town for a few days and decided to take Julia to a manicure salon.  My girl was in heaven.  She got her hands and feet done and was super excited about it.

This was by far my most difficult costume to pull together. Only because of the fact that Zach is very determined and single-minded. He was the ultimate nag.  Grrr...  It was probably good though, because he kept me on task, albeit begrudgingly.  In the end, he was super happy with Batman Beyond and my ears were glad of the reprieve.

And Raef was Caesar. Jamie gave this to him and my life was easy because of it. Noelle was a pumpkin thanks to the kind women in my ward who came to my baby shower.  Raef is holding our little pumpkin.

On Halloween night, Rinar took them all out and only 20 minutes later they were back. Julia was tired and done.  I guess she was pleased with her little haul of candy.  But the boys went out for round two and came back with quite a bit.  Then Rinar took Raef and Zach out for round three. Needless to say, they were carrying a couple of heavy Halloween pillowcases.  

Even though I put practically no effort into this holiday, all the kids seemed to have oodles of fun. Halloween 2013 was a success. And I am glad it is over.