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.

Galena Harvest Festival



This weekend was our ward's Harvest Festival.  It was lots of fun.  I was able to whip up a costume for Julia in the afternoon...Strawberry Shortcake. She loved it.  Harry wore Raef's old pirate costume, which is now nice and dirty, I am happy to report.  Who ever heard of a clean pirate anyways?

 

There were lots of fun little games to play and prizes to win.

 

 

 

There wasn't enough room on the hayride for all of us, so Molly and Jimmy took Julia and Harry with them and the kids loved it.

 

But Julia had a hard time processing this monkey mask. She was very confused.

This is just what we needed to get into the holiday mood. I even broke out the fall decorations and let the kids put them up around the house.  Good times. 

My Little Ones Are Smart

I am going to be honest here. My heart just really wasn't into Halloween this year.  This is what you get.

 Julia's outfit was just a hodgepodge of orange and black stuff I have picked up along the way. She liked it.

 Eli's costume was game time decision. I thought he would do the blue and green 5-eyed monster outfit I put him in a few years ago. But he went all crazy with the dogs this year.

Yep, that is a costume that Zach wore two years ago.  And he did his own makeup.

Raef really wanted to be a vampire. He did his own makeup as well.

We did have a lot of fun trick-or-treating. We drove down to Rolling Hills, the neighborhood that surrounds the church building. It was the perfect location. The houses are close together. Lots of people did get into Halloween, so there were neat decorations everywhere. It didn't take Julia, Harry, and Eli long to catch onto the whole candy thing.  They had a ball. Harry would even walk right into people's houses when he saw the reserve candy.  Even though we were a motley crew, they got lots of comments from people saying how cute they were.  

It was a lot of fun. We made the rounds for about an hour and then headed home with our haul.  Thank you Harry, Julia, and Eli for collecting my candy.

Then when we got home I was shocked to hear the doorbell ring. Have you seen our driveway???  Sure enough, one family of trick-or-treaters.  Luckily I had some candy leftover from a homeschool party we did on Friday. If not, I would have had to sacrifice our candy.  After all, they did walk all the way up the driveway, you know.

Halloween 2010

 We had our ward Halloween Party last week and so the costumes were fresh.  Notice how Mario and Luigi have beards and perfectly clean costumes. Harry is baby Mario and that hat stayed on his head for about 2.4 seconds.  Eli was Toad and he graciously allowed us to take one picture of him with his hat on.  Then it was sayonara, baby.  The outfit really did not make much sense without the hat.

 Of course, Julia had to be a princess.  Can you guess which princess she is?  Princess Peach, of course.  Do you get the theme? Anyone? Anyone?

Tonight we celebrated Halloween with a trunk-or-treat at our friends house, in their very large cul-de-sac. So I took the annual Halloween costume picture on our front porch.

 Yep, no baby Mario this week. I was not up for the battle.  So Harry is a leopard, a costume my visiting teacher gave me. We put it to good use.

 Once again, Eli was thrilled to wear the toad hat.  Ironically, once we got to the party, he kept it on his head the whole night.  What? I don't even know but he was adorable, or course.

 After a week of playing in these costumes, you could tell that they were well loved. They also decided to get a shave because the mustaches were not as well received this week.

There has to be a leopard in the Mario game somewhere, right?

Happy Halloween!

A Pumpkin Patch

We took the kids on Thursday to a local pumpkin patch. It was lots of fun. There was a little petting zoo there and Eli had a blast hanging out with the goats, rabbits, and chickens. He didn't want to leave. It didn't hurt that there were fun haystacks to climb on as well. However, he was not too keen on the pony. It was the first animal we saw and I asked him if he wanted to pet the pony. He vigorously shook his head, like he was saying "No Way!" But he did warm up to the pony eventually. It was just a little too big for him.





Raef and Zach went on a trampoline slingshot thing. It was a long wait to get a turn but I think it was worth it. They had a ball. Raef was cautious at first but as he got more comfortable the worker sent him higher and higher into the air. We had a lot of fun!

Happy Halloween

This was a busy day. After they got all dressed up for the day, we took pictures and then we were off to a party at Nicholas' house.

This costume is made from Deseret Industries clothing and table napkins, with a little it of felt and very sloppy sewing. Hey, I threw it together yesterday in about one hour.

Eli is wearing the pumpkin outfit Raef wore in 2003 sans the hat. I don't know where the hat is. He wouldn't have kept in on his head anyway, so why worry about it.

Tough guys.So scary. Zach can't resist kissing Eli. It is a bit of a problem because he smothers him. While dropping them off, I saw white paint all over Eli's face. Then I asked Zach, "Did you kiss Eli?" He gave me a sheepish grin.

Raef wanted to be an army guy. It was easy to throw his together. The jacket was way too big so I had to readjust it. Believe me...you would never mistake me for a taylor. I am truly lousy at it. Of course, it usually helps if you measure and use pins...but who has time for all of that?

When I went to pick up the kids from the party, I found Raef high in a tree in the backyard. It is like a dream come true for him. He loves to climb. He had so much fun. I was excited that there was a tree available for him to climb. I used to love climbing trees when I was a kid.

After picking them up, we went to Dad's work. They showed everyone their costumes. The two little girls they are standing with is Ally and Camryn. Their dad works at Fidelity. Their mom made their costumes. They looked so awesome.

Plus some pictures from the ward Trunk or Treat. It is a fun party. Cheryl did the cake walk and she rocks. Maybe you are in one of these photos. Take a look.

Rinar's costume. Whoa...

The branch manager's husband actually has a hairdo like this. No kidding. Except his beard is blonder.

There must have been at least 3 Spidermans, but this one was my favorite.