Halloween Galore

We were the pirate family with the unexpected Firefighter!

Halloween started a week early in our home, fortunately I was caught up enough with the kids costumes to have them done Saturday morning.  We kicked off the holiday by going to a Halloween story telling that morning. It was cute and a fun way to spend a Saturday that Bill had to work. (Those darn elections!) That night was our wards Trunk-or-treat! To our great surprise Bill walked in the door with minutes to spare before departure time. It was a lot of fun and it was so thrilling to see Aaron in action. He loved running up ahead to the cars and saying, "kick-or-keak" and "happy hawaween"!

We were able to do a few art projects for the season. Bill was home and we carved pumpkins on Sunday. Too bad we live in Las Vegas and by the next night they had already started to cave. Olivia designed hers with daddy and I carved out Mickey Mouse for Aaron. Lately he's enjoyed pointing out the mouse wherever we see it. Neither of the kids particularly liked digging out the pumpkin guts but I was able to make pumpkin soup from the remains and YUM-O!

Being true to myself and to something I truly enjoy doing I had the kids help me with our holiday treat for the neighbors. We ventured into new territory this year and made Carmel/candied apples. I must say I was very impressed with how they turned out
and look forward to doing them next year. Olivia also iced 24 cupcakes on her own for the kids Halloween party the next day! Good Job Livi!

Cherubs is a once a week music appreciation class that the kids do at church. It's not church related, it's simply held there because it's available. This Thursday, being the day before Halloween, we had a party and all the kids got to come dressed in costume. Complete with "scary" spider and witch songs (in the picture below they're cackling like witches) and even a "cake walk" to top it off (hence the cupcakes that Livi iced)!

Thursday night was a Halloween Party for children with cancer put on by Candlelighters and sponsored by many. It was at a motel down behind the strip and was the party of the century. 

There were carnival games, pumpkin painting, horse rides, dinner, buckets of candy and

 trick-or-treating. It was supposed to be a family affair and we had all RSVP'd but Bill ended up needing to work and I knew I wouldn't be able to wrangle in Aaron for the evening so he stayed at a friends and Livi and I ventured out as pirates yet again. We met up with our friends, the Shiblaq's (Leila's family) and enjoyed the festivities with them. Livi made sure to get her fill of the 

 carnival games and even painted a pumpkin, which she made sure we didn't forget at the end of the night.Olivia loved riding the horse. As I took her up to the tall animal her little body tensed up immensely and she started shaking her head. I encouraged her onward and she nervously accepted. She LOVED IT! By the end of the lap around the make-shift arena she looked like a natural and didn't want to get off.  Perhaps she has a bit of her great-grandmother in her.

The trick-or-treating was simply amazing. I don't know the exact number of rooms they had available for the candy giving, but we walked through 3 full wings at the motel and 98% of the rooms(on both sides of the hall were decorated to the max even with the patrons in costume. This room was one of 

 the many that Livi really liked. She wasn't scared like I thought she'd be, she really enjoyed it and thought it was funny. When we started the halls we were given a pillow case to replace our candy holder and it's a good thing. I ended up carrying it 1/2 way through from not only the weight but the volume of candy that was in it. Each door gave a handful of candy except the doors that had kids passing it out, they gave a single piece (it was pretty funny)!

At the end of the evening there was a Dr. B. sighting. He appropriately walked in to the dinner tent talking on his cell phone and wearing a Superman costume. The girls were so excited he was there. He was more than happy to share his time with them. (There were hundreds of kids there.) All in all it was a great evening that ended with Bill and I helping "sort" Olivia's candy only to dump it all in a bowl and hide it in the closet. I was bummed to not have our boys there but we'll go next year!

The week long festivities ended with a Trunk-or-treat with the McMillans at their ward building. Stepahnie did such a great job with her families' costumes. Even mom and dad dressed up in the Greek warrior "tunics". She said it took some convincing of Todd and her husband that they weren't dresses! It was fun to see the kids running everywhere that night. Livi stayed pretty close to me the entire evening but Aaron was his usual daring self and was doing just fine at the cars. He must have done well, he scored a regular sized 3 Musketeers bar!

Halloween was a great time this year. It was great that even though Livi's counts were down to O and she had actually received a transfusion earlier in the week she was feeling great. Now if we can just keep Aaron from finding all the candy!