Halloween 2011

This year we got to celebrate Halloween several times and we enjoyed all the festivities. Our first celebration was with our ward at the annual Halloween carnival that the youth put on for the primary kids. This is one of my favorite youth activities of the year!

Look at these great decorations! They cut out a bunch of paper bats and taped them to the balloon ribbons. It made for great decorations and the kids loved taking the balloons home at the end of the night.

Leah isn't actually primary age yet, but since I'm one of the youth leaders I made sure she got dressed up and came over to join in the fun. She was a little shy at first, but before long she was having a great time. Everyone loved Leah's costume as Princess Leia, especially when they saw her with her daddy as Darth Vader.

Since I was trying to help the Beehives take care of the fishing pond, Ross took Leah around to the carnival games. Here they are enjoying a cupcake after the cupcake walk.

Leah loves this game where you have to throw the golf balls over the frames. She just likes to wrap them around the bar.

Here's a family picture. We've never done coordinating Halloween costumes before, but after we decided to dress Leah up as Princess Leah, we thought it would be fun to dress up as her parents, Darth Vader and Queen Amidala. It was harder for people to tell who I was, but I didn't want to spend too much time and money on the elaborate head-dress she's known for.

On Friday, we got to go spend an evening with our good friends, the Turner family, at their annual family Halloween party. We got to carve a pumpkin, dress up in our costumes, eat baked potatoes grown in Layne and Lynnette's garden, and watch the BYU vs TCU football game. We had a great time and we were so glad we were able to go.

After the party on Friday, we spent the night at my parents' house. On Saturday, Ross spent most of the day with his brothers, Don and Stuart, and their friend, Aaron from back home in Oregon. They were all getting together to go to the Utah vs Oregon State football game. Oregon State lost, but they still had a great time together.

While Ross was at the game, Leah and I went to a "Trunk or Treat" party with my parents' ward. Here's my parents' trunk all decorated for the occasion. In case you can't read the signs, these were "Homeless and Starving NBA Players." One had sign that said, "Will play 4 fud" the other's sign said, "We got Jimmered."

The rest of the my family was at the party two (except for my brother, Marc and his family - they got a flat tire and didn't make it over). Here's my brother, Clayton (a Ghostbuster) and his daughter Megan. She had a pirate costume on earlier in the day, but here's she's just wearing her jammies and sporting her "new" hair cut. While at my parents' house earlier that day, she found some scissors and chopped at her hair. Her mom and Lyndsee did their best to even it up until Melyssa could fix it later that night.

A couple of my nephews were also Star Wars characters. But they were from the newer movies, so I don't remember the names of their characters. Here's Carson...

This is Caden. He was a jail inmate with a black and white stripped suit, but he was cold, so he's wearing a jacket over it.

This is Caleb. He hates to have his picture taken, so this is the best I could do for a picture of him.

On Sunday, we carved the little pumpkin Leah got from her Grandma Leslie. It was even grown in her garden. Leah had a grand time playing with the pumpkin. She "helped" clean the seed and guts out, and put them back in and get them out again.

Here she is playing with the seeds while Ross carved the face.

Then a funny thing happened. As Ross pulled the pumpkin pieces out, Leah picked them up and started eating them. I thought she would taste it and then spit it out because it tasted bad, but instead she just kept eating it like it was candy or something. I had never seen anyone eat raw pumpkin before and thought it was so gross. At first I tried to stop her, but she just kept finding more pieces. So I let her gnaw on it for a while and took some pictures instead.

Here's the finished pumpkins.

Halloween day was so beautiful. I would say that you couldn't ask for a better day, but honestly, I could. But for October 31st it really was great. In the morning, I took Leah over to my old work to see some old friends and look at all the great costumes and decorations they had up.

In the afternoon, I put the pumpkins out on the porch and Leah was sure that meant she needed to go outside and play. It was such a sunny day, that she was outside in just a onesie. Here she is on the front porch.

That night Ross took Leah over to the Millers for dinner while I stayed home to hand out candy to trick or treaters. The Millers loved seeing their costumes. Ross even took Leah around to a few houses with them before coming back home. Here's a picture of Ross and Leah with their Miller cousins.

We had about 125 trick or treaters that night and ended up giving out almost all of our candy. Overall, it was a great Halloween season!