Halloween 2014

We had a fun and busy Halloween season! One Friday night, Leah and I went with some of the other girls in our family for the Witches Night Out. The weather that night was great, and it was very busy of course, but we still had fun (well, until Leah got tired and reached meltdown mode). 

Here's Leah and Kynlee with the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty. They are my favorite "witches" at Witches Night Out. And they are so nice to let so many people take pictures with them. 

Here's our three little witches hanging out together. Aunt MoMo spoiled them and bought them each their own big bag of cotton candy. I'm pretty sure I ate most of Leah's cotton candy.

And here's a picture of our whole group we had there that night.

After we got our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, Leah was so excited to carve them and kept asking me when we would be able to carve them. Finally the Sunday before Halloween, I finally caved and agreed to start carving them. Ross was gone that night for a youth fireside, so I thought this would be a good way to keep the kids entertained. It started out pretty good, but before long I was really wondering if doing this alone was a good idea.

This was Corbin's first time carving pumpkins, and he thought it was pretty fun. He watched me scrape his pumpkin out and then tried to do it himself. He liked putting the seeds in the big bowl.

Playing with the pumpkin guts was Leah's favorite part. She couldn't get enough of putting the goop from her pumpkin into the bowl and then back again. Then she started playing with it with her hands. She squished and squashed it between her fingers and then shook her hands all around until she had made a HUGE mess. I kept asking her to stop, warning her that she would have to clean up all the mess she made, but she kept telling me that it was okay and she would clean it up.

Well those smiles she had while making the mess quickly turned to big tears and lots of screaming when it came time to clean up all the pumpkin goop all over the dining room. I kept my word and made her clean up all the mess, even when it meant getting down on her hands and knees to pick up every seed and wipe up all of the floor with a rag. You would have thought that her world was coming to an end, she was carrying on so much. (Although, when I got the spray mop out, she suddenly was more than happy to clean.)

By the end of the night, I had only carved Leah's pumpkin and had Corbin's cleaned out. The rest would wait for another day when Ross would be there to help!

One of my favorite parts of Halloween is going to our ward's Halloween Carnival. The youth in the ward prepare several carnival booths and the primary kids are invited to come and play. Almost everyone comes in a costume, including the adults. It is fun to show off our costumes and see all the great costumes our friends and neighbors have too.

This year they had a cute photo booth set up for taking pictures. So here's our little Olaf! I was really worried about how he would do with his costume. After I made it and got him to try it on, he just wanted to take everything off. The longest I could get him to wear the hat was about a minute. But that night, he wore everything without a problem. I think it was because there was so much going on that he forgot he was wearing a costume.

And here is our little Elsa! She had this costume planned out ever since she got her Elsa dress for Christmas last year. You can't tell in this picture, but to make it a little more fun for her I got some white hair spray. Leah thought it was pretty fun to have white hair like Elsa.

Here's Leah with her good buddy, Riley. His costume is made entirely of duct tape. He is a duct tape MASTER!!

Leah wasn't too excited to try the doughnut on a string game. I couldn't even get her to try it. But Corbin on the other hand, was more then happy to go after a doughnut. In hindsight, letting him eat a chocolate covered doughnut in a white costume was probably a bad idea. Luckily baby wipes clean up a lot of messes.

Here's our family picture. I was an angel and Ross was a mummy. After looking at this picture, I realized that it seemed like we had a "white" theme his year. This was totally unintentional! That's just how it ended up being.

The day before Halloween, Leah had a little program at her preschool. Ross, Corbin and I were able to go. They had practiced a bunch of Halloween songs to perform. And they did such a great job. Leah has a great teacher and it was fun to see Leah there with all her preschool friends.

So here's the rest of the pumpkins carved. Leah helped me design a traditional face for Corbin's pumpkin. I found an easy Olaf design to go with the Frozen theme of the kids' costumes. Ross did the bat and Leah picked out the cat design. They are a lot of work, but I really do enjoy carving pumpkins for Halloween. Its fun to come up with new and different ideas each year.

On Halloween day, Leah had a birthday party for one of her preschool friends. After the party we went straight to Ross's work for their costume parade. As it turned out, Ross was asked to help lead the parade with some of the office administrators, so we got to see him march all over in his costume. Afterwards we went back to his office because Leah loves to play with all the games they have in there. She also loves to write on the white board. And of course, Corbin has to do everything Leah does. So here's Leah drawing a map of Provo. All the dots she has put on there are different places she knows around Provo. I'm telling you, this girl loves maps.

After leaving Ross's work, we stopped at the Sweet Tooth Fairy for free cupcakes for the kids. After dinner, I took Leah around the neighborhood trick-or-treating. She was so excited to go. We started out going with one of our neighbors, but Leah wouldn't wait for their little boy and caught up with one of her friends. So we went with them for a while until they went back home. Then we caught up with another group of her friends and kept trick-or-treating. The weather that night was AMAZING!! It was so pleasant outside that we had no problem being out for a long time. We went all over our neighborhood and ward boundaries. When we got home with her bucket full of candy, Leah declared that it was the best night ever! In her prayer that night, she even thanked Heavenly Father for making it the best night ever. It was a good night and a good Halloween season. Although, after all our various celebrations, I have no problem admitting that I was ready for it to be over for another year.