Halloween

What a fun week we had celebrating Halloween! It started with the church carnival on Wednesday. The Young Men and Women host it every year, and there are fun booths for the kids to play at. Benjamin's favorite was definitely the cake walk. I know he won 3 cupcakes -- I'm sure he played it much more than that! Joshua was pretty shy most of the night. I walked around with him and helped him at each booth. I ended up being the one to toss his bean bags and do a few of the other activities for him. Nathan went off on his own a lot, enjoying everything. He was excited for the donut on a string booth. He also loved this last one he did before we left: he got to shoot at plastic cups with a pellet gun. Elizabeth pretty much slept in her stroller the whole time.
On Friday both Benjamin and Nathan had their Halloween costume parades at school. The big school one is in the afternoon, but Benjamin is in morning kindergarten, so Joshua and Elizabeth and I got to go up to the school twice in one day!

Friday night was Ryan's work's Halloween party. As usual, they went all out. The kids started by trick or treating around the office. Then they went into the conference room and decorated pumpkins. There were all sorts of fun things they could use: paint, stickers, pipe cleaners, hats, feathers, pom poms, markers, etc.

Nathan's pumpkin:

Benjamin's pumpkin:

Joshua's pumpkin:

Then we moved into the other conference room where we decorated graveyards (aka a chocolate cake with cute toppings like gummy worms, milano cookies for the tombstones, marshmallow ghosts, cookie dirt, etc).
That was followed by delicious Brick Oven pizza. The boys' favorite part was last: "Turn Daddy into a Mummy". They remembered this from the last Halloween party and they were anticipating it all week!
Saturday, October 31 started off with swim lessons. Then we ran a few quick errands and found ourselves at Jason's Deli for lunch. We don't usually go out for lunch, so it was fun to change things up a little bit. Thankfully, the weather was gorgeous for the last day of October, so the rest of the afternoon the kids played outside until it was time to Trick or Treat.

On Wednesday and Friday, Nathan had been an alien in his space ship that he made himself out of a cardboard box. He was quite proud of his creation. However, he got tired of having to explain to everyone what he was, so on Saturday he switched costumes to Bumblebee transformer. That was his costume last year, and it was originally what he was going to be this year until he had gotten excited about his spaceship :)

Elizabeth (who was a "flower patch" this year) and I stayed home and answered the door. Joshua went with the twins next door and their parents, while Ryan took Benjamin, Nathan, and the older neighbor boys. That seemed to work better this year, since the bigger kids move a lot faster than the little ones. The kids also took a hayride or two around the block, thanks to our wonderful neighbors. It has become (only in its second year) another tradition that they look forward to!
After the kids got back from trick or treating, they had PB&J sandwiches -- I used a cookie cutter to make a ghost shape in the middle. And they watched a Halloween special of Monsters vs. Aliens. Everyone had a great Halloween . . . sugar high, here we come!