Halloween 2018

We kicked off Halloween at our ward party. It's always a rockin' good time.

 

In the summer, Thane decided he wanted to be a gnome for Halloween. Of course, we didn't start on his costume until the day of the ward party, but, with Aubree's help, we managed to pull it off with items we had around the house.

Bryce did not have any preplanned ideas of what to be, so we scrounged in the costume bins and he decided to go as a bat.

 

Graham was adamant he wanted to be a vampire. He took his costume quite seriously and always made sure he was "in character" whenever I tried to take a picture.

 

Whenever I asked Nellie what she wanted to be for Halloween, she invariably answered, "a princess!" I tried a million other tempting suggestions, "Do you want to be a unicorn? Do you want to be an astronaut? Do you want to be any kind of animal?" But, no. She wanted to be a princess. Finally, a friend set me straight, "She's your last kid. If she wants to be a princess, let her be a princess. She will love it." So I did, and my wise friend was right; Nellie loved every princessy second!

 

After a chili cook-off dinner, my kids mostly followed Aisley around. In subsequent weeks they had fights around the dinner table about who liked Aisley the most.

Aubree helped the young women run carnival stations, then snuck off to a birthday party while the rest of the kids enjoyed a cold, but not-rainy trunk-or-treat adventure.

Perhaps more than the actual trunk-or-treating, my kids love the post-treating trading.

The next Halloween event was our FLEET Halloween party. During the second hour of co-op we invited all the classes (except the toddler/preschoolers) to the country club. Staying in their class groups, they rotated through five fun Halloween stations.

The toddler/preschool group had their own Halloween party fun!

Oh yeah, and Thane got to make skeleton treats in his cooking class.

On Halloween day, I decided to try to be festive and make a themed dinner. The kids wandered into the kitchen as I was making these mummies and we had the following conversation:

Thane: "Are those for Halloween?!"

Me: "No, they're for Christmas."

Thane: "Oh! I see! Little Santas!"

Nellie: "No! It's Mary and Joseph!"

Me: (Sarcasm is lost on children.)

Like last year, Aubree joined her co-op friends for Halloween dinner, trick-or-treating, and candy trading. 

 

This year, she got to wear her dream costume, Princess Buttercup, thanks to her Sunday School teacher generously loaning it to her.

She's got the perfect hair for the costume.

Aubree had a great time with her friends and was extra excited that Jonah was there too.

The rest of us started out trick or treating together, but when Nellie got tired I took her home to bed while Mark stayed out with the boys. They came home with tons of candy!

Thane was most interested in trading to be able to spell "s-n-i-c-k-e-r-s."

And with that, we put another great Halloween season in the books.