Halloween

So in the midst of our vacation excitement, I never got around to recording some Halloween memories. And this turned out to be a fantastic Halloween.

Part #1 was a family Halloween party which we hosted. we had dinner, a costume contest and some great games. For one game, I set up sveral cups in a little cluster, each filled with candy. The kids had to toss eye balls (ping pong balls) into the cup and for each successful shot, they got to keep the cup's candy. We also had a parent pair with each kid and the kids had 60 seconds to throw candy across the room to their teammate who had to catch it into their pumpkin bucket. We did our traditional "monster mash", with glow-in-the-dark bracelets and anklets on everyone, turned out the lights and danced to monster mash! and then wrapped up the evening with "kid bowling" Our house has beautiful hardwood floors (Brazilian cherry wood, truly exquisite and one of our favorite things about it) which happen to be rather slick. So for kid bowling, you load one or more kids onto a fleece blanket and with great daddy strength, send them sailing across the floor accompanied by much squealing and giggling.

For costumes, the girls were adorable. Butterfly picked out her own costume, a pretty black and orange witch dress with a pointed hat and a glow in the dark wand. With as pretty as her dress was, she looked more like a witch princess. And Ladybug dressed as...a ladybug! (shocking, I know) Grammy found a great costume for her, with a stuffed round body, made complete by black and red striped tights and an adorable headpiece with antennas that bobbed cheerfully when she ran. I suspect she even caught onto how cute she was when she laid down on her back and wiggled her hands and feet into the air like a little overturned bug.

Part #2, I took the girls to the Library's Halloween party. Best part was when Ladybug found a little pumpkin, turned around and promptly sat down, apparently having decided it was the perfect sized chair for her. Butterfly's favorite part was playing a version of "hot potato", passing around a pumpkin and when the music stopped, the holder of the pumpkin got a prize. Ladybug like the craft station, mostly because she kept scattering the crayons all over the floor and climbing under the table to retrieve them. We ran into some of our good friends, the whole family dressed as characters from Toy Story.

Part #3, ward Halloween party held in our bishop's barn. it was a little chaotic but fun. Best part was the costume parade (one of our favorite babysitters took the girls around to show them off) and the "fishing pond". Butterfly was ecstatic about catching her prize (especially because it was candy).

Part #4 (can you believe I'm not done yet?) was the Lab Halloween party. The company my husband works for has their employee party for Halloween (since Christmas tends to be a much busier time of year). And it was such a blast. The party was held in their new office facility and included dinner, decorating pumpkins plus a magic show and face painting (by the infamous "Soda Pop the Clown"). Especially fun for Butterfly was getting to play with one of her best friends who was dressed as a green m&m in honor of a recent trip to Vegas' m&m store (and her baby brother was a red m&m, so dang cute!) There were some other really ingenious costumes with the group. Grandpa and Grandma, the company owners, were each dressed as a $100 bill. One mom came as a tree, holding her baby daughter, dressed as a kitten. A father and son duo came as super heroes. Soda Pop's kids came as a scarecrow and a Japanese geisha with some amazing face painting that highlighted their costumes. Another couple simply came as "tired" (both in their p.j.s) We did a family costume for this. I dressed as Little Bo Peep, the girls were my little sheep and daddy came as the big bad wolf!

Part #5 was Saturday evening and the night we had planned trick or treating adventures (technically Oct 30th since the 31st was a Sunday). But it began raining in the late afternoon and remained cold and wet throughout the night. We had a few trick-or-treaters come to our door but being so cold, we decided not to take our girls out. Luckily, they were too young to know anyway. They put on their costumes and ran around the house. My cousintwin (one of their favorite aunties) and grandma and grandpa came over for dinner and we took turns opening the door for trick-or-treaters. Butterfly loved this part, she would race to the door with me, open it and stand staring at the strangely dressed visitors. She would help distribute candy, shut the door and then turn to me asking, "trick or treat please?" (how can I resist?)

Busy holiday and so much fun.