October

 I can't believe it's November already.  Last month went by so fast.  Soon it will be Christmas and I haven't even started shopping or preparing yet.

Erin had her 1st grade Halloween program.  It was really cute and they sang songs, recited poetry and showed off all the fun Halloween crafts they had been making all month long.  She did a cute job and was pretty excited about it all month long. 

They made a cat, a pumpkin, a Frankenstein mask and a ghost and sang a song about each one of them, complete with actions.

 The older two didn't get to dress up for Halloween at their school because the school doesn't allow costumes.  Instead, they have crazy hair day and class Halloween parties.  Erin wanted her hair sprayed black because that night for her costume, she was going to be a vampire.  I sprayed it black and she HATED it.  She didn't like that it was "crunchy" and threw quite the tantrum for about 45 minutes.

I told her we could wash it out and put ponytails all over, but she didn't like that option either.  She finally decided to go to school with crunchy hair and came home all smiles.  

Liam wanted his hair black and spiked up all over.  Well, not all over.  He had a very specific pattern he wanted spiked into his hair, and a specific pattern he wanted sprayed into his hair, but I wasn't willing to take the time, so he got spikes all over.  You can't tell in the picture above, but his hair was crazy black.  It was really weird to see him with black hair.  He came home and took a shower to wash it all out because it wouldn't "go with his costume".  His words, not mine. 

Liam created his own Halloween costume this year.  He wanted to be a glow stick man with a glow axe.  We Velcroed all the glow sticks on and broke them and made them glow just as we were starting to trick or treat.  It actually looked pretty cool when it got dark.  His mask was supposed to glow in the dark too, but it was kind of a dud. 

Erin wanted to be a vampire.  I'm all about cheap costumes, so I just went to the DI, found a witch's dress, added a black cape, crazy tights and blood around her mouth and she was happy.  Cameron did paint on some vampire teeth later and that really added to it.  We didn't get a picture of it though.  She did have some vampire teeth, but decided against wearing them, because they hurt and she couldn't talk very well.

Owen wanted to be a ghost, then a zombie, then a pirate.  He stayed on pirate for a while, so I recycled Erin's old costume and found him some pants to wear with it.  After we had the costume all ready, he decided to be a zombie.  I told him no, because we already had his costume.  Cameron came up with the genius idea to be a zombie pirate and Owen was really excited about that.  Thus, the zombie pirate.  He loved looking spooky.

Reagan didn't really get a choice.  She had a black uni-suit thing and we bought her some cat ears and she went as a kitty cat.  She loved painting her nose and loved the whiskers.  She kept saying "Meow Meow" after we had her makeup on.  She did refuse to wear her cat ears, which were really cute, so I made two little ear-ish ponytails instead.  She had a grand time trick or treating.  She would run to every house, get her candy, say thank you and run to the next house.  She sang and ran and had a blast.  It was fun to see her actively participating this year.

Here's Liam's pumpkin.  Nice and gory and disgusting.  He took great pleasure in designing and executing his pumpkin this year.  

Erin designed hers a little more traditionally, and she loved it's vampire teeth.

Owen just wanted a scary pumpkin and his spooky eyebrows were his main concern.

Reagan's was the easiest to carve.  She liked helping clean them out this year.

Our neighborhood is really fun to trick or treat in.  We got scones, chili, hot dogs and hot cocoa on our rounds.  It was nice and warm, so everyone was out and visiting.  There were 2 or 3 campfires going with neighbors sitting around them chatting and eating.  When we got back to our house, it was dark, of course and as we were walking across our lawn, the headless horseman was riding by.  We have a guy in our ward who owns five or six horses and plays the headless horseman some years.  It was a little spooky because he was dressed all in black on his black horse with no head.  We showed the kids, and he heard us, so he came riding right up to us and let the kids pet his horse.  How cool is that?  

This last weekend we had our first snowstorm.  We got about 14-18 inches.  I haven't seen it snow like that in years.  It was kind of fun to sit inside and watch the snow.  The kids loved it and played outside for a long time building forts and having snowball fights.  I was happy to be in my warm kitchen watching them out the window.  Halloween's over, on to Thanksgiving!