Halloween

This year Halloween was a lot of fun.  I decided that we should do a family themed costume of "The Cat in the Hat" because Sophie loves the PBS show.  I was going to be the Cat in the Hat.  Sophie and Aspen were going to be Thing 1 and Thing 2.  And Isaac could be the Thing-a-ma-gigger/Fish.  (Isaac was definitely not thrilled about that idea, but couldn't come up with another idea.)  On the day of our Halloween party, Isaac finally decided to make his Thing-a-ma-gigger.  He was going to go all out and make an enormous one, but I forced him to scale back.  It turned out really great and Sophie had tons of fun playing in it too.  For weeks afterward, she would have to sit in the Thing-a-ma-gigger while she watched her tv show in the morning.  It was adorable.

We started the holiday season by visiting the witches at Gardner Village a few times.  Sophie and Aspen went once with their cousins, James and Avery, and once with Sophie's friends, Claire and Lucy.  The weather was really nice and we had lots of fun wandering around.

 We also went to a pumpkin patch with Sophie's cousins.  Isaac wasn't able to make it that time, so we brought Grandma with us instead.  Then we had a few ward Halloween parties to attend that were a lot of fun.  We also had a fun Halloween party at Grandma Karla's house.  Aunt Hannah came up with some fun games for Sophie and James.  And we all carved pumpkins.  (Shockingly Isaac's family hadn't used those pumpkin carving tools with the little serrated knives before.  They pulled out all the sharp kitchen knives.  I thought that was a disaster waiting to happen with young kids.  Those other knives are definitely the way to go.  And they work so much better too.)

There is a house down the street that goes all out decorating for Halloween.  They have tombstones, scary witches, and ghosts hanging from the trees.  Sophie, Aspen, and I would go for walks almost every afternoon because the weather was nice.  But every time we came across that house Sophie would completely freak out.  She would refuse to walk past it and would cry until I carried her a few houses down the street.  So I was worried how she would actually handle Halloween this year with all the scary costumes.  I was worried that when we actually went Trick-or-Treating she would get scared and just want to go home.  So for a few weeks before Halloween I would tell her that on Halloween we dress in costumes and knock on people's door to get candy.  She was really excited about that and would tell daddy about it everyday when he came home from work.  So on Halloween night it was a complete success.  She wasn't scared at all and was so excited to get candy.  Fortunately she didn't realize she could eat the candy, so she just kept it in her bag and ran on to the next house.  Aspen, on the other hand, didn't like Trick-or-Treating.  She was in the stroller crying for a while until she finally fell asleep.  Then it was great. 

I have really enjoyed holidays now that Sophie is getting older.  It is so much fun to watch her excitement and awe with everything going on.  It has finally given me motivation to decorate my house a little and actually have fun during these holidays again.