Halloween

Until recently I have never liked fall very much.  It always meant going back to school.  But ever since having kids and staying home, fall has become one of my favorite seasons.  The weather is cool and wonderful, I start craving carmel apples, and the air smells nice and crisp.  But fall has become even better since having Sophie because she LOVES Halloween.  I try to make the entire month of Octobor a fun adventure because Sophie's enthusiasm for Halloween is so contagious.

This is the face Aspen makes when I tell her to smile.

 

 

This year Sophie wanted to be a witch.  She was pretty consistent in her desire this year, as opposed to last year where she changed her mind 50 times a day.  But that might be because I was pregnant and wanted to get costumes done as soon as possible.  So her witch costume was finished weeks before Halloween and she knew she couldn't change her mind.  I bugged Isaac about coming up with a costume for weeks, but he procrastinated so I refused to make him a costume.  He came up with the skeleton idea and made it himself at the very last minute.  But I did paint his face.

 

We went to see the witches at Gardner Village at least 3 times: once with Grandma Sugar, once with our friends the Fishers, and once with Grandma Karla, Lacey, and James.  The girls have fun doing the scavanger hunt to find all the witches and then getting a cookie.  The weather was really mild this year, so being outside was really nice.

We also had our annual family Halloween party.  All the Gardiner's and Lloyd's come over to our house for dinner and games.  The kids played beanbag toss and other fun games.  It's always fun to see what everyone dresses up as.  Who would have known that all it takes for Aspen to pose for the camera is to paint her face like a witch and tell her to make scary faces?  I have been trying to get her to hold still and look at the camera for over 2 years, and this was the first time she complied.  Silly girl.

This year we also decided to check out Cornbelly's.  We drove down to Thanksgiving Point (which took forever) and stood in the longest line to get in.  I was tempted to turn around and leave because the place was so crowded, but we stuck it out.  Fortunately once we got inside there were lots of things to do and the crowds weren't too bad.  There were some fun bouncy things the girls could jump on, a few little house/playground things, some rides and tractor rides, and a corn maze.  After we explored for a while we went out for pizza for dinner.

 

Sophie planted her own pumpkins in Grandma Sugar's garden.  She grew 13 pumpkins and shared them with grandma and grandpa, Kevin, and Jamie.  We carved pumpkins twice this year because we had too many to carve in one sitting.  Aspen was a master at removing pumpkin guts.  And Sophie loved drawing the faces and cutting them out herself.

Sophie also had a fun Halloween party at school.  And the girls and I went to the ward Halloween party (Isaac had to miss out due to a work interview).  I also took the girls to a free trick-or-treating event at a new hospital, but that turned out to be a complete disaster.

 

And finally we finished off Halloween by going Trick-or-Treating.  The girls actually made it fairly far around the neighborhood this year.  It was so cute listening to Aspen say "trick-or-treat".  By the time we got home the girls were exhausted (walking that far and up and down all those stairs is hard work for tiny legs).  They ate a few pieces of candy and collapsed into bed.  Overall it was a great Halloween.