Halloween 2009

This year for Halloween, Jaxon wanted to be a mummy. But, for his school character parade, he was supposed to be something literary, not scary. So, I helped him dress as a pirate (in 5 min flat, it was awesome!). Here are a few shots of him during his class party playing roll the pumpkin relay, and finding spiders in slimy goo. (The ironic part of me not letting Jaxon go to school as a mummy was that there were many, many graphic, violent, and scary costumes in the parade. A kid in his first grade class dressed as the Halloween murderer Mike Myers).

When Halloween night came, I wrapped Jaxon as a mummy, using a stretchy holey fabric that I got to go around Asher's cast a long time ago. I put that stuff on his limbs and face then covered everything with strips of white fabric. It was tricky, considering I only had 2 saftey pins and it kept falling down all night. If I did it again, I would definitely do some research first. He looked really good though, even our friends didn't recognize him.

Asher wouldn't dress up for his preschool Halloween party, although we had many costumes to choose from (even a train engineer!). He's just a nervous little guy and seems afraid of costumes. So, it was no surprise that Halloween night came and he wouldn't wear a costume. Last year I had to give him a camera and a flowered lei and let him be a tourist. This year I wasn't so clever.

Thus, when Finn saw he could get out of wearing a costume, he opted out too. So, you'll see that only one of our children dressed up for Halloween. I'm not sure when that will change.

The funniest part of the evening was when this 9 ft skeleton walked by and Asher freaks out (check him out in the left corner of the photo. He was terrified, poor thing.

This is him after walking by the tall skeleton. He's sad but look at all that candy! The kids are still begging for it everyday (curses under breath).

Here are my kids and their cousin, Ella who was dressed as a caterpillar.

Asher and Jaxon at the ward Trunk or Treat party.

Mark wore this mask along with his regular clothes.

I was a gypsy, but since I was the photographer, there are no photos of my costume.

Last but not least, as I was chatting with friends at the ward party I was totally unaware that my 2 year old had wandered off to the other end of the parking lot to get his groove on. I got a clip of him dancing to the Monster Mash. In the clip, there's a little hand that crawls around on the ground that Finn starts to kick. I don't blame him, it creeps me out, too.

Halloween 2008

This Halloween was quite a treat (pun intended) and we had a lot of fun.
First, I took Asher (our little tourist) and Finn (a protesting dragon) to the library to do crafts, watch a puppet show, then parade around the inside of the library to show off their costumes to the bored adults lounging and reading books.

In the afternoon we headed out in the heat (and boy was it hot, I told Mark that next year, if it's this hot again, I'm wearing a bikini and going as Malibu Barbie) to Jaxon's school for the parade of characters. All of the kindergartners were dalmatians with a black nose and spotted tail. It was adorable. They walked around the school with Disney music blasting in the background while Asher and I danced and cheered them on.

Later we got dressed for trick-or-treating. Jaxon went as a Fantastic Four superhero (I bought the costume for a few bucks at a clearance a few years ago but Jaxon recently discovered the movie and was thrilled to be a superhero. I was thrilled that he didn't want to be the devil, which was his first choice.) Asher didn't like any of the costumes we already had, so he wore loafers with no socks, a Hawaiian shirt, and carried around a camera as a tourist. If I had thought harder, I would have let him wear his normal costume, a colander on his head. He could have been a martian, maybe.

Finn wore the dragon costume, because that's what we had, and he's our third son. Nothing special for him.

I put on my black dress, a ton of makeup (you can't really tell, though) and made my hair crazy, (again, not so obvious in the pictures) then balanced my broom on the stroller as I pushed it around the neighborhood. I make a great witch, costume or no.

Later, we went to our friends Amy and Darryl's and hung out, turning away sad trick-or-treaters when we ran out of candy.

The best part of the evening was watching Asher trick-or-treat.
He'd head up to someone, and as they were putting candy in his pumpkin, he'd help himself to more from their bowl. I guess he thought it was "self-serve." He ended up with almost twice as much as Jaxon, and almost more than he could carry. Mark pointed out that watching Asher lugging the pumpkin was just like watching Mark carry the big 5 gallon water barrels.

Priceless.

And, because we were gone the entire night, and only put a little candy on our table at our front door, we have all the stuff we bought but never gave out.

Sweet! That means an extra 5 pounds for me before Thanksgiving. I couldn't ask for more than that from Halloween.

Also, today we went to a Pumpkin Patch Carnival at Schnepf Farms. Here are the pics on our webalbum.