Truman's Preschool Halloween Party

Tuesday, October 30, was a big day for Truman at preschool.  He was excited to wear his Halloween costume and have a little party.  Audrey, Genevieve, and I stuck around for a little while to get a few pictures of all the cute kids.

 My little Spider-Man lived up to his name.  He started climbing on the climber as soon as he hung up his coat and washed his hands.

 We gathered the kids for a picture as best we could.  The picture above shows 11 of the 12 kids in the class.  The picture below has both teachers.

 Truman had a fun day as Spider-Man and was elated with all of the goodies and gifts he got to bring home.  When I arrived to pick him up he was at the door with his bag full of treats and ready to go.  Mrs. C said he had been standing there and waiting for me.  He held his bag in his lap the entire way home and dumped it out on the living room floor as soon as he could.

Audrey helped him sort through his stuff and he was nice enough to share with his big sister.

Sunday Cuties

No, I haven't finished all of the Halloween pictures yet.  But in between our pre-Halloween activities and the big day I took some regular pictures.  These were taken on Sunday, October 28.

 Audrey likes to wear her hair down or with a headband these days.  The headbands look super cute.  For about three and a half seconds.  Then they start to slide forward, forward, forward and she pushes them back, back, back and her hair gets crazy.  Poor Audrey must have a head shaped like mine because I've never been able to wear headbands either.  When she doesn't wear a headband her hair looks cute for about three and a half minutes after I brush it and then it looks like it hasn't been brushed.  The problem is that she really likes to leave it down and so sometimes I give in.  This was one of those days.  Even with her crazy hair she's beautiful. 

 This picture looks much better!  Audrey also does not like to wear tights anymore.  During the winter I insist.  But October wasn't too wintery so I didn't make her on this particular Sunday.  She really was born in the wrong place.  I feel quite strongly that when she grows up she will not live here.  I think she'll settle someplace warm.  She is a summer girl.

 Look at this dapper little gent!  He could charm the socks right off of you with those baby blues and that smile!

 Matt usually isn't home on Sunday morning before church but for some reason he was on this Sunday.  He came home after his meetings and drove to church with us.  It was a rare treat and one of the benefits of 1:00 P.M. church.

This year I was hoping to get family pictures taken.  We didn't.  But if we had then this is the outfit Genevieve would have worn.  I had outfits for Audrey and Truman too.  Next year we'll get some taken for sure.

Look at her being all fancy with her pinkies out!

All four of my goofies.  I do love this little family of mine!

Gingerbread Haunted Houses

After so many kid-related Halloween activities, by Saturday, October 27, we were ready for some fun with our adult friends.  Our friends Rachel and Louis hosted a Halloween party for grown-ups (and little babies).  We brought Genevieve along and she was an angel.  She slept in her carseat in the corner the entire time. We arrived in costume and started with a yummy dinner of pizza, crudite, and lots of different types of bottled root beer.

After we had stuffed ourselves we got to work on the next portion of the party--the gingerbread haunted houses, or in our case, graham cracker haunted houses.  Rachel and Louis had assembled an impressive amount of Halloween candies and goodies.  They had an entire six foot long table completely filled with all kinds of snacks.  They also had stations set up for each couple and stocked with plenty of graham crackers and a foil-wrapped piece of cardboard.  We brought glue guns and our imaginations and got to work.

Shortly before we left for the party Matt and I came up with an idea for our house.  We decided our theme would be the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Building our houses was so much fun.  I loved seeing what everyone else came up with.  We have some very creative friends!

I wish I had taken a picture of the supply table.  It was really impressive and we all munched and snacked while we built.

Here is our finished house.  Ours is a view of the inside.  Each room shows a scene from a Poe story.

Just outside the house you are greeted with a fresh grave and Edgar himself.  (Don't you think that little clown kind of looks like him?)

"The Raven" room.

I made that bird out of a date, black Dots candy, an orange jelly bean, and black rice.

"The Pit and the Pendulum" room.

Two views of "The Cask of Amontillado" room.

"The Tell-Tale Heart" room.  

It's hard to see in the picture, but that is a large, chocolate heart covered in red goo.  The triscuit is an opened trap door.

On the roof we had a black cat to represent "The Black Cat" short story.

There was a second grave outside the house for Annabel Lee, complete with a red rose.

We didn't win the prize for best house, but I was still pretty proud of it. 

After the awards for best costumes and best houses were handed out, we stayed for a little while and talked.  Then we headed home and finished putting Audrey and Truman to bed.  All in all it was an awesome party.  We had fun with our friends and are already thinking of what we'll do next year!  

Thanks Rachel and Louis!

Ward Trunk-or-Treat and Chili Cookoff

Our ward Halloween activity was Friday, October 26.  We had a trunk-or-treat and chili and pie contest.  This is one of Matt's favorite activities.  He loves trying all of the different types of chili and pie.  Even Audrey and Truman gobbled it up this year.

With everything else going on I never seem to get around to decorating our trunk.  This year it was nice because we could fold our seats down flat and I could sit inside the car, out of the rain, and hand out candy.  Genevieve sat next to me.

Here are a couple of pictures of the ward.

Bishop welcomed everyone and we had a prayer and then the candy begging began.

Matt took the kids around and took these two pictures.

After the trunk-or-treat we went inside for dinner.  I tried a new chili recipe this year from Our Best Bites.  It was pretty good and Audrey loved it.  It seems like she is willing to try and is liking more food lately.  We took a bunch of pictures of Genevieve in her costume because this was the only time we dressed her up.

What a cutie!  This was Audrey's first Halloween costume and I am so glad Genevieve got to wear it.  I love this little costume.  It still makes me so sad that Baby Style went out of business.  They had the cutest, most well-made costumes at reasonable prices.  We had a little bee costume from them too that Genevieve can wear next year.

I added the bow on top just to make sure people knew Genevieve was a girl peacock and not a boy.

Just for comparison, the next three pictures are of Audrey in the same costume.  You can tell she's older, about four and a half months compared to Genevieve's two months.

Both Audreys.

Our little super hero.

They had a table set up with some coloring pages for the kids.  Audrey did a great job on hers.

We didn't win best trunk.  And we didn't win the golden spoon or pie server either.  My apple pie in a paper bag is delicious but wasn't what the judges were looking for.  Even without a win it was a great night and a great ward activity!

Library Trick-or-Treat

Friday, October 26, was our annual trip to the library for "Not-so-spooky storytime" and trick-or-treating.  We've been going to this every year since Audrey was little and the kids really look forward to it.  I like it too because we get to go back behind the circulation desk and see the guts of the library.  You would never guess it was that big from the outside or that there are so many people working there.  I'm also always impressed by the sheer number of books not on the shelves.  It's an impressive operation.

Truman has taken to posing like Audrey these days.

Ready for storytime.  This is always the busiest storytime of the year so I like to get there a little early, especially when I've got a stroller to push around.

When we saw Miss Ericka's costume I wished I had gotten Genevieve dressed up.  I had her peacock costume in the car but she was sleepy and I didn't want to disturb her and get her dressed.

Candy!!!

The kids were very good about saying "trick-or-treat" and "thank you."

When we go to the last stop, the children's section, there was a little puppy they could pet.

This is the best picture I could get of my three babies.

And these are the best ones of my two big kids.

We had to stop and get a picture with Miss Ericka and Midnight the (stuffed) cat.