halloween festivities

We have been celebrating Halloween all week long with pumpkin carving, costume parties, trunk or treat, and yummy food!  Wednesday we had a fun Halloween party with my family.  We started out with a Halloween dinner and on the menu:  mummy dogs (pigs in a blanket), crusty witch's fingers (homemade fries), and pumpkin bars.  Later we carved pumpkins (even my brother's who haven't carved pumpkins in years carved some pretty amazing ones).  Landon was our official pumpkin carver and Jack helped him draw a face on it. It was pretty simple but still cute.

Scott carved the ghost, Ryan carved the haunted house, and Mary carved the face (that looks way cooler in the dark without a flash)

Thursday Jack had his Halloween party at preschool and he got to dress up in his race car driver costume.  I was lucky enough to help out in his class so I know exactly what they did, and they were busy. They made pumpkin faces on little bags, laced a pumpkin plate with holes around the edges, picked a pumpkin in Miss Gretel's very own pumpkin patch and decorated it, made haunted houses, made a spider hat, read spooky stories, had pumpkin grilled cheese sandwiches, and passed out Halloween prizes. It was crazy busy but the kids had a ton of fun! 

Friday my Aunt Shannon had her annual Halloween party.  We got there super late and Jack had fallen asleep in the car so when we woke him up to put his costume on he refused.  Just like last year.  That darn bumble bee costume.  He warmed up though and had a ton of fun playing all the Halloween games.

Avery's highlight (and probably mine) was holding my cousin Amy's new baby girl Ava.  Avery LOVES babies and she could not get enough of little Ava. Even when Amy went home with Ava, Avery kept saying "hold baby, where's baby?"  She's such a girl.  I love it!

And of course, Saturday, the day we have been looking forward to all month.  The weather ended up being terrible.  It rained almost all day and I was dreading taking the kids trick or treating. Luckily my cute neighbor girls where going to come and help me take the kids and when they came over they told us that the bishop of our ward decided to do a last minute trunk or treat in the church.  That was exactly the news I wanted to hear.  So we got our costumes on and headed over to the church where all of our neighbors were stationed with their candy.  Within a half an hour we had visited every neighbor and the kids buckets were full of candy.  That is my kind of trick or treating.  Later we headed over to Landon's dad and my parent's houses for some more candy and warm cider.  Even though the weather was terrible, it ended up being a great Halloween!

My cute little monkey.

And cute Holls and Mike were a witch and her black cat for Halloween.  So clever!