Sunday, November 6, 2011

Halloween 2011

It seemed like Halloween lasted a week this year. We started with a trunk-or-treat/carnival at the church on the Tuesday the week before. On the Saturday preceding the day, we walked into a Halloween activity at the grocery store when we went to buy our pumpkins. They had booths and games set up through the store, and didn't mind that our kids were the only ones not in costume.

We carved pumpkins on Sunday. I only carved two pumpkins, the rest were pretty much done when I got home from home teaching. JT was quite pleased with his "Phineas." AJ carved the warrior with a scar on his left cheek. A's pumpkin has cheeks and B's pumpkin is a little nervous about angry birds in the area. I worked with D and we carved the one with the buck teeth for him. I also carved "Go Diego Go" for Darren, but he didn't know about it until after he got up the next morning.

When Monday finally rolled around we had already been working on the candy we had picked up earlier in the week. I guess you could say we were preconditioning ourselves for the upcoming sugar rush. JT went off to a costume party with friends. We didn't get any pictures of him. B went trick-or-treating with friends as a bumblebee, however she went to school as a blue crayola crayon.

AJ was a pirate. Candace made special pants for him and he was excited about the new sword that he got to stick in the sash around his waistband.
A. was a Western girl, not a cowgirl. I think she finally settled on the fact that she was the mayor's wife in a western town that definitely did not own or work with cows, but was still rich. It was too complicated for me to understand fully.

D. was a doctor complete with a medical kit. Candace made the scrubs and it took us a while to convince him that he shouldn't wear the witch dress for Halloween.

I took the younger three out into our new neighborhood to trick-or-treat. We were the only ones out on the street for quite a while. As a result the kids would get handfuls of candy from people who had overprepared for trick-or-treaters. They also got a number of full and even king size candy bars. D got picked up after about an hour. He was happy and got enough candy.


AJ and A stayed out for more than 2 hours and came home with about 5 lbs of candy each and most of it was chocolate! They had school the next day so they didn't get to sit and trade for very long. What a day! Now onto Thanksgiving.

Our Busy Intro to Autumn

(As if any part of our current life couldn't be described as busy) I am ignoring the fact that we haven't posted anything since March. Sorry. Anyway since I found myself with an extra hour this morning, I have some time to update the blog!

We started school this year with two kids in Junior High, two kids at Elementary School, and two kids at home. Everybody has settled in and I haven't heard any complaints about teachers or classes. Justin started early morning seminary (which starts at 6:00am) this year which starts 18 uninterrupted years of at least one of our kids in seminary! (I think I just sprouted a few gray hairs thinking about it.)

Alex and Justin both joined the cross-country team for their respective schools. Justin ran with the Varsity squad and did pretty well. Alex progressed through the year and his best finish was 4th place.