Halloween Happenings

We had such a fun Halloween season. (We did a lot of Halloween things spread throughout October.) We had our Halloween dinner with the Fairbourns, which is always a fun tradition.

Bones and blood soup

Pumpkin Patch (aka Rice Krispie Treats). Can I just say I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with these? They needed to be Jackson-safe (aka no eggs and no dairy) and it's mighty tricky to find a dessert that doesn't need either of those things, or that has acceptable substitutes.

 Mummy Meatloaf

 Halloweenies

 Mashed Potato Ghosts

Our ward Halloween party was a week before Halloween.  They had dinner and trick or treating in the church. Some of my favorite costumes were Zach and Elise Page- the bugs and the fly swatter and Sarah Nitta's girls, Jade and Ruby, the old ladies. So cute!

Kaden could not get enough of these girls' walkers. He kept stealing them and running down the hall. So funny!

The MacLeans came to our ward party, since their ward didn't have one. (There's practically no kids in their ward.) They were the Dr. Seuss Clan- Cat in the Hat, the Lorax, Fox in Socks and Horton the Elephant. I wish I would've gotten a picture of their whole family, but I spaced it.

Kaden is really obsessed with pirates right now because he has a pirate bathroom. We thought it would be fun if we all dressed up like pirates together.

We had fun painting pumpkins as a family, since I don't enjoy carving them.  Also if we paint, Kaden is able to participate more, so it's win-win. I don't have to stick my hand in a grimy pumpkin and Kaden gets to be very colorful. There might have been more paint on his body and our toes/arms than on his actual pumpkin, but he had a blast, so it doesn't matter.

My pirate ghost pumpkin that looks like it was painted by a child... and Kaden's masterpiece

Curtis' awesome skull and crossbones pumpkin

 Curtis taught Kaden a bunch of pirate phrases: argh, ahoy matey's, walk the plank, shiver me timbers and swab the poopdeck! Ha ha! He was quite the hit at all the Halloween parties. 

Halloween morning, I took Kaden to Tracy Aviary for the Halloween Hoot. We went with Miranda and Evie and Rose and the kids had a blast playing in the hay maze and meeting the giant bird creature. You got half off admission if you wore your costumes, so of course Miranda and I were one of only 3 adults in the whole place dressed up- lame. 

We got Halloween kid's meals at Wendy's and then of course somewhere in all the madness, Kaden lost his pirate hat. Boo! Right before trick or treating. At least we got a picture at our ward party with his hat on. We couldn't find his sword to go trick or treating either, but we found it behind the entertainment center a few days later. Who knows? Maybe, there's still hope for the hat.

Halloween night we just went trick or treating around our neighborhood. Almost no one was home, which was kind of lame, so we ended up going over to Country Springs, a retirement community in our ward.  Kaden loved getting candy and couldn't wait to eat it until we got home, so after every few houses he'd put a candy in his mouth and start gnawing through the wrapper until we helped him open it. He loved saying "Trick or Treat" and was very polite and said "thank you" at all the doors.  He liked wishing "happy Halloween everybody," regardless of whether there was only one person on the porch or multiple. My favorite though was that so many of the people in Country Springs gave Kaden two candies, that when someone only gave him one he'd reach up into their buckets and grab another and say, "Just one more, okay?" Ha ha. Bad manners, but it was hilarious!

The day after Halloween Curtis took me to see Thriller. This is some awesome zombie girl that decided to sit next to me...