Halloween week long bonanza 2013

Halloween was like a week long this year! It started the Saturday before. WE had my nephew's baptism up in Phoenix and our ward party. ArJay still had to come back and work that night, so we decided to leave the kids home ( instead of driving 2 hours to phoenix sitting quiet for a baptism, and turning right back around to drive 2 hours back) with my parents and they took them to the party. Obviously, I wasn't there for it but it looked like they had a blast.

note the candy covered faces

We're not sure what my mom was, she just grabbed stuff out of the dress-up closet

Kendall was very meticulous about picking candy

Face of pure joy

The decorated their bags before doing the carnival

ON Monday, Alianna's gymnastics gym had a carnival. It was really cute with a bunch of games all over the gym. My dad came straight from work to watch the kids and spent the whole time with Kendall going back and forth between the bowling and the fishing hole. Poor Alianna REAALLLLYYY wanted to win the cake walk. The problem was, they did it was musical chairs and they had a bunch of older kids there. Those big kids were just to big and quick to outmaneuver her for a chair. She had a minor meltdown the first time, but handled it very well after that. And even when we left and she still hadn't won, she was an excellent sport. 

On Wednesday, our old ward ( my parents current ward since they are in our house) had a "blanket or treat" at a park. It was really cute. They had everyone bring a blanket and a bag of candy and sit around the basketball court, then the kids just walked around. The only problem was it was FREEZING. ArJay had to take Bryson to the car because he had a double ear infection.

I made the hat for her that day because people  weren't getting that she was bo peep

SOO cold, going to the car

Excited to go trick or treating

his face when someone( cough cough Grandma) gave him crackers instead of candy

We were "toy story"  

 Can you tell how excited ArJAy was to dress up? Alianna wouldn't let him out of it though. We were leaving and she was like, "Dad where's your vest? Where's your hat?" Every time he kept trying to accidentally on purpose forget parts of the costume. I was so classy with these costumes let me tell you. Alianna's I did make from scratch, but the first time I made the bodice from the pattern I adjusted from a Rapunzel pattern, it was WAYYY off. So I had to completely remake the bodice. By the time I finished that, I was wiped and everybody else's was kinda the easiest way I could think of. Her "staff" is literally just a pace of cardboard with material hot glued on it. Fancy. I made Bryson's Alien hat and then just hot glued the planet symbol on a blue sleeper. I Wonder under and hot glued my yellow felt and red yarn Jessie shirt to a white shirt I got at savers. You cant see my chaps, but they are the same material as ArJay's cow vest, I just safety pinned them to my pants. Super classy I tell you. ArJay's Woody costume is a vest I made in about 10 minutes and a yellow shirt from savers that I took a red sharpie to to draw the lines on. Is tarted with a ruler, but that was taking too long so I just eyeballed it, needless to say the lines weren't straight. I wasn't even going to attempt Kendall's Buzz Lightyear, that is completely store bought from a Goodwill.  Hard work that.

They had a costume contest and Alianna was very disappointed that we didn't win best family/group costume.Apparently we only lost by one vote. The funny story is, the kids have been themed each year.  The first year Kendall was Peter pan, Alianna was Tink and I was Wendy; last year She was Rapunzel and Kendall was Pascal. Before you go thinking I'm a crazy lady that makes my kids do this so I can make their costumes, I'm not. This has been Alianna's idea from the beginning. The first year she said she had blond hair like Tink and Kendall's was red so that's what they should be.Last year , she just loved Rapunzel and Kendall was still little enough that she just bossed him around and told him what they wanted :) So this year when I asked what they wanted to be, Kendall ( who is totally in the superhero stage) automatically claimed Buzz Light Year. Alianna was disappointed as she wanted to be Sofia the First( a princess show on Disney) but as she said " WE had to match". I told her we really didn't she could be whatever. She insisted we did, but she didn't want to be Jessie because she " wasn't Princessy and girl-ish enough". She decided that she could be Bo Peep and I could be Jessie( apparently it doesn't matter how girlish I am since I'm "just a mommy")

IT was FINALLY Halloween on Thursday. I'm not gonna lie, it was a horrid day. I'm not sure if it was because they'd been spoiled all week with parties or what, but the kids were awful. At one point, I told them we weren't going trick or treating because they hadn't earned it. I was cleaning out the van for the trip that weekend for my duathlon and Kendall pushed the garage door closer and it started to close on the trunk. Awesome.
We somehow survived without me killing all my children at my parents house for trick or treating ( we are out in a country area so we knew trick or treating wouldn't be good out there so just went to our parents) Kendall has taken on the lovely habit of spitting lately. He is smart about it, he only does it when I'm driving so I can't reach him. We have warned him lots and he keeps doing it ( this is probably not helped because Bryson thinks it's HILARIOUS and laughs his head off at it). So of course, he did it the whole drive to my parents , we warned him repeatedly that if he kept it up, he couldn't trick or treat. SO he did and we had to follow through. Alianna only went to the 5 houses around the neighborhood and then I took Kendall out to join her ( we aren't complete parent monsters), but you would have thought we cut off his limb not letting him go with her. Once I said let's go he ran out like there were zombies chasing him.
 IT was really cute when they trick or treated. Kendall would YELL' TRICK OR TREAT" especially if there were other kids at the door as well. HE was dang sure not going to get missed. Alianna was much more subdued, but they were both extremely polite and said thank you every time.

Pure Joy

The funny thing? For two kids that were soo excited about trick or treating; in the week since Halloween I think they have each only had 2 pieces of candy....