Beware of the Little Spooks!

Today was a day that my kids have been anticipating for a long time. They just love Halloween and so do I. Even though it is a state holiday today, my boys still had to go to school which bummed them out a little, but they survived. For Jaedyn, it was a "normal" day except for the fact that she got to wear a Halloween outfit. I tried to get a picture of her in it before we took the boys to school, because she looked so cute, but she didn't want to cooperate very much. This was the attitude I got from her...

...and then she turned her back on me and wouldn't say anything. She's getting really good at ignoring me! I guess this way you get to see her Halloween hair bow that her grandma Goddard made for her for her 1st Halloween...she picked it out.

For dinner we had our traditional Halloween chili and rolls and I actually made both of them this year...nothing from a box or plastic bag from the frozen food section...and it was good! Jaron and Jantzen even ate some and thought it was good, so I'll call this dinner a success!

After dinner, we got the kids all ready to go trick or treating. We headed over a couple streets to meet up with some friends so we could all go together as a big group.

Here's the big group of little spooks my kids got to trick or treat with...(Jantzen, Jaron, Jaedyn, Caleb, Jansen, Natalie, Bailey, Jane, Maddy, Emmalee, Peter, and John)...

Every one better watch out because we let the little spooks loose!

The kids, especially Jaedyn, had a lot of fun going from house to house getting candy. There was one house that wasn't a fun one for some of the kids though. As the kids all went up the driveway to get some candy, a man came out chasing them with a chainsaw. As you can imagine, some of the little kids ran away screaming and crying. My little Jantzen was one of those kids that was crying. I think that made him afraid for most of the night. He stayed pretty close to me and Josh the rest of the night. I wasn't too happy that this particular house did that, but I kept my cool.

Here's my cute little "Minnie" enjoying her Halloween night. She wouldn't let us hold her trick or treat bag, even when it got really heavy. She wanted to be a big girl and do it all by herself.

Peter, Jaron, and Caleb were the "big kids" in the group...

After doing some trick or treating for a while, Jaedyn started getting tired. Lucky for her she had her daddy there to carry her.

We headed over to our neighborhood to go to our favorite neighbors house before Jaedyn and Josh went home. This is Daniel's house (he's sitting on the porch in a mask)...

Jaedyn went up with her daddy to get some more candy from Daniel. We stopped at his house on our way to meet up with our friends and he gave all my kids king size Kit Kat bars, but he didn't give that to the other kids. He just likes our kids the best. He even gave me and Josh a king size box of Junior Mints (can you see Josh's box in his back pocket?).

Josh took Jaedyn home after that and I took the boys out for some more trick or treating. Josh didn't want to pass any candy out, so I took our candy out with me and gave it away when I saw other trick or treaters. I called myself a "mobile candy giver outer".

We went to a couple more neighborhoods before we called it a night. There were a few houses that Jantzen refused to go to because people were wearing masks and he was too afraid, but the rest of the kids had a blast!

Here I am with the other trick or treating moms for the night. It was fun going with a group of friends that I could chat with while our kids collected candy.

My kids had a fun night and got way too much candy! I'll be giving some of it away and I don't think the kids will even notice. Thanks for a fun night everyone! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Cookie Frosting Fun

The boys have been bugging me for the last week to make our traditional Halloween sugar cookies, so finally today I did. It was so hard for them to wait for the cookies to cool down so they could frost them, especially Jantzen.

Finally, when they were all cool, I got the frosting colors mixed up and the sprinkles out, and the kids went to town frosting cookies. I guess I should say Jaron and Jantzen frosted cookies, Jaedyn just watched the boys while she ate an unfrosted sugar cookie and candy corns.


Can't you see the excitement on Jaedyn's face? She's really enjoying that cookie and candy corn so much that she just had to show it to me...all chewed up!


There's so much drama in this little girl!


Jantzen was so proud of his haunted house he frosted...


"Cheese"?!?!


Instead of frosting cookies with the boys, Jaedyn decided it would be more fun to frost the counter. She scraped frosting off the cookie I gave her and created a masterpiece of her own...




Here's the finished product of the boys' frosting skills. Jaron's cookies are on the left and Jantzen's are on the right. I think they did an awesome job and they had a lot of fun.


Now comes the fun part...eating the cookies!!

Trunk or Treat with our "HH" Friends...

Tonight we went to our ward trunk or treat. I was so happy that Josh agreed to dress up this year, we went as rockers. I think he only agreed to dress up because I got him some sleeve tattoos, but that's okay, at least he did.

We all got ready and got a quick family photo before we headed over to the party. Don't you just love Josh's mullet?!?!


And here's a quick picture of the cutest kids in the world, even though you can only see one of their faces...


We got to the church and started up our night of fun. I'm wearing heels, so in this picture I'm squatting down so I'm not taller than Josh.


Here's Jaedyn with her friend Rylee. I asked them to pose and say "cheese" for me, it was so cute watching them try this...


Before the trunk or treat our ward had a chili and cornbread dinner, it was actually a contest for the best tasting. I only made some cornbread, but it did get some votes. While waiting in line for dinner, Jaedyn grabbed a piece of ice from the drinks and tried to eat it. The cold obviously didn't bug her at all.


As soon as we got to the church, Jaron and Jantzen took off to play with their friends...I didn't see much of them all night. I was able to catch a quick picture of them in between eating and playing though.

(From left to right: Jantzen, Jaron, Keagan, Kaiden)...


After dinner there was a costume contest parade. The little kids went first and Jaedyn was the first one in line (because she's the cutest little girl ever!). We were all given tickets to give out to the person with the best costume. The kids all walked down a red carpet and when they were done you could give them a ticket if you liked their costume. Jaedyn actually had some kids give her tickets, it was cute.


Here's Jaron walking the red carpet...I think he scared some kids.


Jantzen had to show me some ninja moves as he made his way down the red carpet...


After all the kids got to walk the red carpet, it was time for us adults (or big kids) to walk it. I made Josh do this, but I think he secretly enjoyed it because he seemed to really get into character...


Here's Josh and his rocker buddy Kelly...what a couple of punks!


Here I am with my friend, the devil (Mary, she's really an angel...the little hands in the bottom of the picture belong to Jaedyn)...


Here's the four of us together...


After all the contests (food, pumpkins, costumes) were all done, the trunk or treating began. Jaron and Jantzen took Jaedyn around with them. Jaedyn was really into this whole begging for candy thing this year. She held her bag open and said, "Treat", then said, "Welcome"...it was so cute!


My poor kids had to suffer through some more pictures before we went home, they should be used to that by now. I really liked the way the kids' pumpkins turned out this year...




So, I decided to get individual pictures of the kids with their pumpkins. First up was Jaedyn, or I should say "Minnie Mouse"...


...then there was my crazy little ninja...


...I left the scariest one for last, Jaron aka "Ghost Face"...


Okay, maybe I jumped the gun a little too fast. Here's the scariest one...Josh as a rockin' Minnie Mouse...


I got these pumpkin flashlights for the kids to use trick or treating and I forgot to give them to them until after we were all done, so they played with them in the car on the way home. Jaedyn loved hers the most! (I'm not sure what is going on with Jaron's face here, maybe he's choking?!?!)


This is me telling everyone, "I'm tired, go to bed, good night!".


Now, that's two trunk or treats down, only one more to go on Halloween night!

Pumpkin Carving...2011 Edition

Today we decided to carve our pumpkins for our ward trunk or treat tomorrow night. We started gutting the pumpkins before Josh got home so we wouldn't be up all night working on them. This year the kids' pumpkins will all match their costumes. We've tried to do this in the past, but there's always been at least one pumpkin pattern that we haven't been able to find.

Jaedyn, of course, got a Minnie Mouse pattern for her pumpkin, she was so excited about it. She didn't want to put her pattern down.


I asked her to hold it up so I could see it and she decided that she wanted Minnie to be her face in the picture...


I did all the initial carving on the pumpkins, I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I'm surprised I didn't cut myself.


I tried to show the kids how good pumpkin guts are, but they didn't believe me. Jaedyn was very fascinated by this. No, I didn't really eat any of it. My mom always cooked up the seeds when I was little and I thought they were disgusting, so I'd never make my kids eat them.


Jaron dug right in to cleaning out his pumpkin, Jantzen, not so much. He thought it was "gross" as he called it and he refused to touch any of it. Jaron was a good big brother and he helped out with Jantzen's pumpkin too. (I love the disgusted look Jantzen is sporting)




Jaron even helped out with Jaedyn's pumpkin. She was good about working with him to get her pumpkin all cleaned out.


She was even brave enough to try it on her own...




Jaron showed Jaedyn how much fun it is using your hands to clean out the pumpkin...


She touched it, but she did think it was kind of "yucky"...


I asked Jaedyn if she wanted a taste of the pumpkin and this was her reaction...she's so stinking cute!


She gave up on the carving pretty early and she snuck her way over to the counter. She moved her seat all by herself and she tried to be sneaky about eating some candy corns...her now favorite Halloween "candy". I couldn't resist this face, so I let her have a few before dinner...


Josh got home from work and, thankfully, helped me finish carving the pumpkins. It would have taken me all night if I had to do all three by myself. I went to take a picture of him and I caught him off guard...really, it's not an evil look he's giving me.


Check out that super cheesy smile! I don't think Josh has ever smiled that big for me. I guess he's having a ton of fun carving Jaron's pumpkin.


While Josh and I finished up the pumpkins, Jaedyn got a hold of some spider rings and bracelets that the boys got from a friends party earlier this afternoon...she's really into jewelry these days. This is her showing them off to me...

This is the shy look...


This is the "pucker up for a wet bubbly kiss" look (her new favorite way to offer her kisses, I'm not very fond of it)...


And, this is her "I'm done with pictures now, please leave me alone" look...


We got all the pumpkins done, here's the end results...

Jaron's pumpkin is "Ghost Face", Jantzen's is a ninja, and Jaedyn's is "Minnie Mouse".


After we were all done carving pumpkins, we had enough time to enjoy a popcorn/movie night. We watched "Spooky Buddies" and had a great time hanging out together