Happy Halloween!

We had another full day of Halloween fun, like every year, so pardon the number the pictures. Like every year, the girls' school did their History Fair where each grade dresses from the time period they are studying. The 5th grade did Civil War and 1st grade did Ancient Egypt. I had grand plans of making Savannah a fancy, full belle dress, but took the easy way out and found one on Ebay. I figured I saved myself money, and money talks, right? Does she look like a tavern girl, or what, in her red silk and black lace? No matter, she loved it, and it suits her red hair, right? I loved the ringlets we put in her hair. Why did that go out of style??? So adorable! Just a great change from the 70's style, parted in the middle and straight down she usually insists on wearing. Doesn't she look so feminine?

I had to get the back, of course!

Both of my girls. Funny story about Savannah's costume. When I first proposed that she go as a belle, I got this blank, dumb stare from her. Slowly she looked at me like I had just told her to remove her head and walk backwards. "a bell? You want me to go as a bell?" she kept saying. Finally it dawned on me that she thought I meant a bell, like ding dong bell.

Doesn't Irelynd look fantastic? I did make her costume. I thought, how hard can it be, just a basic, straight dress with some embellishment. It was hard. Mostly because the sizing was off and I had to cut it down 3+ times. But I loved how it turned out. Before the gold stuff went on, she looked like a cross between a BOM angel and Princess Leah. I made the embellishments removable, just in case she gets into Star Wars later. Don't the pink flip flops totally complete the look?

During the morning, the school does a costume parade in the gym. Here's my cute Egyptian waltzing by. I was impressed with some of the costumes. I thought the best one was a kid dressed as a pyramid. Creative! Does she walk like an Egyptian?:)

Savannah, Lily and Chloe.

Trick-or-treating later that night. I put the twins in the wagon to make our rounds around the ward. Waverly was a lamb, Keaton was a bat, and Brighton was Bob the Builder. Grandma and Grandpa gave him the perfect shirt for his birthday to be Bob the Builder. I couldn't have picked a better shirt myself. Thanks, guys!

The twins wouldn't stay seated in the wagon. I nearly dumped Keaton out the back side more than once. They weren't too excited to come along like I thought they were. I had to stuff them with Smarties every time we stopped to keep them both happy. Waverly learned a new word this night from Brighton and repeated it all through our walk. "Creepy" was the word of the day, though it came out "peepy" from her, "keepy" from Brighton. Don't they look so cute? I had high plans of a family costume theme from Harry Potter, since we had half the costumes already from Savannah's party. But, like always, I ran out of time. So they got hand-me-down, mismatched costumes. Maybe next year. I wonder if Waverly will have enough hair to pull off Leah, and Keaton can be Luke?... Brighton's perfect for Darth Vader, the little despot. Savannah spent most of the day with Lily and her sisters and Grammy. Here's the two of them as they head out to do their activities. Lily had an awesom gypsy costume her grammy had made.

Can he keep the hat on all day? Yes he can! I love Halloween--all kids look so cute in their costumes! Except for the ones dripping blood or gore. That's just ew!

Mommy had a little lamb... We went to the school's Halloween Fair before trick-or-treating, and this is the costume contest part. Waverly stood right up there on the dais and held the mike like she was going to break into song. Or braying, maybe. (Would a kid with less fat cheeks look as cute in this costume? I think not.)

This was my favorite costume. Savannah and Irelynd both were supposed to go as Hogwarts students, Hermione and Ginny Weasley, but only Irelynd wore hers, and went as Ginny. I ended up turning Savannah's cloak into a fur-lined evening cloak for her to wear over her Southern belle dress. It did look pretty great after the alteration, but I liked Irelynd's better. Again, notice the flip flops:)

Keaton was less-than-thrilled with his costume, and being strapped into a stroller during naptime.

Irelynd got her face painted at the fair.

Brighton jumped in the bouncehouse. This picture was too cute to leave out.

This is our house decorated for the holiday. Scott loves to go all out for Halloween, and has started sitting outside in various places and costumes. His goal is to make someone pee their pants every year. Everybody's gotta have goals!

He made these fences for the "cemetary." They looked awesom! Halloween is our holiday of choice in our house.

Done for the night.

Waverly loves this holiday. When else can one attain two suckers for such a small effort?

Had to get a picture of the back. Isn't the tail cute??? Even better when she walked and it moved.

We made our way to Grandma's house, and met cousin Wrigley there as Eeyore. These 2 are only 11 days apart. They were due 6 weeks apart, but Wrigley came late and Waverly early.

We went to a party at a neighbor's house a few days before Halloween. I tried to get us to coordinate, but Scott wouldn't cooperate and be Professor Snape, and I wasn't going in tights as Wonder Girl, or a brassiere as Wonder Woman, so we went as the odd couple: Professor McGonagall and Prince Charming. I guess every girl dreams of finding a prince, right?

The Young Ambassadors

In October, Savannah had the opportunity, along with her cousin Chloe, to participate with the Young Ambassadors in a two-day workshop at school. They learned song and dance in a fun, energetic way. Never heard of the Young Ambassadors? We hadn't either until they came to school. I was very impressed with them after the show they put on with the students after the second day. WOW! What a fun group of kids to watch perform. We were very lucky to have them come to our little town and educate our kids. Savannah had a great time with them, and learned a lot.

Zoo day with the First Grade

Scott and Brighton went along with Irelynd's first grade class to the zoo for a field trip.

Irelynd and cousin Madilyn.

The zoo recently had some new babies born; one of these was the baby elephant. So cute!

Shiver me timbers!

Since the 3 oldest all have birthdays within one month of each other, we decided this year to lump them all together and celebrate at one time. Yeah, we had birthday parties for them, but I like to celebrate them as just a family as well. We'd been trying to get to Pirate Island for weeks, but were waylaid several times by sick kids (Irelynd being the worst with 10-day-long swine flu!) We finally made it on the night after Brighton's birthday party. What a fun restaurant! They serve mostly pizza and pasta, but it's much better than I expected from a themed restaurant (think The Mayan in SLC. blech!). The decor was worthy of a Disney-themed establishment, in my opinion, and the costumed waiters were adorable!

This is the entrance/waiting area. I tell you, I'm going to put a wishing fountain in front of my house one year--people will throw money in any body of water! Irelynd is still in her deer-in-the-headlights phase of taking pictures.

The kids liked the cardboard hats they were given.

Are pirates supposed to be this cute?

They were all decked out for Halloween, with ghosts hanging from the trees and paper lanterns. Doesn't this look fun??? It was!

They had a balloon-making pirate roaming around doing what you'd expect from a balloon-making pirate: he was making balloons! Savannah and Irelynd each got a pink parrot. Scott and I each got a headache from listening to these parrots "talk" for the rest of the evening. (Aach! Polly want a cracker! replayed 137 times)

We discovered just before leaving the play area on the other side of the building. If you go here with little kids, ask to sit here. It would have kept our twins busy playing on the small ship and slides.

Don't you just want to eat him up? Love this kid.

Haunted Salt Lake

In an effort to do something "different" this year with our best friends, Alyssa suggested a ghost tour of SLC. I am a wimp when it comes to scary stuff, especially dealing with the supernatural. Not wanting to appear a yella-belly, I went along. Peer pressure still works at 30-something:) Turns out I didn't need to be worried. We met at the Gateway for dinner at Cafe Rio, then hauled butt over about 6 blocks, through some scary parts of town, to catch our bus in front of the Rio Grand Hotel. We had to hold the bus up for Alyssa and Dave, and Alyssa's 9 month pregnant belly:) We heard stories from the Hotel, the Beehive House, the Masonic Temple, the old cemetary, The is the Place park, and others, but, thankfully, everything was not too scary, even for me, a wimp. At Capitol Hill they let us out to walk down the pathway to the park below. We were supposed to take pictures of the darkness around us and try to capture, on film, the spirits that are rumored to be there from something or other, I don't remember the story. I tried, but only got the living:) Us with Mike and Michelle. Dave and Lyss and the others with us opted not to get off the bus. Scaredy cats!

Scott looks a bit weirded-out in this picture, doesn't he? And, no, we really aren't that much taller than our friends--they are standing downhill from us. This was a fun night with friends and local history, but I'm still wondering what happened to the girls who entered the hotel with the staircase that went nowhere! (the storyteller rambled a bit)

Making gourmet apples

Pardon me while I bore you with all our Halloween/fall traditions, but this is another one. I had my eyes opened to the magic that is gourmet caramel apples when I had my first bite of one from The Chocolate Factory in Park City. You know the apple pie one? Yumm! I had to try making them at home. I have a great caramel recipe that I found while working in the library at church a few years ago. See, the Lord does bless us when we serve faithfully!

So here's the scoop on making homemade gourmet candy apples, Jill-style. First you start with popsicle-speared apples. The crunchier the better. Biting into a soggy apple is just not a good experience, no matter how many layers of caramel and chocolate you give it.

Then you dip it in caramel, then chocolate, then your choice of toppings. I've tried many, but my favorite is still white chocolate and cinnamon sugar. Yummo!

Savannah's creation was white chocolate and butterfinger.

I believe Irelynd went with milk chocolate and oreos. Sounds good, but the flavors don't mesh well. Not sure what it is... I'm just biased, I think.

Spooky dinner

One of our Halloween traditions is to have a spooky dinner with fun foods. We have a different menu every year (partly because I just can't remember what we had last year!) This year we had witch hands (chicken fingers), potato ghosties, ladies fingers (steamed carrots), and root beer in a cauldron, complete with dry ice effects. The kids love this last one best. We listen to our Halloween CD Scott made for Savannah's Halloween birthday party 2 years ago, light candles, and sometimes we'll tell scary stories. This year the twins did not want to cooperate, so it was a bit rushed, like most of our dinnertimes:)

Brighton's 3rd birthday party

Ok, here is the last in my posts about birthday parties for this year. Wow, I outdid myself this year:) After the intense work for Savannah's and Irelynd's parties, this one felt like a cinch; it was lovely:) It was nice to do something simple and boyish. Brighton was SO excited for his party--he kept telling everyone about it for months beforehand. That may have been my fault, for talking it up. I was glad he was so excited, though. It made it worth the work and effort. Here are the little construction workers.

This is the invite. Brighton is obsessed with tractors so we had a construction party for him.

Everybody received a hard hat and apron, courtesy of Home Depot, when they arrived.

We played a few games, starting with Toss it, where they threw small balls into the back of Brighton's dump truck. SOme of those boys have great arms, for a three-year-old!

Then we played Fix it, AKA pin the scoop on the tractor. Yes, I drew it, and not Brighton, though he probably would have done a better job of it.

Connect it worked better in my head than in practice. What I learned from this game is that 1 set of PVC pipes + 5 3-yr-old boys= one big sword fight. We had to disarm the kids quickly and usher them on to the next game.

This was the biggest hit of the party. We made a wrecking ball with a small rubber ball, some yellow duct tape, some twine, and a banister pole. The kids loved knocking over the tower of empty boxes by throwing the ball at them. One of the boys helped me restack in between his turns so he could get a turn faster. They were hilarious to watch.

Last was Eat it. We sang happy birthday to Brighton and served brownie "cake" out of his dump truck and wrecking ball ice cream. I loved how my road table cloth came out.

It even had worms!

Here are my wrecking ball ice cream balls. I rolled them in sprinkles and added a licorice rope "chain."

Brighton had to be convinced to open everyone else's presents. He got a sneak peak inside Luke's bag and saw the set of mini tractors in it, and that was it for him. I was glad no other parents were there to see my son acting so ungraciously. Actually, after all was opened, this tool box turned out to be his favorite toy; it went everywhere with him over the next few days.

Dave having fun with the boxes after the party was over.

Dave's a little boy at heart still...

This has become my favorite photos of Brighton. What a face. This really captures him well.

And another. It was a fun day, and if nothing else, he loved his party. The party went exactly as planned; timing was good for everything, and all the boys got along and played the games as expected. (ok, if you don't count the pipe bashing game). I had fun with this one. I'm already planning his next one in my head. I think I have a mental illness...