Halloween 2011

Before Thanksgiving comes I figured I better get a post and pictures up of our Halloween this year! We woke up to a really nice day. Probably one of the nicest Halloween weather I can remember. I decided I wanted to make the day a little extra special for our family, so I was going to prepare a Halloween dinner.

Me and the boys, along with our nephew Aftyn ran a few errands and got some things I needed for our fun dinner, and at each store we went in Brody told the cashier's "happy halloween!" He even earned himself and Aftyn a sucker at one store.

We spent the rest of the morning playing, napping, making dinner preparations, and waiting until it was time to join the annual Halloween Parade! Of course, we had to hit some bumps along the way. It can never be that easy or that simple for me to do nice fun things for my family. I had made a cheese ball, but shaped it into a headstone and grave. It turned out really cute and Brody enjoyed helping make it. But I got a phone call....I left the room.....Brody thought it would be fun to make a moat around the cheeseball, so he surrounded it in water! Now I can laugh about it, but then....well then.....I was SOOO mad! It was not my proudest parenting moment. I just felt so deflated. Like, "why do I go to the extra trouble to do something nice, and it just gets destroyed or makes things harder?" Brody was in so much trouble. Sometimes I read other people's blogs and they seem like such "nicer" parents than me. They probably would have handled it better than I did. Seriously.

Moving on....I was able to salvage most of the gravestone cheeseball, and despite threatening that no parade and no trick-or-treating was going to be in his near future...Brody did get to participate, and I did end up having an ok night.

The parade, like usual, was nothing too big, but my kids love it. They think they are so cool to walk around in their costumes and have people wave and honk to their cute little selfs. Aftyn came with us too, and it was fun having the 3 boys together. Once again though, we had a few problems. Costume malfunctions with Brody's chaps caused us to be at the very end of the group just trying to keep him together. Plus, with basketball practice just having started that day Coach Waite was gone and it was me vs. 3. Call me crazy, I know.

After Trevor got home and before trick-or-treating we had our Halloween feast. It was a mummy pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, gravestone cheeseball, and bats and pumpkins jello jigglers. Kinda a lot of work, but fun for everyone else. Pretty tasty too.

Trick-or-treating was the most fun ever this year. I imagine it'll just get more fun as the kids get bigger, but it was great this time! We did go to a few houses besides just the grandparents. Ry just stood next to Brody the whole time, but Brody was the only one really collecting candy and he had practiced (a lot) saying, "We are here! Trick-or-Treat!" Who wouldn't want to give those two stinkin' cute kids all the candy they had? Man, they were cute. One lady dresses like a witch and had "brews" homemade rootbeer to hand out. Brody wasn't too excited about it until he drank it and then he said it was "yummy, and tasty, and GOOD!"

Overall, despite a slightly hectic day, FUN Halloween! My kids got just enough candy for them to have a few pieces now and again (and some for mom and dad too), but not so much to rot their teeth out. Brody insisted on being a cowboy because he remembers being one last year, and the giraffe costume Ry wore is my favorite costume of all so not only did they like their costumes, they looked dang cute too!