Thursday, November 30, 2017

Tappana Times: Fall and Halloween Fun

With a super early ward Halloween party fast approaching, we went through our costume box to see what family costumes we could scrounge up.


The kids are starting to want to dress in their own costumes, but also still cling to the idea of a family theme. After perusing through our costume box, I had to let them know that if we wanted to stick with a family theme we would have to come up with something cheap, fast, and easy because our old costumes weren't going to cut it.


After a trip to Goodwill, we were suddenly a family of cops and robbers.


Kayleen usually joins us for our ward Halloween party so we had a deviled egg hop in our picture for a moment, as well.


Besides the ward Halloween party, we had an evening of pumpkin carving.


As a side note, every time we went to the grocery store -including when we bought the pumpkins - Kendrick pointed to this creepy guy in the Halloween display and would proudly and loudly announce, "Jesus!"  It turned heads many times. I'm not quite sure why he thought this creepy guy looked like Jesus (the flowing robes maybe?) but it was mind-boggling and hilarious at the same time.

Pumpkin carving was kept simple this year with only two pumpkins for us to share as a family.


We also invited Kayleen over, so she came with her pumpkin as well.


Lydia and Ammon each picked a design for a pumpkin and helped scrape and clean out the pumpkin guts, while Brigham and I completed our jobs of carving and cleaning.


I lined the kids up to get some pumpkin pictures. They turned out well this year!

happy

silly

scary
And here are the pumpkins lit outside.


Besides Halloween fun, we enjoyed a couple sunny days to go play in the leaves outside.


 The colors are just gorgeous in the fall. We could have played outside for hours.


We stopped often on our walk to let the kids build piles of leaves and throw them, kick them, and play to their heart's content.






The best part was Kendrick finding the leaves HYSTERICAL. He just giggled and giggled and giggled.






It's a catch 22 around here because it's the rain that keeps the outdoors so beautiful, but also the rain that prevents us from going out and enjoying all the beauty. We were so grateful for a day of sun that let us breathe in some color and fresh air.

Kendrick loved October because I let him wear his pumpkin shirts at will. Every day he would wake up and ask to wear his pumpkin shirt. He also loved to wear this hat and the two combined had one stylin' little boy.





Kenrick's hair was also getting super long and the curls kept me from cutting it. Every time I cut it, the curls loosen a bit more. So as we spend our days reading books together, I run my fingers through this little boy's hair and love that he is mine.

Of course, it's not always fun. He is more stubborn and gets into more trouble every day.


We were playing a game for family night and not keeping a close enough eye on Kendrick as he puttered around. At one point, I noticed he was putting an empty jar in the garbage can that suspiciously looked like my maple syrup jar...my maple syrup jar that is normally FULL. I ran over and sure enough, it was the maple syrup and it was now empty. I called Brigham's name in a long, low warning tone indicating we might be in serious trouble. I had no idea where the syrup had been emptied. Luckily, it was on the kitchen floor and not carpet, but boy was it a mess to clean up and I swear the floor was sticky for days no matter how many times I cleaned it.

I was so mad at Kendrick for the mess and for wasting a large jar of super expensive maple syrup. He got in a whole lot of trouble, and it was one of the only times I've ever even seen him feel sorry for doing something wrong. I could hardly stay mad at him when he kept repeating to me in his quivering cry-voice, "Sawee, Mom. Sawee, Mom." But I did my best.

Halloween night I didn't take one picture, and it started out rough. I won't go into too many details, but it included terrible traffic, picking up Lydia from piano SUPER late, cafe rio spilled all over my car, lots of stress and a late start. But as soon as we were out trick or treating, it all calmed down and it was a great night.

Kendrick was the cutest little tricker treater, ever. He loved saying trick or treat, wanted to go to every house, would say thank you, and then "Bye, see ya!" People just thought he was the cutest and gave him handfuls of candy. My other two were too shy at this age, so it was truly a blast to see his little personality take over.

After an hour of trick or treating, Kendrick went to my parent's house to hand out candy while Brigham and I took the older kids out for longer. They got so much candy it's crazy, and they were ready to just keep going forever.

Brigham and I have thrown a Halloween party every year in the eleven years we've been together. This year I put it all in Brigham's hands for the first time. I just didn't have the energy or time to put it together and if it were up to me it wasn't going to happen. Brigham was very excited to take the reigns and though I thought some of his ideas were crazy and not going to work, he did an awesome job and it was a great night!








We had some great costumes this year. My favorites were Bob Ross and his happy little tree, and Paul Bunyan with Babe, his blue ox. Brigham and I stuck with our cop and robber costumes, though we didn't get our picture taken.

Brigham put on an elaborate murder mystery night with the games all created himself and we laughed and enjoyed the different challenges while we ate yummy Halloween treats.


I made some spider deviled eggs, and for prizes, I made brains in a jar. I was very happy with how they turned out. They looked super gross.

One of the games Brigham came up with was testing brute strength. He had contestants drag his limp body from the kitchen to inside the bathtub. I don't know if we've ever laughed so hard in our lives. Brigham was awesome at going limp, and it was a struggle for the men to get him from point A to point B.


Brigham took quite the beating by the end of this game with rug burns, welts, scratches, bruises, and more. The next day he whined about how sore he was, but we all know how much he loved it. We have this nice photo collage of the event courtesy of a friend. 

It was a great night with lots of kid-free, Halloween fun.

October was a busy, fun month and I'll end with my picture from my Bootcamp exercise class. We dress up as a group every year and then get our sweat on with prizes and healthy-ish treats at the end. This year I was a Newsie. I love these ladies. Hope you had your own Halloween fun!


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