Trunk or Treat, By Request

I am getting multiple requests for Halloween pictures. I was going to try to get caught up in order, but I guess I can jump ahead to Halloween pics, since I like to please my fans.

I just feel like I don't have time to breathe right now. October really blew up in my face. Lots of family visits, planning practicing and performing the Primary Program, a Saturday Primary activity, getting released and reassigned, going out of town, having Seth out of town more than once, my dishwasher is broken, my freezer broke and I had to throw out all my frozen food, then my fridge followed suit and I had to throw out all that food too and bite the bullet and get a new fridge (all while family was in town and had nothing to eat, and we got out first ever fruit fly infestation, as well as all the usual shuttling kids to school, church, music, taekwondo, etc. And I don't even want to talk about the state of my house. I am thinking about scheduling a day to come up for air if things don't slow down soon. I even forgot my baby sister's birthday. Of course I know her b-day is October 25th, same as always. I didn't forget that. I just didn't realize the 25th had come and gone. Yeah, October was seriously THAT busy! Too bad because it is one of my favorite months and I barely got to wave hello to it before it rushed out the door.

Now I am trying to prepare to meet with Kennon tomorrow morning and officially pass the Primary torch. As I go over a million papers and documents I am sitting here truly baffled and thinking...did I really do ALL that? Holy Cow! I am not saying that in a pat myself on the back way either. I am saying it in a there must have been angels nearby kind of way. Amazing! I feel bad handing all of this over to anyone, but I do know that the help from on high comes along with the calling, which makes me feel better.

Alright, so the point is that I am way behind on the blog, but since it is Halloween I am going to be super awesome and grant your request for costume pictures.

This year I barely even saw my kids in their costumes. The Primary was in charge of Trunk or Treat this year so I was running around the whole night long. Thankfully Ann and Tony (Seth's mom and stepdad) were there, because some of the help I hoped to have did not arrive so they were put to work watching my kids and manning the food table. And I think I yelled rather abruptly to Tony to TAKE PICTURES OF THE KIDS because I didn't even have time to get a group shot before we left the house. Thankfully he was not put off by my psycho crazy busy lady voice and he came through for me. And speaking of coming through for me, I delegated most of the work with this one and everyone came up BIG. They even sent me home before we were done cleaning up so that we could hang out with our family before they left town. I am REALLY going to miss working with these people. But I haven't cried in almost 24 hours now so let's not open that can of worms again.

Let's look at pictures instead.

This year's theme. Beauty and the Birds.

Alyssa wanted to be a vampire and fell in love with this dress. No one knew what she was since I don't let my kids do ugly or bloody on Halloween. It just grosses me out. So she is a gothic vampire and probably will be again next year since this dress was a bit pricey.

And Alex. Well, was there ever any doubt what Alex would go as this year?

Chloe said she was going to be a cheerleader. I have never made her wear Alyssa's old costumes but we have a cute USC cheerleader costume and I was thrilled to finally be able to double dip, until she decided she actually wanted to be a peacock. Luckily Gymboree made a peacock costume. They were sold out of everything but the leotard and tights when I finally found it, but they tracked down the wings from last years line at a nearby outlet for me which still matched this years outfit, and I found the stuff to make a headband at Hobby Lobby.

Al came up half dressed so the dorky announcer chick had to help him get dressed for the judges.

We are all laughing in this one because Alyssa wouldn't face the audience.

None of my kids won anything this year, but I think Trunk or Treat was a success. Of course it is always hard to tell when you are in the middle of it. We had a cake walk, face painting, and fishing for prizes, as well as LOTS of food and a costume contest. The kids were supposed to nominate people to bob for donuts while wearing vampire teeth (the teeth were my sister's idea) but that got shelved when everything else took longer than we expected. Thanks anyways to Ann, Tony and Seth for helping me string 100 donuts. Anyway, it was crowded as always. We have a big ward and we invited the Spanish Branch so it was chaos, but it always is and people always seem to love the Trunk or Treat.

I gave the kids the option to trick or treat yesterday after church, since you may remember that our town only trick or treats on Sundays. They barely got any candy at Trunk or Treat because my kids are slow and the big kids make it around 5 times before we hit all the cars, so I thought they would want to go around our block. We costumed up and went to count them, 1-2-3, yep 3 houses before they decided trick or treating wasn't fun. It was cold and windy and they are just not used to trick or treating since they have grown up with just the trunk or treat. Alyssa decided handing out candy was more fun so she threw on jammies and grabbed the goodie bowl.

With her messy hair, old vampire make up and jammies on she looks like she is dressed up as someone the morning after a big Halloween bash. Oh and don't look at my house. It was dressed up like a pig pen. Later that night Alyssa graphed her candy (because she is Alyssa and she does stuff like that). She got 24 pieces, between trunk or treat and trick or treat. You won't hear me complaining. Now I don't have to deal with psycho kids begging for candy for months. 24 pieces will be gone in no time. The Snickers and Twix have already mysteriously vanished.

And while we are Halloweening, here are this year's pumpkins.

Oh and by the way...

The puppy? Trick.

Seth was helping one of the boys in our ward with his eagle scout project at a shelter in Racine on Saturday. He talked to the owner and learned that she had a litter of brand new, pure bred Boston Terriers, which I think are ugly, but Seth thinks they are cute.

When he came home I agreed to go look at the little girl puppy. She lives with the shelter owner right now because she is afraid at the shelter, which is why we took her in to our van to play with her. Alyssa, Seth and Chloe loved her, especially Alyssa. I showed Alyssa how ugly Boston Terriers grow up to be and she told me I don't want her because she is cute mom. I want her because I love her. What do you do with a kid like that? Her love for animals breaks my heart all the time.

We are still discussing. I am still not sold. I think little miss puppykins was cute and very sweet, but I still couldn't bring myself to touch her, which is kind of a problem if I have to raise her. I am also still kind of convinced that a cockapoo is the best breed of dog after my years and years of research, but obviously a shelter dog is cheaper, although still not cheap. I had no idea how much shelter dogs cost, especially pure bred baby ones.

So for now, it was a trick.