Halloween 2007

The kids got dressed up in their Halloween costumes more this year than ever before! We had party after party. It all started with the Halloween "Fall Family Fun Night" party at school the Friday night before Halloween. After Joshua got home from work, we dressed the kids in their costumes and took off for Jessica and Alex's elementary school to play games, dance, eat food, participate in raffle contests, take a family picture, and go to a book fair. Jessica sat at the cider and doughnuts booth most of the evening to help with her 4th grade fundraising event (a fieldtrip to Lansing in February). Since Spencer is in middle school now, he thought it would be too juvenile to attend, so he stayed home alone -- But I think he enjoyed having the house to himself.

Saturday night was our ward "Trunk-or-Treat" party. The kids got heaps and heaps of candy, and then there were carnival games for the kids. We also enjoyed doughnuts and cider.

On Monday night, I took the kids to our local library's Halloween party, which was totally cute. To begin the party, the library staff read the kids a couple of ghost stories, then provided lots of fun party foods, had some cute games and Halloween crafts. I was very impressed. We had to register to attend, so there were only a limited number of kids, and it was free. Spencer, once again, decided to skip the party and read books in another part of the library while he waited for us to get done. With the big gaps in my kid's ages, it gets harder to have family activities that everyone will like. Oh well. I knew it was bound to happen someday...

On Tuesday, while Spencer and Jessica were at piano lessons, I took Alex and Logan to our commmunity center's "Trick or Treat Parade". Each room on the trick or treat path was decorated in a different theme and included some popular characters for the kids to meet. A few of the themes I can remember were: Disney princesses, Super-Heros, Transformers, "Go Diego, Go", High School Musical, "Hooray for Hollywood" (with a red carpet), "At the Movies", a haunted house, etc. As the kids went from room to room, they filled their bags with surprises and goodies. It was so cute! We'll have to go again next year, but we'll make a point of arriving much earlier so we won't have to wait in a huge line again.

On Wednesday, Jessica and Alex had Halloween parties at school. Every year, their elementary school has a "Halloween Parade" after lunch so the kids at school can show off their costumes to family and staff. It was a nice day outside so the parade spilled out onto the school grounds. Jessica took Logan with her on the parade and I heard him receive lots of compliments on his police motorcycle costume. After the parade, since I am the "room mom" for Jessica's class, I helped out with her classroom Halloween party. I arranged for party food donations and came up with games and crafts for the kids to do. Logan also stayed for the party and Jessica was happy to show him off to her friends.

That night, we ate an early dinner before going trick-or-treating -- Frito pie, apples and caramel dip, and hot apple cider. For dessert, frosted pumpkin cranberry bars and pumpkin ice-cream. Yum! I went out with the kids while Josh stayed behind to hand out candy. After about an hour and a half, Jessica's feet were hurting because of her "ruby slippers" (a new pair of shoes she really hadn't broken into yet) and the little boys were getting tired, so I brought them home. Spencer wanted to keep going, so Joshua took him back out for almost a whole hour more while I put the younger kids into their PJ's and we watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" while sitting next to a fire in the fireplace and drinking hot apple cider. It was a nice relaxing evening.