"Where have you been?" I'm sure that this is what you're probably thinking. The sad thing is, I've been wondering the exact same thing! We have been one incredibly busy household lately. In October our church hosts Judgement House. It's a walk through play that depicts how our decisions here on earth effect our eternal destination. I was in charge of heading up the concessions. You wouldn't think that would be terribly difficult, but it took up a ton of my extra time. Throw in Halloween parties at school, parent-teacher conferences, and a few birthdays and that barely left time for regular home maintenance and sleep! So I'm a couple weeks late with Halloween pictures, but better late than never, right?!
Our pumpkin carving almost didn't happen this year. We had forgotten to even get bigger pumpkins to carve, so I ran to Dillons and we carved two pumpkins.
How it is that I ended up with a husband and four boys and I am the only person who is willing to put their hands inside of the pumpkin to clean it out is beyond me! So here is my crew plotting out how our new orange friends will look:
As you can see, pumpkin carving did not hold a big draw for Brennen. He spent most of his time sucked into Shrek: Scared Shrekless!
Occasionally he'd look back and give an opinion on how he thought that they should look.
Bob and the older boys book it a little more seriously.
And here is the after picture. I put Bob in charge of taking this picture. I guess I should have specified that I would like to actually see both of the pumpkins that we carved!
Here we have more of the pumpkins, and less of the boys!
The boys had their Halloween parties and parade on the Tuesday before Halloween, due to Parent-Teacher conferences. This year Maddox wanted to be a Chiefs football player. I thought that if there was ever a year to honor this request, that this would probably be the best year for that. (Luckily, they had not played Denver yet!)
I love that he'll still acknowledge me at school!
Caden wanted to be a construction worker this year. Not terribly surprising, as this is what he wants to be when he grows up too.
After the parade, it's back to the classroom to party. Here is Caden's class. His teacher is one of the "Pink Ladies" in the background.
They led off with yummy treats.
One of the moms used string cheese and sliced almonds to look like fingers. Most of the kids wouldn't eat them. Not if that was because they were string cheese, or if they were just grossed out. I thought it was a cute idea though!
Bob headed next door to check out Maddox's party. Here they are settling in for snacks.
Brennen and Preston even made out pretty well when they were served some of the treats too. I think seeing these parties really helped Brennen get excited to go to Kindergarten next year. The way to that boy's heart is definitely through his stomach!
Yummy!
It looks like they're being pretty good in this picture. By the time I got into this classroom, it was anything but quiet!!
Here are some pictures of Halloween night. Posing before trick or treating:
My future Hall-of-Famer!!
Ella getting dressed!
Ella wanted to take a picture as soon as she saw Maddox take one!
Preston wanted to be a dragon like Brennen was last year. That sounded great to me, as it saved us some moo-lah!
Here is my little "Pebbles"! My mom made her costume for us again this year and did an absolutely fabulous job! Don't know what we'd do without her!
We don't believe in showing off quite as much belly as Pebbles does!
I think she is even cuter than the real Pebbles!
She was so excited and didn't even know what was going on. That's what I love about her!
Here is Caden pre-trick or treating!
Here is Brennen all dressed up as Muscle Man! Again, another hand-me down from big brothers!! Gotta love it!!
Ella sneaking in on Brennen's picture!
My gang!
Ella refused to stand up. There's always gotta be one!
Then it was time to go out trick or treating.
We have a couple of friends and their kids who always join us for trick or treating every year. Here is the whole crew all geared up and ready to head out!
Then Ella must have thought that was the end of it, because she just went and sat on the porch. (Or maybe she found out that Daddy conveniently left her out of the pumpkin pictures earlier!) I love this picture of her!
And then we released them on the neighbors!
Boy were they fast!
Well, SOME were fast!
Such cute trick or treaters!
Ella figured out that she liked getting candy pretty quickly!
Problem: Ella wanted to eat the candy immediately. And by immediately, I mean not even taking the time to remove a wrapper!
Who needs sidewalks?!
Fun times!!
This particular Christmas tree farm, gave you the supplies needed to harvest your tree, but you were completely on your own to do so. So the boys grabbed the tree cart, and a walking we went!
Ella was anything but speedy, so she only walked for a little while before being picked up.
She also liked to wander into the trees that were small and being saved for future years. I guess they were the perfect size to her!
After searching and searching, we finally found one. We actually narrowed it down to a few and strategically placed a child in front of each contender so we would remember which ones we liked. Then Bob and I circled back through and picked the one we liked best. (Having a few extra kids sure comes in handy some times!)
Here is Maddox in front of his tree, which also was the one we picked. As I said earlier, you had to cut down your own tree. This is where Bob came into play. He got to use the hand saw to cut it down. Here is is with Preston "helping"!
The boys were tons of help!
More help...
But then they got to pull it back to be shook and netted.
They did a great job pulling it back!
Here we are loaded up and headed back home!
Ella also got to eat her first candy cane. She liked it, as you can clearly see!
Everything went extremely smooth, including the set up. Here it is all set up inside...
...and without the net around it!
We had a wonderful time picking out our tree and I look forward to this fun tradition for our family in the years to come!
