Halloween Weekend '09

We had such a fun Halloween weekend! It started off with our ward Halloween party/trunk or treat. I was in charge of the games and so it was a little stressful, but still fun. I also made chili for the chili cook-off dinner. It was yum even though it didn't win. I think that the party was a success and I hope that my ward decides we should do it again next year.
***Little background info, in the past, the ward activities committee has planned a chili cook-off dinner in October, but put the YM/YW in charge of the trunk or treat as a separate activity. This year the activities committee had the chili cook-off scheduled for the 30th of October with no plans to make it a Halloween party. My YW President convinced them to combine it, so the youth still did the games part of it.

Weston loved all the games and trunk or treating, but his favorite was just running laps around the cultural hall with Davin while everyone ate (I fed my kids before the party since there's no way they would eat chili). Here we are before the party. I dressed up as a Cheetah, sort of. Davin was a puppy and Weston was Mike Wozowski.
Saturday morning we went down to the dinosaur museum. They were having a special activity called "Pirates, Pixies, and Pan." I didn't have the kids put on their costumes, but we brought our pirate gear. It was really very cute. First the kids got their faces painted. Weston was perfect and loved his pumpkin.
Davin was not happy about getting his face painted. This is the only picture of the mostly complete skull and crossbones before he smeared it and ran away.
Next up was some archery. They had a big picture of a bear for the kids to shoot at, but our wandering Davin tried to be the target a couple times. Oops.
After shooting the bow and arrows the kids made Indian headbands. Davin decided he liked wearing that better than his pirate hat.
Finally we went for a tour of the pirate ship. The captain was pretty good. He never broke character and used lots of bucaneer-y words that Weston didn't understand. It was kind of a long tour that mostly included standing around, so by the end the kids were bored, but I still thought it was a great activity, especially since it was free with our Thanksgiving Point membership. Love that pass!
After all the pirate fun we did a quick wander through the museum before heading home for lunch and naps. Amazingly enough both boys took great naps! Finally, after a Halloween picnic dinner of mummy dogs we got the kids in their costumes and headed out for some trick or treating! Weston was so excited. Davin had no idea, but was a happy camper and lasted for about an hour. He didn't want to be left out so he knocked on the doors and then had a hard time backing up so the people could open up and give him some candy. Amazingly the weather was very nice considering we had snow earlier in the week, so I didn't have to stuff coats on underneath the boys' costumes. :)
When it started getting dark Davin and I went home to relax and give out candy while Ian and Weston kept going. We didn't get as many trick or treaters as I though we would, but we almost got rid of all our giveaway candy. I was surprised though at how much candy we ended up with between the 2 kids! I consider it a successful Halloween.

Sunday morning was kind of a bummer. Daylight Savings time is great in the Fall . . . if you don't have kids. Mine didn't get the memo that they could sleep in an extra hour, so they were up at 6:45. Oh well. The problem is that today they were up even earlier than that. What the?!? Hopefully they will settle into the new schedule soon. We had a busy Sunday. They reorganized the bishopric in our ward and Ian has a new calling. He is the 1st counselor in the bishopric. Pretty crazy.

So after the block he got ordained as a high priest and then set apart for his new calling. We are excited about the call. It will be good for our family. I'm sure I will have my moments of being annoyed that I don't have my husband to help me out with the kids during Sacrament meeting, but overall I know that it is a blessing.

I think life will be a little different from here on out. I'm sure I will be released from Young Women's pretty quickly, which will be bittersweet, but necessary. Today's the day to take down Halloween and put up Thanksgiving because it's November folks! Wow. This year is flying on by and I am loving this Fall holiday season!