Halloween 2011!

This year, we have a pirate...



And a puppy...


We started a Halloween tradition of matching family costumes with Stone's first Halloween. It continued the 2nd Halloween, and then the next year, we were lame, and only dressed Stone up. I had been out of town with Stone, and work was absolutely crazy that month. Lame excuses. We picked the tradition back up last year, and then this year, after pondering our possibilities, I thought, "Do we really want the pressure of a family theme every year? There's going to come a year where the tradition breaks, and then my heart will break. Do we want that pressure??" And I decided no. I figured if we do a theme here and there, that would suffice. OR, maybe that's just my excuse of not being clever this year with a family theme.

We may have not had a theme, but we still went all out. We can thank Stone for that, because he LOVES costumes. He is a superhero or power ranger EVERY day. He thinks we have to dress up as something on our birthdays, since he does.

I must say, after 4 days of costumes and festivities, I'm ready to welcome November.

This past Thursday, we hosted our playgroup's Halloween party. We made Frankenstein cups:

And I made some ugly dead string cheese fingers (which surprise, surprise, didn't really get eaten):

and a carrot hand in some dip with baby carrots.

All the moms brought yummy treats, and we played games and chatted, and had a nice time.

Thursday was ALSO Cliff's birthday...which I will dedicate a post to that. :) I surprised him with BYU vs TCU football tickets, and our friends Chelsea & Dave watched our kids while we went to the game Friday evening (thanks again, Chels!!).

We had our church party...

and tonight we took the kids Trick-or-Treating.

....and they were a hit at every home. Emerson tried to go INSIDE every home, especially if there was a dog (there's a reason she was a dog this year! She is obsessed!). She'd wave, and when the people weren't looking (while they were talking to Stone), she'd hurry and grab a few more pieces. Every home we went to, whoever opened the door and saw her, would call to the rest of their family to come see. We were so pleased with trick-or-treating this year. The last couple of years, hardly any porch lights were on. This year was a different story.

So if you endured this post, Happy Halloween!