No Longer A Hallo-WEENIE!

Usually I dread Halloween. I just don't have any interest in or time for putting together a cool costume and so I typically just skip costume parties and volunteer to be the one that sits at home by the door to give out candy to trick-or-treaters. This year, however, a good friend decided to combine her birthday with a Halloween party...costumes encouraged. So, I decided to go for it! Since my foot is broken and I have a big, crazy cast boot on my left foot, I knew I couldn't be anything super delicate and I wanted to do something that would blend in with my huge, black boot, but I still wanted to look reasonably cute. With absolutely no idea what to be, I headed over to a Halloween store with my mom and sister. After wandering around for awhile, I saw ladybug wings and an antenna and decided to be a ladybug.

Nancy did my make-up and I crimped my hair.

The party was alot of fun! We even had a silly string war!

Pure magic!

Silly String!!!

Daely and me at her birthday/Halloween party
Since I already had a Halloween costume, I decided to go to my ward's Halloween party.

This is my friend, Sara, and me at the party.

I'm glad that I really put effort into Halloween this year; it was way more fun than missing out on all of the parties! I even learned how to make a new Halloween dessert. It's vanilla pudding, layered and dyed (with food coloring) to look like a candy corn, topped with whipped cream. I made it a couple of times for different events, but this is a picture of my first try. I just made it in cups the first time and then in a trifle dish the other two times. You can get the general idea of how it looked from this pic.

Delish!

Then, a few days before Halloween, I got to babysit Josh and Dylan and my sister, Nancy, and I took them to the trunk-or-treat my parents' ward was having. Josh was Batman and Dylan was Spiderman. They were adorable in their costumes!

As you can see, the boys enjoyed the hot dog buns that were at the chili cookout at the trunk-or-treat. Not the hot dogs, just the buns. : )

Afterwards, I took the boys to Target to get some snacks and construction paper so we could go "boo-ing". It's kind of like heart attacking, but with Halloween treats instead. The boys did a great job of decorating the little ghost and pumpkin cut-outs. We went to my aunt's house to "boo" my cousin's kids, Matthew and Hailey, after they had gone to sleep. The boys left the snacks and cut-outs on the coffee table. Joshua was especially attentive to detail and wanted to make sure everything was perfect, while Dylan was more interested in dumping the stuff on the table and getting back to playing with the toys.

The finished product:

We had a lot of fun and then I took two very sleepy boys home to their beds.

Next Adventure?  Going up the hill to watch "scary" movies with my nephews!  I gathered all of my kid-friendly scary movies and let the boys choose a couple to watch.  They chose "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein", "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman", and "Hocus Pocus"!  It was so fun just spending time with them and watching movies.  My nephews really are the coolest kids around.  

Joey sat in the rocking horse Daniel painted for him when he was little and watched the movies...

...while Aaron and Cy made themselves a bit more comfortable.

Jonathan decided he wanted some popcorn too, so he went to the coffee table, dumped some cheese popcorn on the floor, put the bag back on the table, and sat down and ate the popcorn off the floor.  Definitely a kid who doesn't let anything get in his way!
I LOVE these boys!

On Halloween night, I was kind of a bum and stayed home alone and watched scary movies with all of the lights off. I didn't plan on doing much, but then decided that I wanted to carve a pumpkin, so I went to the store and bought one before all of the trick-or-treaters came out.

Here's my pumpkin! I thought it turned out pretty cool!

Anyhow, I'm glad I decided to have a little fun this Halloween and I think that from now on, I'll be more open to costume parties and the frivolous fun that we enjoy around Halloween!