A Teeny Halloween-y Celebration

*NOTE* Brief recap after all my dialogue and pictures *

So, issues from my childhood would include bummer memories of Halloween. I HATED that every year we had to wear winter coats over our costumes and freeze our fannies walking around our neighborhood. And costumes, don't get me started on my bitter feelings about always getting to be a "dancer" and wear my previous spring's dance costume. (Mom, please don't take offense because, hello!, I so get the nightmare Halloween can present to a small income.) Once I got a little older, but not too old to trick-or-treat, I was the fab-u/LAME "punk rocker" (aka spray painted hair chic.) ANYWAY, I have tried, since having my own kids, to cater to their fantastical desires for Halloween. I DID put my foot down this year and tell my girls to pick something to be, not just someone (like last year's Miley Cyrus and Shar-pay costumes that basically meant wigs and a new outfit.) I DID NOT prevent Brevin from being yet another Star Wars character (add clone trooper to the jedi and Darth Vader costumes from the previous two Halloweens). Here are some pics from mid-week:

Briggs as a super-cute skeleton. Love the black skull cap and SOO glad he fit (barely) into the outfit since I've had it for a couple months. Trust me, it was a tight squeeze.

Caylee wanted to be a witch, but a cool witch. Not a scary witch.

And Kenzie opted for a devil. Her favorite part was the peep-toe sparkle shoes which she is already wanting to wear to church now that Halloween has passed. Wonderful.

Here's Brock and Brevin in their Spiderman and Clone Trooper costumes before their preschool party.

Here's all of them together before my sister's trunk-r-treat on Wednesday. Our ward does theirs on the night of Halloween and I think that's LAME. There, I said it. I hate that we miss it, but since we have our own family tradition, we miss it every year. Thanks, Erin, for the invite. And hats off to the Stonegate ward and Desert Bloom branch for their great party!

Thursday the girls had their school parties and a costume parade. My girls go to "sister schools" which means they share the same parking lot, but one school has K-2 (Wiener . . . yes, Wiener.) and the other one has 3-5 (Hill.) Usually they're pretty good about not scheduling things at the exact same time so parents can support both kids, but not this time. Soo, I missed Kenzie's fashion, er, I mean costume show, but here's cute Caylee:

Then that afternoon I let the kids paint pumpkins. We didn't carve this year.

Friday being Nevada Day AND Halloween was especially great cuz the kids were out of school and Tyler was off work. Tyler spent the day cooking chili and I cleaned the house to get ready for our annual chili cook-off. This year we had 4 entries and all the flavor-layering Tyler did must have worked because he won the title by a slim margin. We enjoyed having the Webb family, the Cox family, the J. Barlow family, the Laytons, the Mohler group, the Christiansen clan, Grandma Dodie, Kyla, (Kenzie's friend from school), and the N. Garrard family over for a good dinner, some donut-on-a-string eating, and then to hit the neighborhood for some candy-collecting. I think everyone had a good time; I sure loved having everyone over for the night :) PS, I especially enjoyed the white Christmas lights Mackenzie and I hung. It kinda got me looking forward to the holiday decorating.

*Notice above- the super-crafty-cute chocolate covered spiders my brother-in-law made.

And finally, here's a group of all the kids, well, minus Gus who was still changing into his penguin suit:

Parts I loved about this Halloween

Family night Wal-Mart trip to get costume paraphanalia

My kids getting to dress up three days in a row - LOVE more bang for the buck!

Having our friends and family over

Actually dressing up myself this year (no pictures, though, bummer. Next year!)

Painting pumpkins was way less stress

Decorating

My dollar store find of plastic Halloween trays for our chili cook-off

Tyler winning back the chili title

The candy

Things that were LAME

missing Kenzie's costume parade

Fun Dip . . . seriously, I hate that stuff!

Our ward's trunk-r-treat ON actual Halloween night.

Wimping out on carving pumpkins with the kids.

I can't stop eating all the candy