Happy Halloween everyone!!! We had a really fun and eventful Halloween this year. This year for Halloween, we were characters from the movie "Tangled," Emily's favorite movie:
Emily was Rapunzel, of course. Russell was one of the Pug Thug Ruffians, Colby was the brave Flynn Rider, and I was the evil Mother Gothel. I made each of our costumes this year and I think they turned out really good. Russell made his awesome viking hat using the antlers from the deer he shot last year. It was fun to dress up with the kids.
Here are some more cute pictures of my little Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. Aren't they the cutest kids you have ever seen?
On October 26, we had a little Halloween party for preschool and all of the kids dressed up in their costumes.
Noble was a Paleontologist, Emily and Colby were Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, Faye was the Blue Fairy, and Eva and Junior were pirates. Colby is not really in preschool yet but I couldn't leave him out so he dressed up too. During school they learned about pumpkins and even got to pick a pumpkin out of the Olsen's pumpkin patch. I am so mad at myself though. I set the pumpkins Emily and Colby picked on the hood of the truck while I was putting them in the car then, because of my pregnant lady brain, I forgot all about the pumpkins and drove off. When I got home, I realized I forgot about the pumpkins and they were now gone. I hurried and got back in the truck and drove very slowly back to the Olsen's house trying to find our pumpkins. I was only able to find Colby's little pumpkin and it was pretty scuffed up. We never did find Emily's pumpkin and she was so sad. I was sad too and so mad that I forgot the pumpkins and they fell off the truck. I wish my brain was not so forgetful when I am pregnant. Luckily Emily was okay with sharing the big pumpkin we bought at the store instead of having the little pumpkin she picked. I am such a bad mom.
Anyway back to Halloween... Every year during the Halloween week, we have Halloween themed food. This is what we had this year:
We had Mummy Dogs, Ham and Cheese Spiders, Octopus and Seaweed, and Mummy Pizzas. I love how they Spiders turned out. They look so real and they were good too! The kids loved eating these foods mostly because they love hot dogs and pizza! We also had out traditional Dinner in a Pumpkin, Pumpkin-Ginger Waffles, and Pumpkin Pie French Toast. All very good.
We also had fun carving our pumpkin:
Isn't our pumpkin spooky? For a few days before we carved the pumpkin, Emily kept reminding us that we needed to make a pumpkin with triangle eyes, triangle nose and a spooky mouth with teeth. I think she designed it very well. Colby was old enough this year to enjoy the carving process without screaming. He liked setting on the counter and watching Dad but was a little hesitant to stick his hand in the pumpkin and feel the guts but he finally did.
As the Primary President, I was in charge of the ward Trunk-or-Treat this year. We had dinner, a costume contest, and of course Trunk-or-Treating. It wasn't really that hard to plan because my presidency helped a lot. My Secretary just sent around a sign up sheet for people to bring soups and I just reserved the pavilion near our church and coordinated everything. For dinner we had soup and bread bowls. I was a little worried that we wouldn't have enough soup but the ladies in our ward totally came through and we had more than enough and a good variety too. I ordered the bread bowls a few weeks earlier and the bakery said they would have them ready. When I called them the morning of the Trunk-or-Treat to see when I could pick them up, the lady told me that they didn't have my bowls because my dad had called and cancelled my whole order. I was completely in shock and said "No he didn't!" The lady was like"Yes he did I talked to him myself and cancelled it!" Again I said, "No my dad doesn't even know I made this order so he didn't cancel it and neither did I." Then the lady realized she had made a huge mistake and told me she would have my 225 bread bowls done by the time they closed at noon. I had a dream the night before that this would happened which is why I called first thing in the morning. I was so mad and couldn't believe they didn't check for the name on the order before they cancelled it. Anyway the bread bowls did get done and the lady even gave us some doughnuts and didn't charge us sales tax on our order because of the mistake she had made. Come to find out, the order that cancelled was actually for Friday not even the same day as mine. Oh well we got our Bowls and we saved about $20.
At 4:30 my presidency and some of the Activity Day girls went up to the church to decorate and get ready for the party. We just did simple decorations of table cloths, crepe paper, and centerpieces. I made Mummy jars and my secretary decorated pumpkins and spiderwebs for center pieces. It was nice to have a lot of help. Russell was helping too until he got called out on a medical call right in our neighborhood. It was actually right in our backyard. The lady that lives next to our backyard neighbor totally tanked and was not even breathing when Russell got there. Because he was so close, Russell was the first responder and was able to get an open airway so she could breath and then ran the call when the paramedics and fire department got there. Even though I was mad that he left because he had all of the stuff we needed for the party in our truck, it was a good thing for that lady that he left. Luckily he was back before the party started so we were able to get the rest of the stuff set up before the big crowd came.
We started out with dinner and everyone loved all of the soups that were brought. We had so many people come that the food line seemed to go on forever. We invited everyone in our ward boundaries whether they were members or not. We had a lot of non-members or less active families show up which was great. It was nice to get to know them and hopefully get the less active families back to church. My 2nd counselor, Trish Barker, said she over heard a conversation from some non-members that made her laugh. They were talking to each other and said something like "Wow I didn't think Mormons celebrated Pagan holidays! This is really fun and everyone is so nice and friendly and the food is so good. They never do stuff like this in Vegas or Michigan." Sis Barker said she should have turned around and invited them to church but she didn't. It is funny the ideas people have about us and then when they actually come to our functions and get to know us, we are nothing like they think we are. I am glad we made a good impression and they thought we were so friendly.
After dinner we had a costume and trunk contest. We had a group category and an individual category. There were so many awesome costumes that it was really hard to choose who won the contest. Luckily I had assigned the Bishopric to be the judges so I didn't have to pick. We actually won third place in the group category for our "Tangled" costumes. I made little trophies to hand out to all of the winners as well and some prizes like Fiesta Fun money, gift certificates to Arctic Circle, free car washes, glow sticks, and candy bars. I made the trophies out of Styrofoam cups and gold spray paint. They looked kind of funny but they worked. The contest was fun but I don't think we will do it again next year. By the time everyone was done eating, they were ready to go trunk-or-treating instead of waiting for the contest.
Then I got to take a little break and take the kids around to all of the trunks while the Elders cleaned up.
It was fun to see all of the decorated trunks and see all of the kids dressed up. Emily knew what to do but it was fun to see Colby as he realized that everyone was giving him candy. He would grab a little handful especially if there were suckers and tell me to open all of the candy so he could eat it. I kept telling him to put it in his bag but he would get so mad if I put it in there. Finally, I opened one of his suckers and he was content to put the rest of the candy in his bag and keep walking. Emily loved being the center of attention and getting candy too.
We had an awesome turn out and it seemed like everyone had a good time. I didn't hear anyone complaining so it must have been okay. It seemed like we had a lot more people come out this year than we did last year but we had a lot of bread bowls left over. Last year they ordered 200 bread bowls and were running out so I ordered 225 but we had a lot left over. I don't know if people just didn't take one and just used a bowl or if we didn't have as many. It seemed like we had at least 200 people there. We decided to give all the left over bowls to people in the ward that need then so we left that up to the bishop to decide. The Trunk-or-Treat was fun and I am glad all that planning paid off and we had a good turn out. One thing I do want to change next year if I can is to not have it on Halloween night. Maybe it is just because our organization was in charge but it seemed like we didn't have enough time with our kids. I really wanted to take them around trick-or-treating to our family and some of our friends don't live in our neighborhood but it was too late by the time we had cleaned up. If we had it on another night, we could do the Trunk-or-Treat and still go to family and friends on Halloween. Well we will see what we can do next year. Some things you learn about planning ward activities is what to change, what to keep the same, and how relieved you feel when it is over! But all in all it was a good party.
So we had fun Halloween this year and we hope you all did too! Happy Halloween!
No comments:
Post a Comment