Halloween Weekend Extravaganza

What a FUN and BUSY weekend this was!!! We were so super lucky and HAPPY to have Grammy Shar come out for all the HALLOWEEN festivities!  Even with all that we did, Grammy's visit was BY FAR the very best part of the weekend.  Plus it was awesome because Dave was on-call all so I had a helper and friend for the CRAZY weekend.  Luckily, my mom felt GREAT and was able to keep up with all we did and she WAS a HUMONGO help!


My kids are supposedly unlike most other kids when it comes to their Halloween costumes.  Neither of them has ever had a strong opinion on what they dress up as for Halloween.  Like, the year they were Raggedy Ann & Raggedy Andy. (I know, I'm a MEAN mom to subject my son to such potential future embarrassment). I thought that was my last year to choose Tol's costume (so I took full advantage).  I was wrong.  He STILL let's me choose.  It's actually more like I HAVE to choose cause he won't.  ANYWAY, this year I got away from my coordinating theme costumes and Tol was an ARMY DUDE while Addi was a PRINCESS WITCH.
Both pretty cute, if you ask me.
 
My mom flew in Thursday night.  Dave and the kids picked her up from the airport.  I was doing hair when she got to our house so after the kids had their time with Grammy and were in bed, my mom and I stayed up late and chatted the night away.  It was great.

HALLOWEEN @ SCHOOL

The next day was Tol's school Halloween party and parade.  He has afternoon kindergarten so I had the morning to throw the finishing touches on their costumes (mainly Addi's) and make the broom for Ad's witch.  I couldn't find a pre-made one anywhere, so I had to resort to pulling out my creativity and come up with a broom myself.  I have to say that I was pleased with the outcome.  Tol wasn't too thrilled about wearing his costume to school (big surprise), but with a bribe from Gram he was the most perfect army dude around and sported that thing so proudly!

WARD TRUNK-OR-TREAT & DANCE

This is the only pic I got from that night, but isn't it ADORE?!

It was FRRRRREEZING (or so we thought at the time.  It probably would feel like Summer compared to what we have going on outside right now.  Brrrrrr!)

After the kids got LOTS of candy from trunks (still such a weird concept to me) we went inside the church for a family dance.  Let's just say that I felt like I was in HS again.  And let's just say that I liked it.  We're talking line dance after line dance.  I was in my element.  Dave was not.  He sat there and watched as I danced my little heart out.  It was a fun night and we are so grateful to have moved into such a great ward!- with people who will dance with me.

Halloween Eve Trick-or-Treating 

 
 Dressed up with nowhere to go.  Kindof.  This is actually pretty hilarious and those of you who are still reading might get a serious kick out of this.  So our ward decided to do a Saturday night trick-or-treating for those who wanted to.  They compiled a list then sent out the names and addresses of the participating families.  So I print out the list and the kids, my mom and I head out.  But before we left, Tol remembered how kids had pillow cases for trick-or-treat bags the night before, so he decided to ditch the plastic pumpkin and grab a pillow case.  I enter the first address in the GPS.  We drive there.  "TRICK-OR-TREAT!"  The kids get one tootsie roll each.  They get back in the car and get strapped in.  I put the next address in the GPS.  We drive there.  Addi is now asleep so I wake her up.  "TRICK-OR-TREAT!"  The kids get another piece of candy.  Addi eats her piece walking from the porch to the car.  I buckle Addi in her car seat and am grateful that Tol can buckle himself.  We enter another address in and the GPS takes us to another house.  I have to wake Addi up again and when she comes to she is wondering where all her candy is.  I tell her thats all shes got.  She's confused but goes with it.  They get another piece of candy.  Oh, and did I mention we've been gone for a whopping 45 minutes at this point?  Our next and last stop was to the bishop's house because his wife told us to make sure we stopped by for a homemade doughnut.  And boy are we glad we did.  Not only were the doughnuts DELISH, but we were the ONLY ones to stop by!  Sad huh?!  So we got an entire plate of homemade doughnuts that were all gone by the time we got home.  Okay, so the funniest part of the Trick-or Treating BUST was when we got home and Tol held up his pillow case with 3 pieces of candy in it.  He looked SO confused.  He asked why he hardly had any candy when we'd been gone all night.  We told him it was because we hardly went to any houses in what seemed like 10 hours.  My mom and I were peeing our pants we were laughing so hard recalling the nights events to Dave after he got home.  Yeah- he got called in that night for a STUPID LADY (or girl, she was only 24) who decided to have sex just days after a vaginal hysterectomy.  DUH!!  Needless to say, they had to take her in for emergency surgery. So there you have it, our BUST!  And I realize this could be a "You needed to be there" story, but believe me- Pure Humor!  My mom, Dave and I added a little more humor to the evening and had fun with YEARBOOK YOURSELF til WAAAAAY past our bedtimes.  It was worth it.

Trick-Or-Treating part III 

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 This outing was MUCH more successful.  Sunday, the REAL holiday, Dave took the kids around the neighborhood.  It was a SUCCESS!  Tol came home with a heavy pillowcase and he was happy.  

SO MUCH CANDY!!

 
*not exactly sure what's up with BOGGLE.
There you have it, our Halloween weekend and my mom's visit in a nut shell.  We were so sad to see me mom go.  Tol had to go to school about an hour before we had to take my mom to the airport.  He left for the bus then came back crying a minute later and said, "I can't handle this."  He was too sad that Gram was leaving.  My mom ended up walking him to the bus stop.  Tol's teacher later told me that at school that day he kept his hood (from his sweatshirt) on all day and just cried.  I cried that day, too.