Halloween was on a Saturday this year, which was really nice. There were several activities throughout the week that kept us busy before the final culmination of gathering pillowcases of candy to shorten the life of our pancreases and challenge the strength of our teeth.
Matthew had his last baseball tournament bringing to close a back to back Spring and Fall season that was very fun but very long. The weather was COLD. The high for any of our four games was 39 degrees. Grandpa and the girls watched for bit then decided to return to Grandpa’s house for pizza and hot chocolate. Ryan was having a Man Trip with his mission buddies so he was warm and cozy in the hotel lounge he was watching football with his friends at in Vegas. Matthew and I survived the cold. He layered up and used hand warmers and running around helped. I made myself a cocoon of about 5 blankets, several layers, winter coat and boots, and about a dozen hand warmers strategically placed around my body. They were all good games and the boys ended up winning the entire tournament.
Next up on our Halloween week was actual snow. The original estimate was about 8 inches but luckily it was not that intense and with the ground still being pretty warm we had a nice slushy two inches when it was done. The girls had a fun time playing in the snow but luckily there wasn’t enough to stop school or anything else really.
Matthew had his written drivers test the same day as the snow. I finally convinced him he might want to study a little before he take it instead of just winging it. He did some practice tests that he failed with flying colors and decided to put a little more serious effort into his preparation. I encouraged him to not fail as he walked back to take the test. About ten minutes later he returned and said that the 25 question driving test was the most stressful test he has ever taken in his life but he passed with 88%. Now he gets to take Drivers Ed and get about 50 hours of practice in the next year then he can get a restricted license to drive himself to school or work when he is 15. He is a little hesitant to practice but is getting better. It will be pretty nice to have a third driver before to long.
Allison searched high and low for a costume for Peanut this year so he wouldn’t be left out of the festivities. She was very happy when she finally found one that was small enough to fit him. Peanut seemed less thrilled about it, but tolerated it well enough.
The girls had Halloween parties at school. They were a little different this year because some people are trying to hang onto COVID for as long as they possibly can. They got to dress up and play some ‘socially distanced’ games though. Our church had a Trunk-or-Treat too. It is the first ward activity since COVID. Everyone that wanted to come met in the parking lot and we had pizza and visited for a bit and then the kids made the rounds through all the cars to get as much candy as they could. It was a fun time.
Emilee had a Halloween Costume Parade at the barn where she takes riding lessons. Everyone was assigned a horse and then they were supposed to come up with a coordinating costume for them and the horse. Emilee was partnered with Reese and her new friend Peyton. They decided to be ballerinas. They thought is was extra funny because the horse they were assigned was a male and a big one at that. Peyton was not able to make it to the actual parade part so Emi and Reese did that, but when she did get there we took pictures with her. It was a fun time. The girls love any excuse to ride or be around the horses. Emilee stayed an extra hour after her last lesson to help clean up the stalls and get the horses ready for bed. Ryan took her to her lesson and when she came home she ran to me and said, “Guess what!? I got to scoop up horse poop and feed them hay!” That is funny in and of itself but Emilee is very adverse to any type of manual labor especially if it resembles ‘work’ in any way so it was very impressive that she not only did it but was thrilled about it as well.
Emilee and Reese 
These two are two peas in a pod. 
This is a Harry Potter Horse 
A nurse and her patient 
Alvin and another Chipmunk 
Walking Taz around to show him off to everyone. 
Hanging out in the barn eating cookies. 
Getting Taz dressed up and ready.
The girls had to carve their giant pumpkins. We did that the day before Halloween. Allison did hers pretty much all by herself, she is a creative little girl. She has been watching a show called “Halloween Wars” that makes giant Halloween themed creations out of cake, modeling chocolate, pulled sugar, and carved pumpkins. She was itching to try some ideas she had from that.
This next picture is a little set up of Emilee’s I found one day this week. She has been playing something with the legos and included some of the Halloween decorations in her imagination playing. I took the picture because it won’t be long before she is to old for this and I will miss her little zoos, parades, fights, shows, or whatever else she comes up to imagine with her toys.
After all this fun festiveness it was finally time for the actual day of Halloween. We did our usual tradition of having the McDonald’s over for pizza and home made witches brew (root beer) then we all went trick or treating together and come home and have a giant swapping/trading market. I was very happy there were a lot of people trick or treating this year. Some people were trying to cancel it-with COVID as the excuse, but there were a lot of people out that did it. Most people just put their candy on the corner in a bowl but that was fine. The kids had a great time. Matthew went and did his own thing with some friends. He is having a hard time coming out of his shy bubble since COVID so Ryan and I helped him get invited to a things with some of his friends. He had a fun time and then texted Ryan to come get him when they started watching a scary movie. He had a good time. The older girls went back out for round two of trick or treating after we came back with the littles from the first. The adults played a game. Ross and Lauren are under quarantine for five more days because Ross got COVID from someone that stayed at their house. They stopped by in their van and we gave them some candy. I delivered it to them in my Betty the Dinosaur costume. They weren’t scared. Grandma also made personalized trick or treat bags for all the grandkids which they thought was great when they stopped at their house to trick or treat.
Emilee was a scary clown, Allison was a police officer, and Matthew was a baseball player. Allison went to the store and picked out her costume but being 2020/COVID they wouldn’t let her try it on and it was in a bag. It still had a picture of it though. However, when she got home and opened it up she was less than pleased with it and proceeded to let all of us know how disappointed she was for the next hour and went on ranting and raving about how stupid it was and she wouldn’t wear it. Her and Cambrie were planning on both being police officers and she wasn’t going to look stupid. I asked Lori to send a picture of Cambrie’s costume. It was the exact same one! I showed Allison and within 10 seconds she decided that it was fine and she would wear it. 🤦♀️😒 Oh well, problem solved.
Giant Candy Swap happening here. 
It was a fun night, everyone enjoyed themselves and had way to much sugar. As usual by the time Halloween night is over I am happy to see it done. It was a fun night. Oh! Allison had a fun experiment she wanted to try with the dry ice this year. She made soap bubbles from evaporating dry ice. It worked well and she was quite happy with herself. She decided to speed the process along with a straw.