All The Halloween Fun

The Friday before Halloween, the kids wore their costumes to school.
Cousins were excited to get in on the Halloween fun too.

The three older cousins decided to come with me to the Halloween Parade at the last minute.
I encouraged them to bundle up, but they ended up in jeans and light jackets.
I had a blanket in the car and I grabbed an extra one before leaving the house, and it was a good thing.
These Florida boys were SO COLD waiting outside for the parade to start (it was barely above freezing)
that they started to worry that they were getting hypothermia, frostbite, etc., and were just about ready
for their mom to come pick them up when the parade finally started (30 minutes later than planned).

Luke and Jack were Stormtroopers and Eliza was a Bed Head/Pajama Girl.

After the parade I took the boys home then
returned to the school to help with Eliza's class party.

Cat and her best friend made their Mike Wazowski & Sully costumes.

Saturday before Halloween was my most favoritest Halloween activity: campfire dinner + scary stories.  Cat and I walked around a bit while Ben and the other kids worked on getting the campfire going.  Then we had plenty of time to hang out and eat, sing songs, and joke around before it was dark enough for scary stories.  I chose what I thought were mildly scary stories but either I underestimated how easily my kids are scared or I'm really good at telling scary stories because Luke was really freaked out and even wanted me to cut one of the stories short.  Jack was a little scared, too.  But there were no nightmares that I know of that night.

That night Cat and her best friend almost attended their first stake dance.  Our stake doesn't have dances very often and this 5-stake dance was Cat's first opportunity.  She was pretty excited about it,  but when we arrived and saw that there were very few cars in the parking lot, and when she went in and saw that there were very few people in the gym, none of whom she knew, she and her friend decided go to home and watch Maleficent instead.

Tuesday night was our ward Halloween party.  Ben was out of town and I was at Choir rehearsal (which had been moved to Tuesday since Halloween was on Thursday) but between Cat and my BIL and SIL I decided to let the kids go to the party without parents.  It helped that the trunk-or-treat was moved inside because of the cold weather.  They had a lot of fun getting candy and playing games at the party.

By Halloween morning I couldn't muster any festivity - it didn't even occur to me - but
at least I made some fun little after-school snacks.

The kids changed into their costumes as soon as we got home from school, and Cat even left school a little early so that we could hurry up to Ben's office for the big Harry Potter Halloween party.  It was so fun!  There were tons of themed treats, refreshments, and swag, as well as great decorations and activities.  We spent the most time in Hagrid's area with cool snakes, lizards, and more.

   

Ben arrived back from that week's trip in the afternoon and drove straight to the office
to try to see some of the party before it was all taken down.

It was so cold that night that we tried to convince the kids to stay in and watch a movie instead of going out to trick-or-treat.  Jack, always on board for anything involving a screen, took us up on the offer, but Luke and Eliza still wanted to trick-or-treat.  Luke decided to dress up as an Eskimo though, putting on all of his snow gear.  Shilom joined us and the kids had fun hurrying from house to house before they couldn't stand the cold anymore.

Before I close I must point out Eliza's costume changes.  Did you notice?  Like last year, she donned a different costume for almost every Halloween occasion.  First she was a Bed Head, then a Hula Girl (not pictured, but she wore it to a friend's costume birthday party the weekend before), then Dorothy, then Hermione.  Luke ended up in three costumes too, if you count the Eskimo costume for trick-or-treating.  The other two were Stormtrooper and Charlie Brown Ghost.