HALLOWEEN

I know I am super late on this update, but I figured better late than never. Anyway. This year we painted pumpkins instead of carving them. We really did this because we ran out of time. Our weekends seem so short and with Ethan working swing shift, we can't do pumpkins together as a family at night. I finally grabbed the kids some pumpkins, found some paint we had lying around our house, (word for the wise, don't use washable paint, it will wash away when it rains) and had the kids paint them. Maddi thought this was a genius idea. She must have painted for record time. She made a colossal mess though.


Chase's favorite color is green. He was having a lot of fun painting green eyes and a green mouth and green whatever. He wasn't as excited about the painting part. He was really excited that we had pumpkins though.


The kids standing by their finished pumpkins. They were so proud. The hats are really McDonald's boxes that you can turn into viking hats. They were both pretty stoked about those.


Chase was so excited to be Luke this year. It was really an easy costume. I gotta admit, I was truly annoyed by his attention to detail this year. When he told me he wanted to be Luke for Halloween, I was excited. He loves Star Wars, and I was so happy that he was going to take part in picking his costume and stuff for Halloween. I got on the internet and started looking at costume web sites for a Luke costume. I found the orange one he wears when he is flying and destroys the first Death Star. I thought it was better than the one from Luke at the beginning of the first movie. It looked cheap and I hate those boot things that go over the shoes. Anyway, I showed Chase the orange one thinking he would be so excited because it came with a cool helmet. Boy was I wrong. I almost put him in tears because he wanted to be the "Jedi Luke." (For all those non-Star Wars fans, or moms who are forced to watch it over and over again, that is the costume Luke wears at the beginning of Return of the Jedi.") I searched. It seams that no other kid aside from mine wants to wear an all black Luke costume. I started researching trying to find what I could get that would work so it looked somewhat like Luke and Chase would be happy. I learned a lot from what I researched. There are a lot of people out there who truly are obsessed with Star Wars. To buy an actual costume it would have been around $200. Crazyness! I ended up buying a black turtleneck for the top. I got lucky and found a cape on a craig's list type local web site. The boots were another story. Just in case anybody is wondering, they don't sell boy boots that are long like that. I bought some girl boots and figured Maddi can have them when she gets a little older. Everything was coming together alright. Then I got the boots. THEY HAD FLOWERS ON THE BOTTOM! Ugh, how was I going to hide that from Chase. I figured I would just cross that bridge when I came to it. The first time he put the boots on he saw the flowers. 20 minutes of crying later, I put duct tape over the bottom to cover that up. Problem solved. I had a very happy little Luke for Halloween. Thank goodness I already had the green light saber.


I had a blast making Maddi into Princess Leia. I ordered the dress. Thank goodness she doesn't care about detail like Chase does. She was thrilled to be Princess Leia. I am not sure if that is because of the word "Princess" or because she gets to watch Star Wars a lot too. Chase can be pretty convincing about that. It was good fun. The kids had a blast. I just have to say, Maddi is about the cutest Princess Leia I have ever seen.


I thought they were both so cute, I had to take two pictures. Sorry to bore you, but I couldn't decide which is cuter.



We didn't go trick or treating in the technical sense this year. They never have trick or treating on Halloween. They pick the best day for the base. This year it was the Saturday before Halloween. Since I decided to join a soccer team, our Saturdays evenings are pretty booked. I have games on most Saturday nights. It is a big commitment. Instead of doing the regular trick or treating, we did two "Trunk or Treat's." Our ward had one and Ethan's work had one. I didn't get any photos of the kids at the ward one. So these are all from Ethan's work.


This little girl is actually in Chase's kindergarten class. She was pretty excited to see him, and Chase was excited to see somebody that he knew. We don't do many of the parties Ethan's work puts on, so we had no idea this girl's dad works with Ethan.


The kids both loved the cake walk. Ethan and I get really bored with it, but the kids had so much fun. They probably loved it so much because they got a lot of candy from it.


Maddi didn't want to stop doing the cake walk. I think this is her third time.


This cake walk was a little different. They would stop the music and pull a number. If you were standing on that number, you got a cake. If you weren't, you got to spin this big wheel and it told you how many pieces of candy you got. The kids loved it.


This was by far the most entertaining part of the night. The kids got to race the baggage carts. It was so funny to watch Chase try and steer with his broken arm.


He had so much fun though.


Typical Maddi in her stubborn fashion. She didn't want ANYBODY to help her. She would scream if you tried. It took her quite a while to get to the top of the hill


This is when she finally let somebody help her. She wouldn't let us come near her, but some random guy came to help her out and she let him. I am thinking she let him because she is so shy and completely shuts down when there is a stranger around.


After our ward party, we went bowling with some friends. Chase and Maddi both love bowling. By the time we hit frame 8 or so, they are completely done. It is a lot of fun.


Chase only started using these after he saw his friend use it. They are a catch 22. I hate them, but Ethan loves them. I want the kids to learn to bowl and not use those things, but Ethan looks at it from a realistic point of view because half the time if they don't use it the ball gets stuck.


I had to put this one on here. Ethan hates it when I take action photos of him. It is pretty hard work to actually get one. I was pretty sneaky for this one. I used a couple kids to block me until I was ready to snap it.