Halloween Family Fun

This past week we plunged into the start of Halloween festivities.  This is always a fun time of year and we have had a great time celebrating so far.

 

We started out with Ellie's pre-school Halloween program. 

 

Yes, she cried when I dropped her off at school (which happens every Friday, but since she is my 6th child I am not very much swayed by crying when I know the teachers are incredible and she will be fine...guess I'm a jerk these days).

 

She looked pretty adorable as a little witch and she had a great day (despite the regularly scheduled rocky start).

 

 

(Ok, grandparents, here's a bit of her program.)

 

 

 

That night, Aubrey's friends invaded our house for a party that she had planned.  Aubrey has been on a Cleopatra kick lately (for the past few months) and she asked me to make her a Cleopatra costume for Halloween.  This is what we ended up with.  She was pleased and that is what matters most.  (If you are interested in making something like this I just took one of her t-shirts, traced it into my pink fabric  -- which was just some leftovers I had that a lady gave me a couple years ago -- then I extended the bottom to dress length, sewed up the sides, hem, neck and sleeves and there you go.  The arm bands are just simple elastic in fabric -- a glorified scrunchie really -- with swaths of gold fabric attached to look flowy.  The gold was $1/yard so it isn't awesome, but it works...nothing complicated going on here).

 

We decorated the living room (the crows were a nice touch since we watched Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" as part of our party).

 

 

Her friends arrived (a few came late and missed our picture, but we still love them).

 Anyway, we played games, made each other into mummies, ate dinner and watched  movie.  I think they all had a good time and that was the plan so I guess we did ok.

The next day was our ward/neighborhood trunk-or-treat.  I was SuperMom that day (not) and didn't remember to take pictures of all my littles while they were dressed up.  Oops.  Good thing I have actual Halloween coming soon so I can fix that small oversight. 

 

I did, however, get a picture of Josh and I.  We never put much effort into dressing up because we are cheap and lazy, but we came a bank robbers.  Josh spent much of the time cooking hot dogs for the dinner portion but he said lots of people said, "Oh, that must be your wife over there by the fake bank..." so I'm glad we got to be connected in spirit (or in theft, whichever way) even if we didn't see each other much that night. 

 

(You can't really see it but our sign says "DE BANK: where they keep de money"
which was play on our last name, DeMoux)

 

Seriously, if you are in charge of your area's trunk-or-treat our committee did an AMAZING job with ours this year.  It was really really organized and I LOVED it.  They had the path around the parking lot roped off so it was easy to know where to start and where the finish was.  They stamped the kids hands at the beginning so the kids (especially the older ones) couldn't sneak through the path over and over (which is a problem we've had in the past).  They had plastic bags for kids who didn't have a sack to hold their treats.  We also did a simple hot dog and chips dinner after which gave people a good reason to hang out and mingle for a while.  It was just really a great activity.  Thanks everyone involved.

 

There will be more Halloween fun for us as the week goes on, but this has been en exciting start.  Next stop, pumpkin carving.  Wahoo!!