Halloween

When you start dressing up for Halloween in the middle of October, it eventually gets really old. Really, really old.  Hyrum came home from school on Halloween, wiped all of his makeup off and I had to beg and plead with him to dress up once again so we could go out trick-or-treating! He had such a great costume and it'll probably be his last year.  Gavin, however, never got into dressing up, and after several different costume attempts he was a  hat-less, bandanna-less cowboy just wearing his boots and Wranglers as we went door to door. But, in his redemption, he always opened his bag and said a very cute "tweet" and "tankyou" at the door and never tired of getting in and out of the stroller for candy.

We started the season off by hosting the Robertson Halloween Party.  So, I attempted to decorate for the party, despite my dislike of Halloween decor. I don't do scary, so here's my attempt to make my ugly mantle festive:

a few other decoration I made:

Of all my decorations I was really pleased at how my "trick-or-treat" pendant banner turned out, especially since I just used what I had on hand, well all my decorations where things I already had or pulled together out of the mess that will one day be an awesome craft room   I also made a paper circle garland that turned out fun, but didn't get any pictures of it. 

 Here's the clan all dressed up!  I was especially impressed with Mary Poppins and Burt.

Jotham didn't dress up this year, the party-pooper.  But I dressed up as Rosie the Riveter:

And the kids: 

Mark's a miner (by Halloween he'd become a dead miner), Hannah's a gypsy.  Hyrum's a mime.  I love it that Hollie's wearing my old Care Bear costume here, but on Halloween she dressed as a princess named BlueBelle.

We played lots of carnival type games that night, but my favorite was the couples doughnut on string contest.  We lost... terribly.  Another fun highlight, for me, was a couple of touch-n-feel boxes I made up, then had Jotham hide underneath the box with the Vampire Hand in it.  When an unsuspecting guest put their hand in to feel the object, he would grab their hand. It was so fun to watch 'em jump!  I think we even made Jill cry, just a little!

And last but not least I wanted to share the fun Frankenstein cake 

I made for our ward party's cake walk:  

And Halloween night was the best yet.  Jotham stayed home and gave out cans of orange soda at our house and only one family stopped by, while the rest of us went to Lee's (our local grocery store) and trick-r- treated our way through their store.  They give out good, healthy stuff like string cheese, chocolate milk, "sCarrots", etc.  This was the first year they put on a spook alley in their back store room, and it totally made the trip worth it, so fun.  We then made our way to Jill's house for pizza and then we trick-r-treated in her neighborhood.  It was beautiful fall weather, we crunched in the leaves, received several full size candy bars, enjoyed a pretty fantastic haunted maze put on by one of her neighbors and had an pretty great, allround time.