Halloween!

Well, once again I managed to get five kids costumed up for the candyfest that is Halloween. It was very fun to discover some differences in how they do Halloween here compared to where we have lived before. First of all, I'd never seen so many trick or treaters in my life. Kids and teenagers just seemed to appear out of nowhere. The thing we liked best is that the whole thing was like a block party. If you are a family that is interested in participating in Halloween, you don't sit in your house and wait for kids to ring the doorbell. Instead, people get out folding chairs, decorations, tables etc. and set up shop on their porch or their driveway. Lots of people had out crock pots with soup and cider and were chatting it up with the neighbors while kids came by to collect their candy.

Many people played music out their windows and the Halloween decorations were out of control. Fog machines, flashing lights, blow-up decorations, tombstones etc. The decorations were a funny thing, because with the exception of a few homes, we didn't know they were coming. Decorations just suddenly appeared on people's lawns in the afternoon of Halloween. The other thing that was different is that even though there were zillions of people in the streets between 6-8pm, by 8:30, everyone was gone. Even the teenagers went home. Apparently you trick-or-treat your heart out for a couple of hours and then you go home and leave people alone. I can handle that. So Audrey and Tanner had fun holding down the front porch and handing out candy, while the three small ones made the rounds. Good candy here too. Lots of full size candy bars and hardly any dum-dums. Hope you had a great Halloween in your neck of the woods! Jenn

The first photos are of the kids on their way to the Ward Fall Festival on Wednesday night. Audrey is not pictured here because she had to go to symphony rehearsal instead.


Little Red Riding Hood and Dorothy
(Annie won 'Least Scary Costume' at the Festival)



Frodo Baggins



Dorothy Again



Dwight Shrute (from The Office)





Red Riding Hood



The Gang



The youth were in charge of the Ward Festival, and here is Tanner running his 'Pin the broom on the witch' booth.




Audrey did dress up for school on Friday. She wore her flapper outfit from Dance Festival last year. Her lazy mother didn't get up in time to snap a photo before seminary, so here is a picture of her in it at Dance Festival. That's close enough, right?



Lauren drssed up for school this past week a few times as well. Here she is as a hippie for 'blast from the past' day.



And she was a queen when the drama club hosted the Halloween dance. Her Dorothy outfit wasn't finished at the time, so she dug this out of the Halloween box (Thanksk you Courtney!) and had fun handing out soda and snacks all night. Good times!




And finally, we had a family Halloween party on Friday night, and Tanner asked if he could run a face painting booth. Pretty funny to have any kind of booth at a party for your own family, but of course we let him. We hadn't planned ahead for this, so he only had black, brown, pink, red, and white face paint, but the little kids thought it was a blast. Here is his handywork.