Halloween - costumes, costumes, and more costumes!

It seems like Halloween gets bigger and more elaborate every year!  With all the parties and trick-or-treating it gets so crazy and I was anxious to have it all over with, but I will admit that seeing the kids dress up makes it so much fun!  Ari has three different new princess dresses (recent warehouse sale) and she had opportunities to wear each one for different things!  First, she got to dress up for her dance class and she chose to be Belle!

She was acting silly and wouldn't pose for me, but I did get some great natural smile pics for a change! :)

For her preschool party the day before Halloween she chose to be Cinderella!

Posing with our little prince.

 The night before Halloween we finally carved our pumpkins, which neither David nor I really enjoy doing.  But the boys love it so it's a tradition we'll carry on!  Although I was able to convince Ari to draw on hers instead. ;)

 I tried to get him to cut off the teeth but he insisted on keeping them!

The day of Halloween, the boys had to dress up for school as a character from a classical book.  I'd bought them costumes they'd wanted for trick-or-treating and I didn't want to spend extra money on costumes for school, so we found some easy options.  Matthew dressed up as Shane the cowboy, and Bryan was Ponyboy (a greaser) from The Outsiders.

 Hahaha. :)  Looking so cool, Bry!

 Matty always makes the cutest cowboys!

I'm the room mom for Bryan's class so I had the responsibility of planning their Halloween party!  It was pretty stressful, but everything turned out okay, and Bryan said on a scale of 1-10 the party was a 10!  Success!  Here he is with his buddies, Tate and Kayson, doing the mummy game.

 

After school, we decided to go trick-or-treating at the outlets here in Lehi.  I figured they'd have good candy without the crowds, and I was right!  We were in and out in an hour and the kids got lots of treats!  Before we left, we took some more costume pics.  Here's Ari in her final princess costume, Sleeping Beauty.

 Silly faces.

 Little Owen was Nemo!  Isn't this the cutest costume ever?!  It was a great find!

Come back, Nemo!  Come back! :)

 Matthew wanted to be Lebron James from the Miama Heat, so here's our little Lebron. :)

 And Bryan chose to be Cristiano Ronaldo, the star player of Real Madrid.

 Oh yeah!  (Flipado!!)

Now, bring on the candy!

At the outlets.  There really were hardly any other kids!  It was great!

We made it home just in time to eat a quick dinner and start trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.  This was a big year because we decided to let the boys go with their friends on their own!  I drew a map of where they were allowed to go and gave them strict instructions to stay out of the streets and say thank you when they got candy, and thankfully we live in a great neighborhood where I could trust that they'd be safe!  Here they are with their little gang of friends.  (That's Breken in the Minecraft costume.)  They were so excited!

Ari got to go around with her friend, Addi, who lives next door. We went around our loop and then called it a night as it started to get dark and extra chilly!

I love this picture of them waiting at the door.  Addi's showing off her witch finger! :)

It was a great Halloween, but I'm VERY glad it's over!!

Fun Fall outings

We discovered a new pumpkin patch near our house this year.  It's right off Main Street in Lehi and it's a very small scale version of Hee Haw Farms or Cornbelly's, but the kids loved it all the same and we had a great time playing on the hay bales, doing the corn maze, petting the farm animals, picking pumpkins...  Good, old-fashioned fun!

Bryan looks so old to me in this picture!  He's definitely growing up!

Cute kids.

CRAZY kids!  This picture captures their personalities so well. :)  If only Ari were doing a curtsy or a ballet move...

Owen loved the little rocking horse.

He was so excited to be able to do it all on his own!  Love his big smile!

They had a barrel tractor-pulled train ride that took them all over the farm.  Owen loves choo-choos!

Bryan insisted on doing the corn maze himself, so I didn't say anything - just followed - and he and Matt led us right where we needed to go!

Going on the hayride out to the pumpkin patch.

They had the greatest selection of pumpkins!  The boys had a hard time deciding which one they wanted to bring home.

The best animal in the petting zoo was the pet pot-bellied pig the family usually keeps in their house.  Her name is Petunia. :)

Owen LOVED seeing all the animals and kept pointing and squealing!

I love my li'l punkin!

Another fun outing was our trip to see the witches at Gardner Village with Heather and her girls.  We made the mistake of going on Salt Lake County's UEA weekend, so it was packed!!  But it made it extra festive and the girls had a blast.

Giggles, giggles, giggles!

I had a hard time getting any pictures where they were actually looking at the camera...

Ari's face cracks me up here!

And now it's Cami's turn to look at Ari.  

Being silly with the sunflowers.

We also got to go with David to take a ride on the Nightmare Express in Lindon.  It's a neighborhood-run thing, but every year they get bigger and more elaborate.  We went at night when the "scarers" were out, but thankfully it's very family-friendly and the kids and I were all fine. :)  The theme this year was Jack the Pumpkin King, which the boys especially loved.

Waiting to get on.  (Sorry for the bad pics!)

Choo-choo!

On our way out.  Happy Halloween!