Happy Halloween!

Ok, I know Halloween is old news for the rest of you but this is the first chance I've had to blog since before Halloween. It was a lot of fun having 2 kids that were so excited about it this year and we kept pretty busy all week: Preschool Halloween Pary, Ward Trunk-or-Treat, and my kids first experience with actual door-to-door neighborhood trick-or-treating. Paul was already in Florida at the conference and all I can say is I'm so glad my mom was here to go trick-or-treating with us! I hade NO idea how exhausting that would be! Noah was hilarious. We joined a few other families (we can't trick-or-treat in my neighborhood - hello, do you know where I live?!?) but Noah turned out to be the leader of the pack. He was running from house to house, the first to ring the doorbell. Noah, usually shy with strangers, had no qualms stepping right into people's houses as soon as they opened the door and yelling "Trick-or-treat!" Once he got his piece of candy he would turn around and bolt for the next house. I kept asking him if he'd said thank you and everytime, without fail, he'd turn around halfway down the driveway and yell back "Thank You!" After about 1 block Noah refused to carry his bag of candy - apparently it was already to heavy. He handed his bag over to his grandma and said incredulously, "I can't carry all this candy - it's too heavy! You hold it Grandma." He's a little bossy. Everyone kept asking him where his candy bag was because he'd just turn up his empty palms as they handed out the candy. Noah didn't waste anytime with an explanation though. He was a determined little boy that night - I mean "pilot" : ) Noah saw one house that had bluish colored strobe lights going off and kept saying, "I want to go to the jellyfish house." Okay, I guesss I can see that.

Alex had been running around the house yelling "Happy Halloween" and "Trick-or-Treat" for weeks before Halloween. She's pretty brave and loves to keep up with the big kids so I didn't expect her to be shy. But she wouldn't go up to the houses by herself - everytime I took her to a door I'd tell her to say trick-or-treat and all she would say is "please" and "thank-you." At least she was well-mannered, right? The real problem with Alex was that she was so distracted. For some reason she kept wandering away from the group or trying to run into the street. I ended up carrying her most of the time - no easy task when she's dressed up as a big round ladybug and insisting on carrying her own candy bag. My arm was sore for the next 24 hours.

As for getting pictures of the kids in their costumes...well that was a total joke. So, this is all I've got for now. My mom has some better ones on her camera. Enjoy!