Halloween '09!

It was another candy-filled Halloween here at our house this year... As usual, we began the evening's ghoulishness at Circle Park for the big ward-plus Trunk-or-Treat.

Benno & I were left behind by the other boys who ran off ahead...Benno wanted to hold all his loot in his hand and protested each time I put it in his bag. Somebody was handing out these bagfuls of candy...and Benno wouldn't let me pry that from him for anything!

And our 4 Star Wars men together at last...Yoda, Anakin, Obi-wan & the Clone Trooper:

The family shot of the Star Wars men plus the pregnant skeleton and the who-knows-what:

We trick-or-treated our way home along the 2 blocks back to our cul-de-sac...once at home, we lit our pumpkins (grown in our own garden!)...

...and greeted a dozen or two trick-or-treaters:

And enjoyed a spooky meal! (If you saw my post from last year at Halloween, yes...many of the same foods: bone breadsticks, mummy dogs, bug juice, and the addition this year was the frog-eye salad)

Mmm, about to dig in! The boys all watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang before calling it a night.

Hope it was an equally Happy Halloween wherever you are!!!

Pre-Halloween Festivities

This week has been full of Halloween fun--on Tuesday, Christopher wore his costume to both Kindermusik & gymnastics. Ever seen a Clone Trooper jump on a trampoline before?

Then on Wednesday, it was Pack Meeting & the big YM/YW activity... At Pack Meeting, they had "reverse face-painting" where the boys got to paint their parents' faces! Here is George in the boys' handiwork:

And of course there was a carved-pumpkin contest... Here are Aaron & Christopher's silly pumpkins (and Aaron gets credit for the idea with his orange pumpkin...Christopher is a bit of a copy-cat with his white one.)

And doughnuts on a string...

Benno says what's the big deal? Just grab it and eat it!

And Anthony and his itty bitty pumpkin, which won "Most Terrifying." We got a laugh out of that!

At YM/YW afterward, Wendy & I won awards for our costumes--she won for cutest costume ever as a chicken farmer with her chicken Henry, and my pregnant skeleton won "most scary."

Friday night was the big school Halloween Party...which I skipped out on for the last couple years because I like it so much (note sarcasm)... We stayed just long enough to do each activity once and then left.

Battle

I found this on my camera, haha...

The END of Soccer (hooray!)

And another soccer season draws to a lovely end...a muddy lovely end.

This was last week's game when it was actually a very beautiful day:

Aaron and his post-game snack:

Now here he is today post-game covered in mud... We were lucky that it didn't rain on us during the game, but the field was SOPPING wet and spongy with mud after some really good downpours last night and a few days of rain this past week.

Aaron actually wasn't too muddy compared with several of the boys on the team who ended up facedown in the mud a couple times!

Following the game, the team headed to Burger King for the team party. Whomever was in charge of making reservations on our team neglected to do so...which honestly ended up being a WONDERFUL thing! Food was cheaper, faster, we had the place to ourselves...so much better than that awful Papa's Pizza! Here Aaron's coach is about to give him his trophy:

Our star soccer player of the year with his hard-earned trophy!

JibJab Halloween

I know if you're on Facebook you've already seen this JibJab more than enough times...so sorry, but I had to do it too!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Plumper Flashbacks

So that photo in the post below of Anthony pushing Benno on the little tractor reminded me so much of a similar photo I had of Anthony & Aaron 6 years ago (here below), I couldn't resist looking back at photos from visiting this same pumpkin patch over the last 6 years that we've lived here... Seeing A & Aa so little makes it all the more dramatic--and my all time favorite shot from this Pumpkin Patch is the sad Christopher with the giant pumpkins...still makes me laugh!

(The only year I don't have any photos here from is 2004, which was the October that Christopher was born. We did visit the patch when he was just a couple weeks old but I neglected to take any photos, for good reason. All of these span from 2003 thru 2008.)

Plumper Pumpkin again!

We were blessed with GORGEOUS weather on Saturday and thankfully, Aaron's soccer game was over with in the morning, leaving our afternoon free to play at the Pumpkin Patch--specifically Plumper Pumpkin, which is a favorite (and one we visited a few weeks ago but hadn't had time to do all the stuff...so worth it to come back!)