Fall Fun and Halloween

Jason was excited to have his mission president who is from Mexico in Utah this fall.  One of Jason's mission companions arranged a reunion while he was here.  It was a fun time for Jason to catch up with some of the people he served with over 20 years ago!  Jason's mission influenced his life so much and the Espinoza's are a couple that he looks up to so much.  It was wonderful to see them again.

Our family with Pres. and Sis. Espinoza

When the kids were off for fall break we took a trip to Black Island Farms.  Skyler loved the hay ride on the trailer that was pulled by a tractor.  He was so excited to pick out his own pumpkin from the pumpkin patch!  It's sad for me to see the older kids out growing some of the fun activities they have there but they had fun playing with Skyler.  And they aren't too old to enjoy a corn maze.  Unfortunately we really got lost in one and that was about the time Skyler got tired and was ready to go home!  We finally managed to find our way out!

Kaitlyn and I enjoyed going with her cousins, aunts, and grandma to Gardner Village for breakfast with a witch.  It's a fun girls outing that we get tickets to every year.  Kaitlyn loved the show the witches put on and all of their fun costumes.  She also had fun getting her face painted.

Skyler loved carving pumpkins!  Every time he looked at the pumpkins on our porch he would point and laugh.  Our neighbors made totem poles out of jack o lanterns and he spent half the week looking out his window across the street laughing at their pumpkins!

Halloween was unusually warm.  It made it nice for trick or treating.  Skyler wanted nothing to do with his costume.  We forced it on him and tried to get him to cooperate for a picture.  As soon as they went to the first house and he realized he was getting candy he didn't mind the costume anymore.  I didn't get a picture of Andrew, although he just wore the same morph suit he wore last year.  He spent the evening helping his friend with a haunted house since he's too old for trick or treating.  Another sign he is growing up too quickly.

Jason's costume needs a bit of an explanation.  He came home from his hair cut with his hair looking just like this minus the orange hair color the day before Halloween (and two days before family pictures.)  He claimed it was his barbers idea for him to dress up as Beaker from the Muppets and he promised he'd fix it before pictures.  He went to work looking like this on Halloween and I'm not sure if his patients thought he was crazy or if they just got a really good laugh!

Halloween

Here are a few pictures from Halloween.  As always it was lots of fun and way too much candy!

Family party with the cousins.

Andrew: Darth Maul, Kaitlyn: Ariel, Jared: Obewan Kanobi

Obiwan and Darth Maul in a light saber battle.

Breakfast with a Witch

My sister-in-law, Jana, invited Kaitlyn and me to a fun girls outing at Breakfast with a Witch at Gardner Village.  They had a cute program with lots of silly songs, dancing and jokes.  The girls liked getting the witches to sign their autograph sheet.   Here are some pictures!

Jana, Morgan, Kaitlyn, Mother Goose Witch, and Brooklyn

Jana, Morgan, Brooklyn, me and Kaitlyn

Morgan, Nancy and Kaitlyn in the fun witch hats Grandma bought.

Brooklyn and Kaitlyn with Mildew Rose.

Shopping at Gardner Village after breakfast.

A Week of Halloween Fun

It's been a full week of Halloween activities and by last night we were all exhausted and ready to settle back into our normal routine. Last weekend my parents surprised us with a visit from California to watch the kids in their primary program at church. This year was Andrew's last program and Kaitlyn's first. I couldn't see Kaitlyn from where I was sitting with my class but everyone else told me she not only sang the songs but danced through them too. We enjoyed having my parents here for the weekend and decorated Halloween cookies with them.

Our neighbors, the Warners, always have a pumpkin carving party the week before Halloween with literally over 100 pumpkins. Here are a couple of the pumpkins the kids carved at their house this year.

Friday night was our annual doughnut party. I spent all day in the kitchen making over 50 doughnuts and probably twice that many doughnut holes. This was a tradition started by our friends the Little's when we were living on campus at the U when Jason was in medical school. We loved it so much we had to keep up the tradition when we moved on. We have shared doughnuts with so many wonderful friends over the years. Jason got out what our kids have named "the scary mask" and spent half the evening on the porch scaring people as they came to our house. He has a couple favorite people to scare although I won't mention any names! He made a couple small kids cry and I had to make up a new rule that he couldn't scare anyone under the age of 5. Hopefully their parents are still friends with us! Every year when my feet are aching so bad at the end of the day I wonder if it is worth it but it has been a lot of fun and I don't think my family or neighbors will let me quit at this point!

The kids had so many fun activities to wear their costumes to this week they were almost tired of them by Halloween (not to mention Kaitlyn lost some of hers and the dress was ready to fall apart by last night.) Here are some pictures of them dressed up to go trick-or-treating. Andrew was a ninja, Jared was Harry Potter, and Kaitlyn was Sleeping Beauty.

Just when it was time to go trick-or-treating it started pouring rain. We took our time getting ready to go hoping it would stop but it just kept coming. Jason finally headed out the door with some umbrellas and the kids didn't even complain about getting cold or wet. We also got a beautiful rainbow when the storm was finally about over. We finished the weekend with a family party on Sunday night. What a fun week but I think I can wait a year for more Halloween parties!