Halloween Festivities

My wonderful mom made costumes for the kids this year. When I was a kid, she made our costumes every year. I want to carry on the tradition because I just think homemade costumes make the holiday more of a production and kids like that. But this year, I was going to settle for store-bought ones because there was no way Brice or I were going to find the time to make anything. Then my mom offered to make them some costumes and saved the day! Raelin wanted to be a leopard and Ryker wanted to be a tiger (they each have a special stuffed animal of the animal they wanted to be--too bad they missed the photo shoot!). The costumes turned out amazing and the kids loved them!I did make myself a costume, but it was pretty simple. I didn't end up getting any pictures of it on my camera, but I know my family got pictures of it, so I'll post them when I get them. Brice found an old suit, some spurs, a perfect hat, and a gun holster for his costume and he looked great! I'll post pictures of him in his costume when I get them from the fam as well.

The night before Halloween, the kids and I went to BYU for their Halloween party and the kids had a great time there. They got to go fishing and throw balls inside (to knock over bottles and to hit a velcro target) and play in a bounce house. They had a costume parade and a little golf course.
I loved Raelin's golf technique: sit on the floor and push the ball through the hole with the club.

After the party, we had some time to kill before Brice could come pick us up, so we ate dinner at the Cougareat. I discovered that Raelin has a natural gift for using chopsticks! I didn't even tell her what to do; she just watched me for a second and she had it! We have been quite the spectacle for the last few years at Halloween. My parents come down to go trick or treating and Jordan, Gina and Toby, and William, Angel, and Liam also join us. This year we had the usual crew plus Uncle Jesse, but minus Uncle Toby and Uncle Jordan. And we also had Jesse and Gina's dogs. It's pretty funny to see all those grown ups traipsing around to take just three little kids trick or treating. At least most of us dress up, even the dogs!
Liam the dinosaur. He had a great ROAR!
I'll get some more pictures from Halloween night and post them when I do, but these are all the ones from my camera. Except! Oh! I almost forgot pumpkin carving! Usually we have a pumpkin carving party up at my parents house before Halloween, but with my mom working and us in school, we've just been too busy. So we carved pumpkins Halloween night.
I'm still working on figuring out this new kind of pumpkin carving--it's more like pumpkin sculpting. It's pretty fun, but time consuming and I don't get a whole lot of practice, seeing as pumpkin-carving season comes but once a year...This witch was a joint effort between my dad and William. Turned out pretty good, don't you think?
(Sorry, my camera takes pretty crummy pictures unless the lighting is perfect)

This one is Brice's.

And this one is Grammie's.

And this is a puppy carved by Raelin.

Once again, Ryker was way to tired to maintain control, especially around sharp objects, so he took a nap in preparation for trick or treating and carved (AKA stabbed) a pumpkin the next day.