All Hallows Eve

It was kind of fun having Halloween on a Sunday this year (sorry Sarah). One of the perks of living in Utah is the whole town celebrates on Saturday and, as usual, we dragged it out and celebrated in some way the whole weekend. We carved pumpkins Saturday afternoon and then had our traditional Halloween night dinner. I have tried different things for this dinner, but this one is what we will stick with for the time being, because my kids will actually eat it-all of it, in fact. The menu: mummy dogs, rotten teeth (baked beans) and slimy slugs (mandarin oranges). Simple yet satisfying.

We then began the task of getting everyone into their costumes for, like, the third time. Luckily, my older ones didn't need much help. This year we found roaming around our house a baby (a costume invented by Brandon to break the status quo, since only girls in 6th grade dressed up like babies every year. He thought, why can't there be boy babies? He rounded up some friends and the first band of boy babies was born at Legacy Elementary!), a groovy hippie, the beautiful Belle, Vakama (a mighty bionicle, in case you were wondering), and a very fancy dancer.

The storm hit about an hour before trick or treating time. It was a doozy. It was raining so hard and coming down sideways. Incredible. Beautiful weather the two days prior and now this. Alyssa cried when I told her she couldn't wear the intricate Belle costume that had been handmade by my friend for her daughter. It would get ruined for sure (At least she got to wear it to school). She reluctantly and tearfully pulled an old torn Belle costume out of the dress up box and put it on. I told her it wouldn't matter because it would be covered by her winter coat. That didn't make it any better.

Trevor scoured the house and came up with 5 umbrellas. Some were in pretty bad shape, as most umbrellas are in our house, but they would just have to do. He also grabbed the huge beach umbrella and toted that around. It drew a few laughs, but kept us dry. I told the kids this would be a Halloween they would remember, kind of like the one where it was totally snowing. Oh, and Bryce couldn't wear his hippie wig, it wasn't really conducive to pouring rain, so he was a hippie wearing a beanie.

It worked.

We then hit the streets, I didn't think any of us would last long, but I was wrong. The rain amazingly stopped, the air warmed, and for the first time we didn't have to carry a little one around. Ashlyn loved it. She looked up at Trevor after a few houses and said, "Halloween is FUN!" And fun it was. We trick or treated throughout the whole ward. Is there anything better than being outside with all your neighbors milling around, getting so much candy and the smell of pumpkins burning on the doorsteps?

I don't think so.

We made it back to our cozy house dry and content. Then the traditional candy inventory and sorting started. I totally remember doing this as a kid.

Halloween.

Memories.

Candy.

Being together.

That's what Halloween is really all about to us-

and we love it!