Halloween Fun!

We had so much fun this year for Halloween (Well at least I did! I think everyone else did. Josh is kind of a Halloween grinch but whatever...) Caleb had originally said he wanted to do some sort of Star Wars costumes this year. But then he saw Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 and thought it was the best movie ever and the whole plan changed. We also found him a Rocket Raccoon costume at Target one day for like $17 so I figured I should support this decision.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am a big fan of doing group Halloween costumes that match. I think the first time I did this was in college when me and my room mates went to a Halloween party as the cast of Beauty and the Beast. (In case you were wondering, I was the Beast.) Then there was the year that our family and my mom and Jesse and Rachel and Jasmine did the Wizard of Oz thing (I was the wicked witch and my mom was Glenda the good witch... wearing my prom dress... let's not talk about it. lol)

But anyways, in the past few years Avery has kind of run the show when it comes to the costumes. She wanted to be Princess Peach one year... therefore Gabe and Caleb were Mario and Luigi. She wanted to be Tinkerbell one year. Therefore Gabe was a pirate and Caleb was Peter Pan (he wasn't super happy.) So this yea, Caleb said "Mom, it should be MY turn to pick the costumes." Gabe is kind of getting to that age where he's not sure if it's cool to still dress up or not. A few of his friends said they weren't dressing up (and then later did so... haha) but Gabe was going through this kind of inner debate about what to do. So I think when Caleb wanted to take the reigns on costumes, it made it easy for Gabe to say "Okay... I guess I will... for Caleb... you know, not cause I want to... but cause Caleb and my mom are making me" (but secretly he wanted to dress up anyways.) So Gabe ended up being StarLord and I ended up being Gamora. Caleb of course was Rocket Racoon. We wanted Avery to be baby Groot but there was no way she was agreeing to be a little brown ugly tree person. She instead just went her own way and was "Shimmer" from the show "Shimmer and Shine" (a pink haired genie girl.) Her next door neighbor friend, Kendalin, was "Shine" (the other genie.) I wanted Josh to be Drax so bad (and everyone knew he would've been perfect) but he didn't want to because, like I said earlier, he is the Halloween grinch.

So my costume was actually super easy. I had the black leather pants (this surprises anyone? lol) and I found a cheap black tank top at Walmart and a long sleeved green shirt in the boys department. Then it was just a matter of painting my face green and putting on a wig from Amazon! I think we turned out pretty amazing. See comparison below:

We even ended up winning second place at the school carnival! We wore our costumes that Friday before Halloween for the carnival, then again on Monday night for a church party, then again Tuesday (actual Halloween) for school parties and trick or treating. This year we just stayed in our neighborhood for trick or treating. By the time it got dark it was so cold we just wanted to come home and relax. I also helped out with Caleb's class party this year and so I was in charge of some minute-to-win it type games. We did a eyeball ping pong type game (basically beer pong... thanks Wisconsin upbringing), throwing spiders into a web on the wall, tossing a ring around a pumpkin stem, and assembling a skeleton. So it was pretty fast-paced and fun! I had to wear my pirate costume from a few years ago to school though because heavy makeup at school was not allowed (and I am not a rule breaker.)

So what else...? Oh, we went to a fun pumpkin patch (another one) where we did a hay ride and they have this pumpkin cannon that they launch pumpkins and try to hit these old cars in the field! (Idaho redneck fun) And Gabe had a field trip one day to the straw maze in town so me and Avery tagged along to that. It just happened to be on a day when Avery didn't have school due to parent teacher conferences. That was really fun. They had this big slide that we went down at the very end. I'm glad Gabe doesn't seem to mind us showing up. Maybe he realizes that all the girls in his class think it's so cute that he's nice to his little sister. 

I think that's about all for now! It seems like winter is officially knocking at our door. The leaves are now all fallen and raked up. We put all our outdoor patio furniture away, vacuumed and washed the 4 Runner and put it in the garage (it's usually usually on the street for Summer and all our bikes are down in the garage), cleaned up all our rotting pumpkins and threw them away, and some people are even putting up Christmas lights already! (gasp) We haven't done that yet, but probably soon! We even had a tiny snowfall this morning that had the ground dusted in white. Avery insisted on putting all her snow clothes on and playing in it! Time keeps on ticking by! I wish we could fast forward to Spring again. Maybe someday I will be able to get on a plane and fly away when the first snow falls and come back in April! 

Here are some more pictures of the last of Fall 2017!