It's definitely FALL! For the kids, that only means one thing. Halloween!
I love my morning walks around the nearby neighborhoods and cemetery behind our apartment complex. I stare out at these huge, beautiful leaves every day and feel so grateful for this season.
Our family tradition for YEARS has been to make almond bark covered Nutter Butter cookies for Ghost Cookies. No matter where we are (Africa, Europe, & now China), I order them through Amazon and we make the cookies!
Next up in the month is pumpkin carving of course. We did it after our Come Follow Me lesson where everyone had to pick a favorite scripture from 1 Thessalonians 5 that we read and then make a visual representation to help us remember it. Dad's was voted the favorite. :)
Thomas was particularly proud of his Harry Potter pumpkin. I sat down next to him as his assistant to give advice, but he did it all and it turned out so cute!
For costumes, Savannah decided to be a Flamenco dancer from Spain with the skirt we bought for her when we took a trip to Seville. Rhea was her current obsession: A Cheetah. And Thomas was dressed up like a little kid fighter of some sort. I was at the dollar store one day before Halloween when I saw pieces of some cheap costumes I thought he could use (because he hadn't come up with anything yet). He settled on this: 
This is what a good mom I am. I put the costumes on at the store and texted the pics to Thomas so he could choose which one he wanted. ;)
The next thing we got to do was participate in our ward Trunk or Treat the weekend before Halloween. The last time we arrived in Virginia and went to one, was when we had just arrived from Angola and had just bought our car and were dealing with jetlag. So we showed up for the candy, but did not help pass any out from a decorated car. I wasn't planning on doing too much to our car this year except maybe a few homemade Halloween decorations, but when I discovered that Savannah had the Queen of Hearts costume and she wasn't using it, I got a wild hair and dragged the rest of the family with me. :) I got ideas of course online on google and Pinterest, and discovered that we could do some homemade decorations for most of our trunk and not have to spend too much doing it or accumulate a lot of weight that we would have to take to China next year. So Rhea and I went out shopping for some supplies at Party City and then returned home with assignments for everyone. Rhea had a lot of fun trying on some costumes while we were shopping.
We turned Bri into the White Rabbit with a large clock (a toy drum with a paper face on front from the dollar store), glasses that Savannah made out of wire, a bow tie, a paper hat with ears Savannah made, and pom poms pinned to his sweater vest.
Bri helped to make upside down Alice like she'd fallen in the grass (thank goodness!), and Rhea helped make the Cheshire cat and arrow signs. The girls also helped me make the card Guards while Thomas figured out how to prop them up. I hung lights and other accessories I bought at the party store--$30 total that Bri was sure we would never see again (and he questioned if our efforts were worth it). I told him that I wasn't doing it to win a prize (even though we found out there were nice prizes the day we were putting it all together), but just wanted to contribute to the fun and be in the fun instead of watching the fun that others were having. Well, the judges took pity on us I guess and decided to give us the 1st place price of a $200 gift card! Bri apologized for the grief he gave me about my efforts. ;)
The night was fun with all of our kids running around with their friends in the parking lot. Here's Rhea with her best friend Leith (leaving in December for Chile) and Anna, a friend that Rhea invited from school.
So many fun, incredibly decorated trunks! Here's from the movies Coco and Newsies.
Kate B. Such a cutie!
These trunks are saying goodbye to old programs, schedules, etc. that are now "dead" at church, lol.
Another Coco trunk--adorable! They had pictures and props that looked like they were straight out of the movie!
Lastly, on another night before Halloween, Thomas got invited over by his friend Carter for a night of pumpkin carving and video games. Connie, Carter's mom, invited us over as well to visit with the adults. It was a fun night of visiting with new friends.
Here's Thomas' best friend Owen as a character from the movie Nacho Libre with Thomas in his dollar store piece meal costume. ;)
And the night of Halloween finally came. More candy! At this point, Thomas' costume was broken so Carter drew some blood on him and called it good, while the girls wore their costumes again.
Rhea found some friends to run around our apartment complex with, but her best friend was busy with cousins in town. So she came home after an hour or so and Savannah went trick or treating with friends Hana, Alanis, Nellie, and a few other friends from school. When she reached her limit of walking in black heals, she headed home. :) Thomas ran around for a few hours having fun with friends.
I ran Savannah over to the W family's apartment where there were more kids from church hanging out playing games and Savannah got to try her hand at a Virtual Reality game. I stayed and visited with Becky, the mom host, who lived in Beijing for 3 years. She answered a lot of the questions I have had as we prepare for our move there next summer.
I ran Savannah over to the W family's apartment where there were more kids from church hanging out playing games and Savannah got to try her hand at a Virtual Reality game. I stayed and visited with Becky, the mom host, who lived in Beijing for 3 years. She answered a lot of the questions I have had as we prepare for our move there next summer.
A fun and busy month of Halloween preparations and celebrations!
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