Boo!!

I'm soooo behind on my blogs. Somehow I need to find time to catch up every week instead of once every two months. I am going to quickly try to catch up and then, New Year's resolution -- not get behind anymore :-) Ha Ha.




So here is Adam holding up our traditional buttermilk pumpkin pancake with a chocolate chip face. I considered making a different breakfast for Halloween this year, but was very surprised when 14 yr. old Adam got very sad at the prospect of no Halloween pumpkin pancakes. That's the danger of doing the same thing more than once -- it suddenly becomes a sort of tradition. But, I'm glad the children look forward to our little traditions.

Here are some pictures of the children in their costumes. First is Adam. Adam didn't trick-or-treat, but he dressed up for a stake ym/yw dance and had a blast. (I still can't believe that I have a child old enough to go to stake dances -- and he actually loves to go!!) Adam was supposed to dress up like someone from TV. Can you tell what his costume is?............................. The money you could have saved with Geico !!!Kamri did not dress up, but she came to help me trick-or-treat with the little kids.

Jairin dressed up like a spy -- all in black-- but he didn't get a picture taken.


I'm getting worn out. I used to stay up all night the night before Halloween sewing costumes. Now, two days before Halloween, I say, "Look in the dress-up tub and find a Halloween costume." Bad Mommy. In my defense, however, all my late nights from previous Halloweens have effectively filled up our dress-up tub and there are A LOT of choices. And I am glad to see some of the previous costumes reused considering that I did spend a lot of time and money making them.

Here is Miri -- dressed as a very rich and affluent lady..........


Aria dressed as Queen Celeste (from the Babar the Elephant Books for those of you who don't know who Queen Celeste is)............

Joelle, the kangaroo..................

And Lana, the pink piggie.....................

Rob stayed home (with Caroline and Kainoah who were both sleeping) and made his famous spudnuts. I drove down the mountain with the other kids to trick-or-treat with some friends from our ward. It was a great neighborhood for scoring on the candy. Some gave whole candy bars.

One lady handed out to EACH child, a ziplock baggie (containing a granola bar, a Rice Krispie treat, Oreos, pretzels, Play-dough, a Ring pop, a Fun-dip , raisins, M&Ms and couple other kinds of candy), a glow-stick necklace, a package of chips, a coloring book and crayons and a cold Capri-sun juice from a cooler she had waiting for the children. Wow!! Going to just her house would have almost been enough. Maybe we'll start there next year. Now she is someone who is serious about Halloween!

The kids got too much candy, as usual. This pile of candy filled a big trash bag half-way.

We ate candy for a few days, but then Rob decided we needed to get rid of it more quickly. So, he collected all of the chocolate candy bars and M&Ms and chopped them all up into big chunks. Then he made a HUGE batch of Deb's Deli cookies and used the candy instead of chocolate chips. We weren't sure how they'd turn out, but they were very yummy. Each cookie had a different surprise. They were a big hit at home, at school and at church. What we didn't need, we froze into cookie dough balls to be popped into the oven for fresh cookies at a later date. It was a great way to quickly get rid of the candy without the children feeling we were getting rid of it. :-) I think we've found a new tradition -- Halloween candy bar cookies.

We even managed to buy and carve pumpkins this year.