Corn Maze

I was out of town last weekend, Marie was at a debate tournament, Caitlyn was resting up between shows, and so Russell took Alison, Kristen, and some of his students to the local corn maze. From what I heard, it was a gorgeous day and they all had a good time. Bonus: they picked up our pumpkins, so we didn't have to do that later!

 The farm made a whole bunch of designs out of their pumpkins. This was Alison and Kristen's favorite.

Costumes, The Group Edition (Part 2)

A selfie:

The girls:

I think all redshirts should have genie accessories.

And headed out to go trick-or-treating. Alison decided that her costume was not cold-weather appropriate, so she became a "glow-in-the-dark preteen."

Costumes! (Part 1)

We had fun dressing up this year. Kristen went as a blue genie:

It had to be a BLUE genie, because Sarah was a pink genie.

Eating a donut at the trunk-or-treat:

And at the school parade:

Alison was a Greek goddess (which one? All of them.):

With some friends at the trunk-or-treat:

She came up and said, "They said I needed to get my face painted. How does it look?"

And at school. I didn't get her shoes. It was quite funny with her converse.

And Caitlyn went as a 1920s flapper girl:

She was adorable. They all were, actually.

Ah, Those Jack-o-Lanterns

Tuesday night, we sat down and carved the pumpkins (that we went to the grocery store to pick up. No pumpkin patch for us this year). I don't like doing it too many days before Halloween, but our ward's Trunk-or-Treat was Wednesday night, and the weather turned cool, and really Tuesday was the best night, so... we tackled the carving o' the pumpkins.

Kristen insisted that she made a goal to do the entire process BY HERSELF. And so she did. With only a little help from Russell.

 She wasn't a big fan of de-glopping (the technical term).

(That's the only picture of Caitlyn -- she hates it, but too bad? -- because she was mostly doing homework and only took a short break to quickly sketch and carve her pumpkin.)

Alison took on the process by herself, too, but picked a design that was kind of tricky. So, I helped. Which made me happy, since I didn't have my own pumpkin to carve.

I don't know why there aren't any pictures of the grown-ups in this operation. Huh.

And the final result:

From left: Caitlyn, Russell, Alison, Kristen.

And because Kristen's is so funny, a close-up of hers:

Makes me laugh.

Happy Halloween!

The 5th Grade Goes Thriller

Alison was SO excited that the 5th grade decided to do this. They worked on it all week, and she kept it secret; it was a surprise for the parents. And I think they did a fantastic job. :-)

Haunted Candy Houses

I don't know if we were really planning on getting out the stuff to do candy houses this week, but Elder Talaenuga called saying he was being transferred and could they come by to say good bye? Of course, but first, we want to rope you into our traditions!

I made one before bugging off to yoga...

And then the rest of them took over and made a ginormous mess.

Isn't that the point, though?

The finished products. Except for Elder T's. He decided to take his home and eat it.

And saying goodbye. They were a fun pair to have.

Halloween!

On Halloween, Caitlyn and I curled up with Dark Shadows (kind of horrible, actually) and answered the door for our seven trick-or-treaters (more than last year!), while Russell took the Avengers and a vampire trick-or-treating.

They had a grand time and came home with a TON of candy. All is right in the world.

Mr. Jack o' Lantern

Monday night, since it was our only real free night this week, we spent carving our pumpkins. We each got one (well, Kristen and I shared), we put on It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and set to carving.

Caitlyn's

Alison's

Kristen's/mine

Russell's

And them all lit up. We were quite proud of them!

Costume Time

It was the Trunk or Treat tonight, so it was the initial testing of our costumes.

Alison was the Avengers. (Yes, ALL of them.)

Caitlyn was Castiel from Supernatural. She was amazed that Elder Kempler (he's new) had a tie the EXACT right color.

Kristen was going to be someone from Percy Jackson but changed last minute and wanted to be a "modern" vampire. Thank heavens she doesn't know about Twilight, and didn't want to be sparkly.

And I was going to go as a minion, but couldn't find overalls. So I needed something last minute. And Caitlyn suggested this. My shirt says "Error 404 Costume not found." It got a smile out of people.

Halloween Haunted Houses

We had the sister missionaries over for dinner last week, and I was just planning on having dinner with them. But Alison and Kristen said that we HAD to have the sisters help us build our Halloween Haunted Houses because they'd NEVER gotten to do it, and we ALWAYS have the missionaries help. So I ran to the store and picked up supplies. And... well... we made a mess.

We turned out some pretty rocking houses though. Especially Kristen and Sister McDermott. Their house was awesome. Everyone else paled in comparison. But we all had fun. And ate a lot of candy, which is really the important part.

Kristen/Sister McDermott's house is the one on the left.
Alison and Sister Thompson's is on the right.

Caitlyn's is on the left; mine on the right.

It must be Halloween.