Halloween Time!

During the Hallween time, it seems like there are so many activities going on...and a whole lot of treats!  Preston and I have taken on the "Halloween Tithing" idea in that our children owe us anywhere from 10-80% of their candy. We're good parents like that!

 One of our favorites is the Mommy and Me in Rockville, MD! They have lots of events for the kids and this particular one, all of the kids (and parents) are invited to dress up in their Halloween costumes!  AND we just happened to run into our neighbors.  What a treat! Ü

Carl dressed up in his dog costume and the kids kept running up to him to pet him.  His costume was pretty good I guess! Ü  He absolutely loved it and would crawl around with all of the kids chasing after him! Ha ha!

A big change that recently happened in our household, is that I was asked to serve as the President of the Young Women's program in our ward.  This takes on a lot of responsibilities and opportunities to serve.  We plan activities every Wednesday night and plan lessons for them on Sundays, attend meetings, and plan special events!  

One of these special events was our Ward's Trunk or Treat at the end of October.  So we were able to recruit a wonderful lady in our ward to bring some blow up toys from her work and we played some games with the kids, ate donuts and then everyone headed off to the parking lot where the ward members had decorated their trunks and gave treats to all of the kids.  

 I found this awesome costume at my house. Ü Me and my little monkey!

 And here is my fireman!  Isn't he cute?

Another tradition of ours has been to take the kiddos to see Aunt Emmy at the "Air and Scare!" The Dulles Air and Space Museum opens up its doors and there are lots of Star Wars characters, Ghostbusters, and occassionally Star Trek too.  Not to mention that is sponsored by Nestle so there is lots of chocolate for the kiddos!

 And guess who flew out to join us this year?  Cute Hannah!  

The Marshmellow Man!

We ran into one of Carl's favorite friends, Helen Ann there!  We love her. Isn't she adorable?

 And we met Chubacka! Ok...not really but I figured that since the kid was wearing the same costume as Carl, we didn't need to stand in line to get a picture with him.

 And Carl was THRILLED when he saw the real firemen there!  They were happy to get a picture with him.

 Look at this good lookin' family! Yep... James didn't last too long in that hat monkey costume.

 Lucky us! We got to celebrate Hannah's birthday while she was out in DC with us!  Talented Emily made this beautiful cake. My boys thought it was the neatest "treat" ever! Not to mention it tasted divine.

 Other Halloween activities included carving pumpkins...

 Decorating with our awesome neighbors. Palak, our neighbor, offered to come over and help us cut out Halloween shapes to put in our windows and decorate throughout the house. It was a lot of fun and turned out adorable.

 Then FINALLY the real Halloween came and we met up with our neighbors and friends and went trick-or-treating.

 What a fun time of year!  Seriously, I think that we collapsed after a sugar high in this house.  Can't wait for Halloween to come again!