Our Halloween of 2011

We had a good Halloween weekend and by weekend I mean 4 days of kids not being in school.  They had Thursday off for Staff development day, then Friday off for Nevada day then of course, Saturday and Sunday.  It was a crazy weekend but a good weekend.  On Thursday, we went to find stuff for the boys costumes, then on Friday we stayed home and I worked on Dallin's while Calvin worked on his own.  He was making armor out of boxes, but then decided not to use them and just wear his camo suit (p.j.'s...shhh!) that I got for him.  I wish he did use the armor because he was pretty creative with his costume.  Anyway, Dallin was Link (from Zelda).  Everyone was asking if he was an elf or Robin Hood, but some people got it right.  Dallin was good about it though, at least on the outside.  Elsa has been reading all about Kit Kittredge from American Girl and has grown to love her, so she decided she would be Kit.  I talked her into dressing up in Kit's hobo clothes since it would be way less expensive and easier.  I made her overalls out of an old pair of Clint's jeans, actually two pairs, (he's not that big and she is quite tall).  She wore her Kit Kittredge t-shirt and my hat to complete the costume.  Abby wanted to be many things and kept changing her mind.  First she wanted to be a Barbie, then Hannah Montana, then Barbie again and that stuck for awhile, then she told me one day she wanted to be a girl spider with a purple bow.   She's always been very specific with her costumes.  Last year she was Hello Kitty as a ballerina and the year before she was a Gingerbread girl and if you asked, "Oh, are you a gingerbread man?" Without thinking much of it.  She would quickly tell you "No, I'm a gingerbread girl."  Anyway, when we went to Texas, her cousin had a Monster Halloween birthday party, and she was a Girl spider with a bow.  Then, for our ward's Trunk or treat and for Halloween she wanted to be Barbie.  So since we already had a wig I let her be a barbie.  She just wore some of her own clothes and some dress-ups and put the wig on and voila, she was Barbie.  I did make her put the spider costume on so I could get a picture though. 
Our ward Trunk or treat/chili cook-off went well and the kids got lots of candy.  Then, on Halloween we went to the Springs Preserve.  They decorated it Halloween-y and different companies in Vegas were part of it and did games, passed out candy and other stuff.  There was even a haunted house which we waited until the end of the night because the wait to go through it was an hour.  We went to all the different booths and the kids got a few pieces of candy, then we went back to the haunted house.  After waiting only about 15 minutes we got in.  I was expecting to stay out with Abby, since at the Ward's party she didn't want to go through the spook alley that the young men/young women put together because it looked scary.  She went through the haunted house though and was fine until this stupid ghost skeleton jumped out at us.  It startled me even, but it traumatized poor Abby.  She cried all the way through....yep she made it through and didn't turn back.  Of course I still have imprints on my hand where she was holding it.  Just kidding.  At the end they had candy in a box for the kids to take and I told Abby she could get as much as she wanted, she deserved it.  After that we went to one last stop to the gift shop where they had a candy station.  When we got there they had so much candy that they were handing it out by huge handfuls, then the kids went back for more on the way out.  Their buckets were full so we felt it was time to head home.  (And it was a school night).

 Didn't she make a cute spider?

This is Dallin's original costume.  In the other pictures of him I fixed the tunic to be one shade of green.

 Ahh, the magic of photo editing.

 Elsa was taking my picture

 Calvin making his armor.

This was Abby at the cake walk

Elsa was fishing for candy

 Abby with her little friend in the primary parade to show off their costumes.

 Here's Elsa in the parade

 The kids organizing their candy and trading with each other. 

 Mad Science was at the Springs Preserve showing some of their stuff.  This was a hydrogen bubble producer.  (For lack of the official name.)

Elsa really liked it.  When you caught the bubble in your hand it was cold and would instantly evaporate. It was pretty cool.

 In front of the grave yard.

 Pointing his finger gun at the spider

Scared of the huge spider above him.

 He was a guy from one of his computer games.  

The game is like Halo, but called Raze.

 This was her outfit on Halloween.  Very chic!

 There was one booth that had different bowls of things to feel.  One was brains, one was guts, etc.

Calvin was the only one, of our kids, who was brave enough to feel everything. 

This was Elsa at the Mad Science booth feeling these plastic balls which were soaked in water for about 6 hours.  They gave the kids their own little container of these little balls to do their own science experiment, so naturally as soon as they got home they put them in water and woke up in the morning and they were bigger.  It was pretty cool.

We had a fun Halloween weekend and now it's time to get ready for Thanksgiving, then onto CHRISTMAS!  Yeah!