Halloween Happenings

It is with sadness that I bid October farewell. It's my favorite month of the year, though things have been so hectic and crazy with all my big ideas for fun that it will be a bit of a relief to move on to November...until the holiday stuff starts!

Here are some highlights from our October:

First, the costumes. We had a knight. The helmet (in the second picture) was not originally a part of the costume. This is a leftover costume from years ago but Jack insisted on wearing:

 

A Wizard:

 

And a Doggie:

Oh, and I was a witch. My dream is to find a really flouncy black petti skirt to wear with this costume someday:

We went to the Ward Trunk or Treat at the church last week and took some of the boys' friends from school, Amanda (the Leafy Sea Dragon below-bet you have never seen anyone dress up as that before!) and Andrew (Darth Sidius) and their parents.

The obligatory pumpkin carving which creates memories, messes and rotten pumpkins 2 days later:

Big bummer to have Halloween on Sunday this year, but I think we successfully made up for it with plenty of other fun. We hosted a Halloween Bash Saturday night before Halloween as a consolation for not getting to trick or treat. It was a blast and I think we will make it a yearly tradition:
Pin the nose on the pumpkin, Halloween bingo, bean bag toss, pinata (homemade by us), donuts on a string:

(That's my buddy Nithilan from Jack's class at school I love him. He figured out my name (you know, other than Mrs. P or Jack's mom) and now always yells "Hi Ambah!" every time I see him.)
and the best part, homemade rootbeer (or crazy potion full of acid, toxic sludge and radio active powder, topped off my Pluto rocks made by one mad scientist):

It was amazing, fun and the kid's LOVED it!
Tonight we played Trick or Treat Trivia-the boys answered questions and got candy. Then we played a scavenger hunt game in our house. Fun, fun, fun! The boys were busting with excitement and happiness.
Happy Halloween!

Lately

What have we been up to lately? I haven't blogged in close to a month and even now, I don't feel like I have any pressing things to blog about. It's not that life hasn't been fun or busy, I guess I have just lost my blogging motivation for now.

But I feel an obligation as I imagine grandmothers everywhere sighing when they log on to check my blog and find no new pictures of grandchildren or updates on their latest goings on. (Though certainly a certain sister in law of mine's lack of blogging should be more noticeable. And since I have only 2 sisters in law and one blogs regularly, this one will know who she is.) :) And so, I will blog.

In the past month:

The boys started their first ever organized sport. That is unless you count Nathan's soccer class when he was three from which I have pictures of him picking his nose rather than playing while his best friend Trey preferred to sit on the ball and watch the class happen. I guess Jack took a soccer class when he was 3 too, and loved it, but this is the first "real" soccer experience.

Jack thinks he is a soccer pro and Nathan is tolerating it/enjoying it more than I expected. Nathan's poor team has yet to win, but this week they tied instead of lost, so they were thrilled! Jack's team has won only once, but that was a big win-7-0. One little boy on the team scored 6 of those 7 goals.

I don't have great pictures because my camera has no zoom whatsoever (of of the few things I don't like about it) and it is hard to get a good picture from the sidelines with no zoom.

 This one is for Grandma A. I don't know if you can quite see it, but Nathan most definitely inherited the red face syndrome. 

One Friday afternoon recently me and the boys took a quick trip to the Miramar Air Show. We only had a one hour time window, so we didn't get to see much, just the most important part. The Blue Angels. The boys were going crazy with excitement. We were up close to where Fat Albert and a few of the Blue Angels parked. I didn't try to get any pictures of the Blue Angels in motion-have you seen how fast those things go?

Last, this is why I love being YW President. Where's Waldo. Can you find me?

We had an activity at the mall with about 10 of the leaders dressed up in crazy ensembles and the youth had to track us down and have us sign their card within about 35 minutes. I am proud to say only 3 of the 5 groups found me (I was sitting in the kid's play area with a book in front of my face).

More pictures are sure to come as our Halloween festivities begin...