halloween-ing

well, i can't believe it, but halloween seemed to just breeze past us and we are into november. i may be hated for saying this, but halloween is really not my thing.  i don't really think feel like i grew up with halloween as i was only introduced to it in high school when the dressing up thing isn't quite as appealing. and besides, i feel like it is a less purposeful holiday than most and don't get me started on the fact that the schools go hog-wild celebrating this pagen (sp?) holiday but can't mention christmas in their classrooms....but i can understand why it is awesome for little kids....i mean dressing up and walking around in the dark harvesting and consuming heinous amount of candy...and all this is okay with mom and dad....a kid's dream come true, right?

so, i am trying really hard to be cool mom....and embrace what will be memories for my children and get into it a little bit. so this year, we tried the embracing thing and it turned out to be really fun....

the festivities included our ward's trunk-or-treat which is brilliant....a night of delicious soups and then the kids walk about 50 wards from trunk to trunk harvesting candy and getting to see all the kids we know and love glowing with excitement over their costumes...i liked it!

gnomeo & juliet

later that evening, i rounded up emma, two of year guy-friends, and our neighbor, yoo and we ventured into our first experience with eric's haunted forest he does for HRCA. i didn't go last year because i was preggo and not feeling so hot.  it was a really good time.  we had fun company and going through the forest was fun...it was well attended so it was rewarding to see eric's hard work come off a success...i was attacked by a werewolf about 50 yards in....i mean REALLY attacked...but i am married to that werewolf so i guess it was okay even though i was screaming and hitting him and telling him that he's not allowed to touch me:)  it was fun that so many of the zombies and scarers knew me by name....eric's boss, mark followed us very closely for about 100 yards and totally freaked yoo out because he just walked really close to her the whole time:)....anyway, it was a fun night.

then, for fhe, we invited some friends last minute for some pumpkin carving and i made homemade doughnuts and fresh apple cider.  it was delicious and fun and the kids enjoyed carving and eric made some lovely roasted pumpkin seeds from the guts.  these doughnuts can really only be made once a year because they are heaven and i could eat them all night long.

how do i turn this thing? 

by the time halloween actually came around, i was pretty spent after all these festivities and all the class parties at school and i was and for it to be over and really debated whether we should trick or treat but in the end, we decided to go.  caleb had gone with a friend so we just had josh and maryn and adam.  josh was a total hoot though.  i fully embraced the entire thing as he galloped from house to house talking way too loud the entire time and giving enthusiastic "thank you's" to everybody.  that made it worth it.  i also enjoyed seeing all the families out in the neighborhood, chatting...it gives a nice sense of community before we are all about to hibernate for the winter.  the evening was beautiful and warm for this time of year which was really helpful to the atmosphere too.

so, now we move forward toward thanksgiving....which has to be at one of my very favorite holidays with already a lot of plans in the works....so here we go...