Pokémon Halloween

The boys have been living and breathing Pokemon for most of this year.  They can't get enough!  I kind of love it because it has really unified Henry, Ellis, and Sam, and has given something to talk about, think about, and dream about together.  It's something that they all have in common.  That wasn't the case before Pokemon hit our house.  In fact, I'm giving Pokemon credit for helping us survive summer vacation with no one killing each other.

So when Pokemon was the unanimous choice among the boys for our Halloween costume theme, I resisted slightly, but had to give in because I feel like I owe Pokemon something for bringing peace and unity into our home.  Good job, Pokemon!

  Ben was unavailable to attend the ward Halloween party due to work travel, so we had to do the family theme without him.  We had all sorts of disasters with getting the costumes delivered on time (because all Pokemon-related stuff ships from China -- ack! -- which is not 2-day shipping.  And 2-day shipping is how I roll).  

 Archer's costume is a hack....a hack I am pretty proud of, I might add.  I found a clearance costume of a yellow dog from some Nickelodeon show, and I was able to turn it into Pikachu in two hours of mad scrambling, and I do think it turned out pretty cute - although you'll notice that it's a bit tight!

 Henry has a great smile on his face, but he was gravely disappointed that his Umbreon costume didn't arrive in time either, so he had to go as Ash, the Pokemon trainer.  He was a good sport.

 It was tricky to get Pikachu to stand in place for the pictures.

 Because he would prefer to be doing this!

 and this...

 and this!

He managed to stay in place when he discovered the incredible stash of sugary goodness that The Brothers were able to scrounge up! 

Post Script: Henry's costume arrived the next week, and he had an epic Umbreon moment to make up for the lost opportunity on Halloween.  He has also been using this hoodie as a "snuggie" to keep him warm around the house.  I won't let him wear it to school on a regular basis because it has a tail, and that would be weird. Control freak? Yes.

Halloween 2015

Halloween just keeps getting better as our kids get older and we have more of them.  And we live in the the best neighborhood for trick-or-treating, with lots of leaves and lots of generous neighbors all close by!  Here is what it looked like:

First, of course, we had to carve pumpkins.  Jenn thought it would be a great idea to print out really tricky designs from the internet, thinking that our boys have the (a) attention span and (b) talent to do intricate jack-o-lantern carvings.  Turns out, she was wrong on both accounts.  So we did most of the carving, and I ended up getting out the drill to remove the finer portions.  It worked, pretty well. 

Grumpy Cat

Pig from Angry Birds

Ron, Harry, and Draco

Real wizard pictures move!

Mischievous Draco 

"Eat slugs, Malfoy!"

Ron Weasley, sans tooth

Harry and Hedwig

Errol the owl

Hermione and Errol

That's one good-looking Hermione, eh?

And the whole family!  Whoa, who is that crazy guy in the back?  Oh, Dumbledore, of course. (Why do I always get stuck with the insane-looking costumes??)

Our "serious" pose...except it looks like Draco saw a dementor. 

Look at how many trick-or-treaters we get!

The wizards in search of loot. 

This is the look of success after a hard night's work of asking for candy.  Ellis' face just kills me in this picture.  And that pile of candy?  It took us at least, like, three days to plow through it.

The Jacksons' Epic Visit

Let's be honest.  Grandma and Grandpa visit us frequently.  The Jacksons, now, they certainly don't come visit us every day.  We had a visit from Kati and Joe about seven years ago, and we have never had a visit that included Jackson cousins.  I only mention this to try to describe how excited we were to have Kati, Milo, and Max come visit us in late-October!  It was the most special thing that has happened to us this year.

I wanted Kati to see all "my places," so she humored me by going for a jog with me and bringing the three boys along.  We stopped at the strength training area and did some crazy awesome chin ups while the boys played at this playground.  

We took a little trip to the Botanic Garden, because I can't get enough and love to share it!  Plus, I really loved watching the changes every week during the fall.

Kati is a major plant and gardening lover, so she went crazy about all the plants (not unlike our dad a few weeks earlier).  Milo took this great photo for us.  :)

Um, I think Ben must have snapped this while we played some games.  Boy, did we have some great night-time conversations.  We learned from Kati's wisdom (we don't get enough of this when we come to Utah because of kids' bedtimes).

I was so excited for the Jacksons to be here for trick-or-treating.  I think I talked up our "perfect Halloween neighborhood" a little too much; I'm pretty sure I jinxed it.  This picture is very deceiving.  I'll just say that it wasn't so adorable to layer puffy coats under everyone's costumes and then run from house to house in the freezing wind, getting pelted in the face by ice and hail.  It sure was memorable though.  

The kids didn't last nearly as long as usual, but I think they still did just fine on candy, since people weren't getting enough trick-or-treaters and so were giving out huge handfuls of candy.  Yeah, we did alright.

Ben watched the kids while Kati and I went out for dinner one night.  Oh, these boys had so much fun playing together.  And such a treat to have them at our own house!

We were pretty bummed to see them leave.  Sam is still frequently talking about what we're going to do next time Milo and Max come, as if it's going to be any day now.  We hope it will happen again soon!

Halloween Happenings

I knew it was coming: the year we all got to be Star Wars for Halloween.  I definitely got to subtly (and heavily) influence the boys' choices for Newsies, artists, and presidents in past years.  This year, I knew Star Wars was inevitable and way beyond my control.  And you know, it turned out to be awesome!  

First of all, we got to borrow several of the costumes, which made for an easy year.  Secondly, I got to buy that awesome Boba Fett shirt, which I plan to wear frequently.  Here you see Han Solo (Ben, Boba Fett (me), Anakin Skywalker (Henry), Jango Fett (Ellis), and the cutest Darth Vader you've ever seen (Sam).

These pictures are from my friend Amy's phenomenal Halloween party.  They had this photo booth in the yard and gave prizes for the best costumes (we won best family!).

She also had a pumpkin patch where kids could choose and decorate a pumpkin.  Adorable!

I got to help in both Henry and Ellis' classroom parties.  Here you can see Ellis with his Jango Fett helmet on, and his cute teacher who dressed up as a pumpkin.

This was Henry's team for the mummy decorating contest.

And Henry's class.

And this is the picture that came home with Ellis in a cute little Halloween frame.  Ellis, why are you so good at posing in epic pictures?  I laughed for a week, every time I walked past this photo!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

From Vincent Van Gogh, 

 

Salvador Dali

 (Is he not the spitting image?)

Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso,

and Frida Kahlo.

I was pretty happy when these cute boys decided they wanted to be artists for Halloween.  Ellis was intent on being Dali, and you can see why! Sam didn't keep his Picasso hat on very long, but he was pretty cute while it lasted.  And Henry was a stunning Van Gogh, flashing his "Starry Night" painting for all to see.

I was also pretty thrilled about getting to sport a unibrow and a hint of a mustache.

Sam was asleep when we all got in our costumes.  When he woke up, Ben, in full Andy Warhol attire, went up to get Sam out of his crib. He took one look at Ben, pointed at him and said, "Hall!  Hall!" (That's his name for Andy Warhol -- it's Sam's favorite of our artist action figures).  I guess he was pretty recognizable, at least to someone!

These pictures are from the night of our Trunk-or-Treat party on Saturday night.  We're glad we got to go do some trick-or-treating, as it looks like Frankenstorm might get in our way tonight!