Happy Halloween! and other belated news

So, it hasn't quite been a full month since the last post, but we're close here! I have a few pictures to put up from our Halloween adventures and a few stories to tell about my crazy little children. So here we go.

This Halloween had its perks and its pits. For the first time, both kids "got" the concept of Halloween -- the costumes, the candy, the parties, the candy -- so that was kind of fun. On the flip side, the candy caused some serious problems. Most of this was my fault, because I bought our stash WAY too early which resulted in almost hourly pestering from Ethan and Grace for more treats for almost the whole week before Halloween.

As far as the costumes go, Ethan's costume was a HUGE hassle to make. And even though I started working on it well in advance, I was still up until midnight the night before the MBA Family Halloween party trying to glue-gun the ribbon on the hood to make the mane. Ethan loved the costume, though, so that made it KIND OF worth it.

As far as the MBA Halloween party goes, let's just say that I made the mistake of being in charge of the cake walk booth. Silly me, when I signed up for it, I thought all I would have to do was decorate the booth and make the numbers for the "walk" on the floor. Oh, but no. I was also in charge of making sure that there were enough cupcakes for the estimated 250 children who were supposedly going to be there. That translates out to roughly 21 DOZEN cupcakes. So, even though I handed out boxes of cake mix to others to help me, I still ended up making 6 dozen on my own, and buying another 4 dozen from Wal-Mart. While I was in Cupcake Hell the whole Saturday morning of the party, Ethan was in Cupcake Heaven because I let him help me by putting the sprinkles on the finished goods. We made it to the party on time to set things up and were able to enjoy the party somewhat until Ethan decided he was ready to go home. I was personally relieved, because my kids are just a little too difficult to keep track of at functions like this. Well, we took them home, and I went back at the end of the party to take down the booth decorations, and what did I find? Only 10 dozen cupcakes still left up for grabs. Yes, thats right, only about half actually got taken. I'll have to let the committee know for next year that we don't need one cupcake for every child when there are several other booths with candy and games, not to mention of full table of desserts to choose from.

(In front of our Cake Walk booth)

Anyway, Halloween night was pretty fun. Ethan was very excited about the trick-or-treating. We ended up going with some friends we've made in the MBA program, and here's a picture of the kids before leaving.



The craziness continued the next day, seeing as to how it was Grace's 2nd birthday! And for some insane reason, I asked her if she wanted a party for her birthday, and of course the party girl said yes. Her request was specifically for an Elmo party. So, I bought some Elmo plates and party favors and invited some of our friends over from our old ward. After seeing how much fun Ethan had decorating cupcakes for the cake walk, I decided that for our main event of the birthday party, I would let the kids ice and decorate their own cupcakes. Yes, it was fun and yes, it was a mess. Of course I wasn't too surprised with that last part because Grace is the messiest kid I have ever seen, and I've been around a LOT of kids in my life. So, Ethan and Grace had fun, and Ethan enjoyed opening all of Grace's presents and playing with them and not letting Grace have any turns at all with them. So, that was fun, too. The sad thing is I realized after the party was over that we never sang happy birthday or blew out her candles. What this means of course is that tomorrow I will make her a cake (perhaps even an Elmo cake) and we'll sing happy birthday and let her blow out the candles all so we can get a picture of it.

(Ethan humored me by letting me take a picture of Grace pretending to open her present before he actually took over for her)

(do you like how Grace is eating the icing right off the knife? nice.)

(is Grace not the spitting image of Scott?)

Anyway, in other random news, Grace is somewhat of an exhibitionist. I won't the post the picture here, but we got a good laugh out of our crazy girl the other night when we went in to check on her before bed and saw that she had taken off her pajama pants and pull-up and was asleep bare-bottomed on top of her pillow and blankets.

Ethan's new thing is informing me when I'm being mean. So, that's cool. I got him CTR ring a few weeks ago, because for some reason he got it into his head that he really wanted one. And so we had a family home evening on choosing the right and what it means to make good choices. Well, of course the next day when we go to Wal-Mart to do our BIG grocery and other shopping trip he starts freaking out when we're all done because he doesn't have his ring on anymore. So, despite my hunch that a search would be fruitless, we nonetheless retraced our steps looking for it all the while Grace was trying to escape from the buggy and run away. Needless to say I was not in a very good mood by the time we were checking out and I believe I threatened Ethan with throwing away Candyland if he didn't start listening to me. Well, wouldn't you know as soon as we get in the car Ethan finds his ring in the carseat. After putting it back on and buckling himself up, he tells me "you're not choosing the right, mom. you're being mean to us." Thank you, Ethan, for that nice reality check.

Last, but not least, here is a picture of us supporting Scott's intramural flag football team, even though it was freezing cold and Grace kept trying to run away.



Well, I think thats all the stories I'll bore you with for now. In closing I'd like to wish a happy birthday to Everett who is turning one today!