Happy Halloween 2009

We had a delightful Halloween this year.  The kids helped me on Saturday morning to stuff 130 apples into sandwich baggies, then cut ribbons, string tags and tie the baggies.  They have caught onto our tradition of giving apples for Halloween and were so excited to help with the preparations.  We took them to church for the trunk or treat and then filled a large bowl with them and took them trick or treating with us.  Tanner and Lexie would each grab an apple from the bowl  to give it to our neighbors. 

As we prepared the apples, we talked about trick or treating ettiquite.  Specifically, looking the treat giver in the eyes, and with a smile, and saying "thank you"!  But we were not expecting so many "thank yous" about our apples, so the kids didn't quite know how to respond back with their own!  It was so fun to see how excited the kids got about giving instead of recieving.  (Don't get me wrong, they were pretty excited about their candy stash too!)

Colin really got into trick or treating this year too.  He had his own little bag to put candy in and each house we went to, our neighbors would fill it full!  You can well imagine the bright crinkly papers really caught his eye and of course every child, no matter how small, KNOWS what's inside!

On Friday, I got to go to Tanner's school to help with his classroom party.  The head room parent is a lady I carpool with so I got lots of opportunity to participate! I made 35 of these cute little spiders. 

We put them into these baggies.  I cut the pumpkins out on my Cricut and the other mom tied them all.  I think they turned out super cute.  We filled them full of Halloween goodies.  Tanner couldn't WAIT to get his hands on his!

The headroom parent made these cute cupcakes for the kids to eat!

Here are some pics of some of the kids in his class all dressed up. 

Princesses!

Super Heros!

Here is Tanner.  I am sure he'd be a super hero too if he knew what they were!  We definitley live in our own little bubble it seems!

And here is his whole class!

Tanner's school had a parade outside where the parents got to walk along side their student.  My heart goes out to the parents who have more than one student at school and have to try and be in more than one place at a time.  Somehow they seem to make it work!  I looked down at Tanner while we were walking in the parade.  I felt like it was such a priviledge to be there!  But when Tanner looked back up at me, he had this look in his eye that said, "of course you're here mom."  As if it's expected and knows I will always be there for him. He doesn't know any different!  He doesn't know about the millions of kids out there with only one parent who must work, or can't come to class parties, choir performances, or soccer games.  Like super heros, he doesn't know about hardships that exist even in the world of kids his own age. I smiled down at him feeling all the more grateful I was there, even if he had no idea what a priviledge it really was.

After the parade we came back into the classroom to get out of our costumes and then play a game. We brought some crepe paper and split the class in half. There are two teachers in Tanner's class so we had a contest which half of the class could get their teacher all wrapped up like a mummy the fastest. It was loads of fun!

Clean up was fun too!

Here's Tanner's scarecrow I found hanging in his classroom:

Mrs. Webber finished off our party with a nice Halloween story about a ghost. This helped us settle down and prepare for going home.

Okay, for our family dress-up this year....drum roll please!

I found some treasures new-in-wrapper at garage sales this summer.  Tanner and Lexie's surgical scrubs were among those.  And Derek's "Mr. Operation" outfit!  I swipped some of Derek's scrubs too and asked him to bring us home some surgical masks, hats and booties.  So we were a surgical team and Derek was the patient!  At one point during the night I mentioned to him I though he was a real trooper for putting up with my costume idea.  Afterall, it IS a pink jumpsuit!  He told me he felt like he was dressed more as a "good husband" than as Mr. Operation!  Nonetheless, those who know our family, got a good chuckle out of our costumes!