Happy Halloween

We braved the cold and the drizzle outside tonight to do a little trick-or-treating . . .

And we got completely spoiled by them . . . .

And now we officially have enough candy to last a lifetime, which means Halloween was a complete success!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night we headed over to Mom and Dad's for dinner and some pumpkin carving.  This year we decided to simplify a bit and just get two pumpkins to help the boys carve instead of trying to do theirs AND ours.  We had a lot of fun and we're always glad when Janna can get in on the fun too!

Landon was anxious to help

Tanner insisted he clean out the pumpkin himself

Mom helping Landon carve his pumpkin

Dad helping Tanner carve his

Finished pumpkins: Janna's, Tanner's, and Landon's

Senior Trick-or-Treat

If you're an avid reader of my blog you may remember the Senior Trick-or-Treat activity our ward puts on every year at a local nursing and rehabilitation center.  We LOVE this activity.  It's so fun to see the joy it brings to these people when we come and spend the evening with them.  And I love how much they adore my kids and the opportunity it gives the boys to learn about service.  It's also so fun to see what creative things everyone comes up with for their cardboard creations.  This year in keeping with our football theme we made an end zone and goal post. . .

football player, referee, football, and their #1 fan

Tanner handing out treats

Landon wanted in on the action and the Seniors LOVED him

Mom and Dad put together an AMAZING Jukebox that had a spinning turntable and music playing in the background.  Janna was all decked out in her poodle skirt to match.

Mom helping Janna hand out treats 

Goettman's made some cheese and brought a few mice to hand out treats

Rusty had his very own boat

The Achievement Day Girls made this Merry-go-Round.  They'd pick it up, walk around, and take turns handing out the candy.

Savannah and Liam in their Buzz Lightyear Space Ship

Our Relief Society President with her gingerbread house.  She even handed out gingerbread cookies.

Our Young Women's President was a Circus Clown to go with the Young Women's Circus Train.

So cute!

Some crazy Circus Animals

Bishop was Harry Potter and was SO cute with the Seniors.  He talked so much they had to tell him to hurry things up cause he was holding up the show!

The Young Men put together this chimney complete with Christmas Lights and Santa!  Dean was a MAJOR help on this one!

And the Missionaries made a Temple complete with an Angel Moroni on top!

Wendy's Run

Monday night we saw a commercial for some hamburger at Wendy's and I mentioned how delicious it looked and then reminded Dean of the good old days when we were dating and he'd drop everything, pick me up and go on a Wendy's run. I completely forgot about the whole thing until I went into the kitchen about midnight(yes, we were up eating hamburgers at midnight!) and saw Dean whipping up this . . .

It was so cute, and thoughtful, and spontaneous all at the same time.  And believe me, that burger was WAY better than Wendy's!  Thanks for still being that same, thoughtful guy who'd do anything to make me happy!

My Moose

Today Landon was wearing a shirt with this on it . . .

No we are NOT hoping for snow any time soon, it was just the inspiration for this . . .

Tanner INSISTED he be a moose and that we give him an extra set of legs.  Walking on his hands and feet just wouldn't cut it.

Throw in a pair of antlers and we've got ourselves a MOOSE.

Tanner is VERY into making and creating things these days.  He's made about 4 different "Christmas Presents" for Landon already out of paper and various other things he can find to tape and glue together.  Ha!  Lucky Landon!  It's always fun to see what his little brain will come up with next.

Ward Trunk-or-Treat

Tonight we had our annual Ward Trunk-or-Treat activity.  We got all dressed up and made 65 hand dipped pretzel ghosts (Why do I always get crazy ideas to make home made treats!?  Next year remind me it's not worth it!  Ha!) to pass out.  Then we decorated the van and braved the cold to enjoy the evening out.  This time we even had dinner, hay rides, and roasted marshmallows.  Other than the FREEZING weather, and Landon screaming half the night about who knows what, it was a pretty fun evening.  Plus we were able to take one of the widows in our ward whose car is acting up, so we were glad we got to help her out as well.

Our cute little ghost pretzels.

Me and Tanner made all of these puppies.  The making didn't seem to take half as long as individually packaging all of them.  What was I thinking?  A simple bag of candy would suffice.

If you couldn't guess we have a football theme this year.  Dean's a referee, Landon's the football, Tanner's a football player, and although I didn't make it into any pictures I'm the #1 fan.

Tanner and his little girl friends.  He's a smoothie.  I asked them to smile for a picture and he told them to hold his hands.  Ha!  This kid's got moves! ;)

Tanner and "Bumble Bee" . . . he wouldn't call her Paige just "Bumble Bee" all night. 

A witch hit our van.

Trunk-or-Treating

Dean handed out our goodies while we did the trunk-or-treating from car to car.

Landon taste testing his loot.

Halloween Shadow Puppets

The other day I saw this and thought it might be a fun thing to try with the boys.  Especially since Tanner has an obsession with playing in his "dark, dark room" lately.  He insists it's just a Halloween thing and that once Halloween is over we won't have to constantly play in the dark, but I have a hunch he'll have a new excuse after Halloween.  Anyway, this time I enjoyed it more since we had an actual activity rather than just trying to play with toys we can't see and bumping into things like we usually do.  Ha!  The Crafting Chicks got all fancy and use their computer to design cutouts and stuff, but we just kept it simple and drew and cut out our own.  That was half the fun!

Tanner's concentrating hard to cut out his ghost

I drew the ghost and he cut it out all by himself.  Didn't he do AWESOME?  Seriously, I was impressed.

All our puppets ready to go

A witch and a haunted house.  It's NOT easy to get a picture of shadows.

Tanner's Monster and my Witch

Tanner with his creations

When we were done Tanner had us come under his blanket and he told us a ghost story.  I LOVE that he's getting old enough to really get things.  It's so much fun.

Sweater Refashion

I found this sweater at Salvation Army the other day. (surprise, surprise!)  I thought it was super cute, but since we're not necessarily Ohio State fans I thought it would be even cuter if I personalized a bit.

Super cute right!?

Family Home Evening Bike Ride

For FHE last night we decided to load up our bikes and head to the park to do some bike riding. Tanner struggles to peddle up and down our road so we thought it would be nice to let him cruse around a level parking lot. We also wanted to take advantage of the nice weather we've been having cause before we know it will be gone. Man, I love doing things as a family. Wish we could more often. We can't wait until Dean's done with his Masters! IF we survive that is! Oh well, we'll enjoy the little moments when we manage to squeeze them in. That's life right!?

Doesn't get much cooler than this

Tanner's little shadow

Dad and Landon 

Tanner and Mom

And this is why we love him so much.  No lack of personality here.

Tanner kept trying to turn too sharp and he'd tip his bike right over.  Dean and I tried to act concerned, but really we just wanted to bust up laughing.  Don't worry, he never actually got hurt.

Landon LOVES bike rides, just not his helmet