Trick or Treat

We had a super fun and super busy Halloween this year! The day started off with a Halloween Party in Nolan's Classroom! Mammoth Heights goes all out for Halloween and it is so fun! They had Halloween music pumping through the entire school. ALL the kids and ALL the teachers and staff were in costumes. And all of the classrooms held parties at the beginning of the day. 

Nolan and I got to school early to help his teacher set up and decorate. 

Nolan and his friend Ella helped set up all the spider rings around the food table. Ella is a sweet and sassy girl. She is always dressed so well! Her mom and I chat all the time. Her family is from Russia and her mom calls Nolan, "The All American Boy!" It's so cute! 

Here are all the kids getting ready to watch the announcements. I loved getting to see Nolan say the Pledge of Allegiance and the school motto: "Dream, Strive, Become!" They shout it every morning to start their day!

The yummy breakfast food table! Mini pancakes, banana ghosts, and cutie pumpkins! 

After the announcements, each child got to stand up, show their costume, and tell the class what they were dressed up as. 

I tried to snap this pic from afar of Nolan using his "dinosaur voice" to tell the class he was a "Ninja Turtle". 

Mrs. Stackley broke the kids up into three groups for the party. 

Nolan's first station was Halloween Bingo! He was a pro since we had just played this game a few nights before. The pictures were different and he loved getting to eat candy corn when he got a Bingo! 

Next, his group moved onto the FOOD! 

Probably his favorite part of the party! The boy can put it down! 

Then finally, we moved on to making a Halloween mask. Here is Nolan smiling with Mrs. Stackley. She is such a great teacher! She is positive and loving and has taught Nolan so much already this year! We love her! 

Nolan had no rhyme or reason to decorating his mask. The more he stuck on it, the better! 

Here is his finished product! He was quite proud! It was so fun to be a Mom this morning and to spend time one on one with my big guy! 

 I stuck around awhile to help kids out of their costumes and to clean up the classroom. Then when his class headed out to recess, I raced off to pick up Brooks from Oma & Opa's house. (Thanks for watching him that morning!) Then Brooks and I headed off to visit Mark at his NCM Halloween Party. 

As always, his company went all out. Each department decorated and dressed up. Mark's department's theme was "Sharknado". This was a big event for them this year, so it was a pretty funny and perfect Halloween theme for them to pull off! Mark dressed up like Ian Ziering's character! And others were dressed like Tara Reid and sharks and people who had been attacked by the "Sharknado". They did a cool job acting it out! Brooks DID NOT know what to think! But we had fun walking around and seeing all the different themes: Madmen, Prison, Wild West, Amusement Park, Dr. Seuss, and more! I'm not sure how much work gets done around there on October 31st, but I can't think of a better way to build staff morale. It's a pretty fun company to work for. Mark is blessed. 

After visiting NCM, I raced over to get Heath and Nolan from school. We came home to have lunch and rest for the afternoon and then we got ready to TRICK OR TREAT! The boys were so anxious and excited!  

They were dressed and ready to go by 5 o'clock! So we Skyped with Grandpa and took some pictures and showed off our cuteness for all the neighbor girls! 

Heroes in a half shell! 

Turtle Power! 

Nolan and Heath each chose the turtle that they wanted to be. For some reason, Raphael is their least favorite, so that's who Brooks ended up being because we could find that costume in his size. Then Daddy decided to be the fourth turtle to make the whole crew! 

The boys have seen parts of the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, but they really like the new show that is on Nickelodeon. The new show uses nick names for each of the turtles...

Nolan as Leo! 

Heath as Mikey! 

Brooks as Raphie! 

Mark as Donnie AND...

I dressed up as April O'Neil! I am sporting her new look! I think it's funny when my boys say, "Donnie has hearts in his eyes for April! He LOOOOOOOVES her!" 

At about 5:30, Mark and I were chatting in the kitchen when we realized that the boys were no where to be found. So we peeked outside and saw that they had decided to already start Trick or Treating ON THEIR OWN! They headed to our neighbors house, rang the doorbell, said "Trick or Treat", grabbed their candy, and said "Thank you" all before we realized! We loved their independence, but we figured we should probably talk about some trick or treating rules and safety tips before we went any further! Ha! 

Once we figured out a plan of alternating ringing the doorbells at houses, and after we reminded them about manners and speaking loudly and clearly, and after we asked them not too run too far or too fast out of our sights, we were all set to go door to door! 

Boy did they have a blast! 

Even little Brooksie did a great job! 

He tried to keep up with his brothers! He did a lot of walking! He would get up to the door, grab a candy, wave and say "Bye bye", and turn to walk away- ready to head to the next house! He had it down! 

It ended up being much colder than I thought it would be. I didn't last long! We did about 10 houses in our neighborhood and I headed in to warm up. Mark was "Super Daddy" and kept going with the boys. They didn't seem to be cold at all! Probably because they had a few more layers on and probably because they ran from house to house! I guess candy is pretty motivating when you are 5 and 3! 

After hitting up all of our immediate neighbors, we headed out to Oma & Opa's house! 

The boys LOVED seeing Oma & Opa all dressed up! Heath probably tickled Opa's belly 100 times that night just to hear The Pillsbury Dough Boy giggle! 

Here we are- the whole turtle crew! 

And...

the red heads! 

We had yummy soups and breads for dinner. 

 Then we tried to get a picture of all the cousins together in their costumes...

This was the best I got! Brooks and Arie were on the run, so my picture is a tad blurry. But they are all looking super cute! Landon is a dragon, Arie is a fox, Cohen is Spider Man, Payton has a Spanish Dancer costume, and Brady is a Ninja! 

After this pic, Mark took Brady, Nolan, and Heath out for more trick or treating in Oma & Opa's neighborhood! They love this tradition of heading out to many more houses later in the dark!

Oh man, do we have A LOT of candy!

Too much candy! We had fun sorting it! Nolan prefers fruit flavored candies. While Heath prefers chocolate. Who am I kidding, Heath likes it all! Our little sweet tooth! We'll be sending some of it off to Oma's house to fill her candy jar a few times over. And some of it will sneak it's way into my Prize Box at school. But it has sure worked as a good behavior bride! No, I am not above bribing...it just plain works with my kiddos! I'll admit it. Ha! 

We love Halloween around here. And we love Holidays! Already have the Halloween stuff down and the Thanksgiving decor up! Looking forward to a month of focused thankfulness and giving back with my boys. We have some fun ideas planned. "Rejoice always, pray continually, give THANKS in ALL circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:18