October Wrap Up

A few things from October:

Lydia and Austin drawing their own Temples. 

Lydia helped Lucy dress up as a "Grandma" and it was so so cute. 

She also dressed up and let Lucy take some pictures of her.

Shantel and Lucy resting together. 

Our kids right before the primary program. 

The first snow of the year (plus Lydia making a little snow puppy). 

Lucy taking her baby for a walk. It is so fun to see her play with her babies and take care of them. 

Halloween

Halloween was a treat this year. No major costume designs but four happy and sugar-loaded kids. We started the day at our coop and then went to trick or treat at Sue's house.   

Lydia decided that she wanted to be a black cat and after some deliberation Lucy decided to be a witch. Hilariously, for a long time Lucy would say that she wanted to be a "table" for Halloween. (She would usually say this as she planked her body across two objects/chairs.) Then she said she wanted to be a hyena. Thankfully I found the costume Lydia wore when she was 3 in 2015, and Lucy was pleased as punch to be a witch. I laughed when I just went back and found the old blog post because in that post I talk about how I wanted Austin to match Lydia's witch costume, and what goes with a witch? A Cat! Austin ended up being a bat, but Lydia and Lucy were darling together. 





Austin wanted to be a shark but none of the homemade shark ideas were satisfying to him, so we found this shark costume and he was happy. (Other than he REALLY wanted to get a blow-up air-filled shark costume, but it was an adult size and so I talked him out of it.) 

Caleb? Well.. Caleb wanted to be a Volcano. I wasn't sure how we were going to pull that together until we were at my parents house in Morgan and my Grandma Knowles heard us talking about it. She went into her room and came out with this amazingly perfect shirt. We stuck a pool noodle in the bottom, added a mountain headpiece (at Caleb's insistence), and colored Caleb's too-long hair red. It was perfect and he was the happiest of all the kids this Halloween. 

Austin and Caleb's costumes went well together because Austin was a shark swimming in the ocean around Caleb's volcano. The kids were happy with their costumes and seeing them happy made me happy. 

We had a special Halloween dinner of spaghetti and mandarin oranges. I made some special candles that had secret messages in them after the wax started melting and that was fun. (Lydia's said "meow", Austin's said "Trick", Caleb's said "Treat", Lucy's said "L (heart), David's said "I love you" and mine said "Boo". 

We love trick or treating in our neighborhood, and even though we missed the Haderlies trick or treating with us, we had a good time visiting with our neighbors. 

The next morning we counted and graphed our candy - per homeschooling tradition. I want to start getting some data for a line chart over the course of several years, so below is our candy data. Overall a really wonderful Halloween! 





Lucy 54 Pices - Most Orange (12)

Caleb 58 Pieces - Most rainbow (color of the candy on the inside) (25)

Austin 133 Pieces - Most red (32)

Lydia 155 Pieces - Most red and blue. 

Halloween Festivities

October is typically one of our busiest months of the year and that's because it's filled to the brim with festivities. Fall adventures, Halloween celebrations, and time with family and friends. It's the best. 

Walker Pumpkin Carving

A tradition that's been going for 35 years. Yay. Someday I'll have to dig out some pictures from when I was young and we carved pumpkins with the Oliver Family. But until then, I love these people and am grateful that we get to do this fun thing together. This year we added in some Halloween cookie decorating and it was a bit hit. 

Christmas Cookies in October

We ended up baking loads of sugar cookies for different Halloween parties and the last time we did it - I decided to make a huge batch and just make our Christmas Sugar cookies at the same time. It was totally the right thing to do because now they are in the freezer just waiting for December to roll around. 

Lydia Haunted House Competition

The Lehi Library puts together a Haunted House Competition each year and applicants are supposed to build haunted houses out of recycled items. Lydia did a house last year and she was so excited to do another one this year. I was in Mexico the week of the due date, so she did this basically all on her own with just a little help from David. I'm proud of her and glad she was able to do it without my influence because it is 100% her. The Purple Pumpkin, a spooky restaurant. 

Gardner Village

Another one of our very favorite Halloween/Fall traditions - going to Gardner Village to see the Witches with Melissa and Zachary. 

Trick or Treating at Eide Bailly

The kids loved being able to go trick or treating at David's office again this year after a couple of years of not being able to due to Covid. They had a blast. Lydia convinced David to dress up in a baseball shirt, and I surprised him by coming in a coordinating football jersey. Our theme was "We should get jerseys, 'cuz we make a good team." 

I loved it. 

Lucy loved it so much she asked me to make up a song about it that night and we continued to sing it on repeat for the next several weeks. It's to the tune of "One little Pumpkin." and it's the second verse. 

"One little two little three little pumpkins,

Four Little Five Little Six Little Pumpkins

Seven Little, Eight Little, Nine Little Pumpkins

Ten Little Pumpkins in - a - row."

"Daddy works at Eide Bai - lly

He works hard so we can play-ay

Take the elevator, go trick or treating

We love Daddy so - much."