Halloween Festivities

October is usually our busiest month of the year. For whatever reason (and maybe that reason is that we love Fall activities) our October is always packed. 

Some of the festivities got their own blog post, like: 

-Gardner Village with Melissa and Zachary

-Clue Party with Flints and Newbolds

-Walker Oliver Pumpkin Carving

-Cornbellys

(and the October Field Trips got blogged in the October Homeschool Post)

These are all getting lumped together for ease of posting, but each one could probably be their own post, too.  Here are some highlights: 

Haunted House Contest for Library 
Lydia loves the haunted house contest that the library hosts and this is her 3rd or 4th year of creating something to submit. It's only one per family and Austin was excited to be able to work on it with Lydia this year. They came up with the theme all on their own and they worked together to do it almost completely without my help. We went to the library, saw the flyer, and realized that it was due in 3 days. So we took the next day off of homeschool and the two of them worked on this all day. It turned out so well. It was titled "Halloween at Hogwarts" and had the Chamber of Secrets under the Great Hall, Aragog in the Forbidden Forest, and Mrs. Norris the Cat hanging in an"upstairs corridor" (on the back). The detail work was fantastic and they were really proud of their efforts. 




Library Halloween Party 

We got to go see/vote for their Haunted Hosue at the Library Halloween Party. We had the Haderlies for the weekend, so we took two cars and all 10 of us had a great time. 

"Frankie" Tradition 
This is one of the traditions that came from the Walker family, and the kids look forward to it every year. We make little candy chains counting down until Halloween and the kids get to eat one candy each day. (You know, because we don't get enough candy during this holiday.) I had a little Frankie like this growing up, and several years ago, Melissa made each family one of these for Christmas. We love it! 





SPARK Coop Halloween Party 

We knew that SPARK was having a Halloween party, but because it was so early in the month - I didn't have Lydia or Lucy's Halloween Costumes yet. They were trying to decide what they were going to be, and Lucy decided on a blue Elsa dress. I happened to have found a blue dress in Lydia's size at the DI that I grabbed on impulse because it was only $6 and so Lydia and Lucy decided to be "matching blue princesses". As they were talking about it, I realized that I also had a blue princess dress (my prom dress) and went upstairs to see if I would still fit in it. I managed to squeeeeeeze into it, but then realized almost immediately that I was stuck. It was ridiculous and spontaneous and so fun. After working to loosen the laces in the back I was able to wriggle my way out of it and the three of us decided to wear matching dresses the next day. 

We woke up at 5:15 in the morning because Lydia had volunteered to make "hundreds" of donuts for the party. We ended up making 72 donuts, which was PLENTY and took us every last second of the time we had that morning before we had to go to the party. We made glazed, frosted, and cinnamon sugar donuts. Lydia and Austin did an excellent job. 

The party itself was great. One of the classes, the "events" class hosted the party and they had lots of different carnival stations, a costume contest, and snacks. 

It was a fun day for kids and grownups alike. 



Morgan Corn Maze with Walkers 

My mom really wanted to gather everyone together to go to the Morgan Corn Maze. We came up on a Friday night and spent the evening playing in the bins of corn, going down the big slide, and exploring the corn mazes. Grandma Knowles was a trooper and she came through the corn maze with us and everything. It was a beautiful evening with perfect weather and a wonderful group of people. 

Haunted Halls @ American Fork High School 

Austin was SO disappointed that our ward wasn't going to host a Trunk or Treat for the Ward Party. The Primary Secretary saw his dejected look when they made the announcement and texted me after with a list of other community events that he might like to go to. I let him pick one and he decided on the "Haunted Halls" at American Fork High School. It was pretty neat. Lots of classes/organizations had been assigned a classroom to decorate and we got to walk around the school going through each classroom and getting a candy at each one. The classrooms were so creative. Spook Alley, Wild West Saloon, Minions, Dr. Seuss, etc.. But of course, our favorite was the Harry Potter theme. The girl in charge of the sorting hat looked at me right as she placed it on Lydia and Austin's head, so she could see me mouth the words "Hufflepuff" and "Gryffindor" respectively. They were both SO pleased that they'd been sorted into their preferred houses and it was the highlight of my night. David was out of town on a work trip, so we stopped at Arctic Circle for dinner on the way home and the kids thought it was the best night of their life. 

Morley Halloween Party 
Our friends/neighbors, Jake and Alex Morely, always host a couples costume party for Halloween. We've never been able to attend, because it's just so hard to get a babysitter. But this year, Lydia and Austin babysat for us. They put Caleb and Lucy to bed and then played games and watched a movie together. They did a great job and it was so great to be able to attend the party. Having Lydia (and Austin) be old enough to babysit for us is lifechanging, and although we try not to take advantage of it too often, it was fun to be able to go to this neighborhood Halloween party. 

We dressed up with some friends as the characters from Clue: Mrs. White and Colenel Mustard. The Youngs were Mr. Green and Ms. Scarlett. We had two other friends dressing up as Peacock and Plum but they had to cancel last minute. 

The party was a lot of fun. We were broken down into teams of 6 and sent off to do a scavenger hunt of Halloween related tasks (take a picture with a skeleton, take a video of you dancing to Thriller, etc..). You had to submit picture evidence to get points, and then after the allotted hour we gathered back at the clubhouse to watch a compilation of the pictures and videos. I don't like doing embarrasing things. Or being laughed at. Or do things that could even possibly be embrarrasing or laughed at. Our friend Derek said "Good thing we all have different skill sets", and he took the most embarrasing things for himself. I'm proud of myself for being a good sport. We were one of the highest teams, and although we didn't win, we did have fun. Our Team: Peadens + Derek/Amy Perkins + Brooke/Jacob Johnson





MOI/COI Halloween Party 

There is this really amazing homsechooling group that I'm a part of. Really, I'm on the fringes of it but I am trying to a more solid footing within the group. It's a Mother's of Influence group that follows the philosophy of the Well Educated Heart, and they recently started a Children of Influcnce group with monthly activities for all the kids. It meets on Friday mornings, with Halloween and Valentines on the actual holidays. We have SPARK on Friday mornings, so we haven't been able to go to any of their activities, but because Halloween was on a Tuesday we were able to come to this one. It had a bunch of games: pop the balloon, bingo, flick-a-spider, face painting, storytime, cornhole, charades, scavenger hunt. We started with a little devotional talking about this month's character trait: Friendship. Then they introduced the next month's character trait: Gratitude. Then they played all the games and ended with donuts and homemade rootbeer at the park next door. My kids didn't know any of the other kids, and Lydia asked me why we had to keep trying to make new homeschool friends because they didn't know anyone there. I felt bad, but also - this homeschool group is such an uplifting group to be a part of as a mom. I've really valued the things that I have learned from them and have the desire to continue to develop that connection. I'm going to have to think about whether it is worth coming to the kids activities, or if it's better to just develop the mom-connections without adding another thing for my kids. It's a good thing, but maybe it's not the best thing, or the thing that they need right now. We do have a lot of groups that we are connected to, and maybe this one isn't one that I need to nourish. Or maybe we would find good friends here if we tried. I don't know. I guess we will see. 

Lucy the Witch

And last but not least - Lucy as a little witch next to the craft project that she made of a little witch. (She's already requesting to be a witch for "next Halloween".