Trunk-or-Treat

We went to our church Halloween party last night and it was pretty crazy, but a lot of fun.  Scott is out of town for work so we braved it alone.  I learned a few things about how I could've made the experience less stressful for me, but overall it was ok and the kids had a great time.  Here we are before heading over to the party.

And being scary!!

Matthew was MIckey Mouse and Anna was a mermaid (Ariel if you ask her).

True to form, Anna changed her mind at the last minute.  She was going to be Minnie Mouse, which I thought was amazing since her and Matthew independently chose coordinating costumes.  But the day off the party she said she wanted to be something else.  I said she could pick any of the costumes from the dress up box.  She picked a mermaid, which doesn't surprise me.  Before she "decided" on Minnie Mouse she had been telling me she wanted to be Ariel for several months, but I couldn't find a good mermaid costume.  I saw this one at Costco a while ago and bought it on a hunch.  For Matthew I just collected the different pieces and sewed the big buttons on the shorts...which seem to be too far apart in this picture.  :)  I think it works though.  People knew who he was.

The kids posing.  Anna was singing Little Mermaid songs and Matthew was pretending to be scared.  Grant just doesn't know what's going on.  Grant is a tiger, the same tiger costume Matthew wore when he was that age.  It was a little big on Grant, but still worked.

The party was quite a production!!  I was very impressed.  First there was a chili competition and crockpot upon crockpot of chili to eat along with cornbread toppings and hot dogs.  The place was packed!  Our ward is pretty big and everyone brought friends to this party so there were a lot of people.  I should have invited some friends too.  :)  After the dinner the kids did a costume parade.  I didn't even get to see the kids do their costume parade 'cause I was setting up the trunk or treat trunk  (here is our trunk - I think it could have looked better, but I threw it together in 30 seconds with one arm carrying a baby, so I was fine with it).  I helped the kids walk around a little to the other trunks, then Matthew took off to go do it alone and Anna came back with me to hand out candy.  She was a good helper.

Grant sat in the stroller a lot.  Sorry buddy.

After trunk-or-treating we went back inside for carnival games.
Here is Anna mermaid-ing it up.

Here is Matthew doing the bowling game.  The 11 and 12 year old boys were running this and they did a really great job helping all the kids.

Anna and Matthew did the dangling donuts game.  Why I let Anna do it with a chocolate glazed donut, I don't know.  Clearly I was not in my right mind.  The 11 and 12 year old boys ran this one too and were so sweet to the little kids.  We must have the sweetest kids in our ward!

Here's Anna doing another game, lasso something or other.  Everything was so fun!

This one was called ghost ball!

And a blurry picture of Anna doing the bean bag toss.

Playing a fishing game.  Matthew and Anna got harmonicas!  

That's Anna in the lower right corner fishing.

The cake walk was a favorite for my kids.  They loved stepping on the steps - each one was a different Halloween character.  And they played Ghostbusters while the kids walked around, which they liked.  Eventually, they each won a cupcake.

Doing a ring toss.  It was shortly after this that the fire alarm in the church went off, effectively ending the party (people were starting to clean up anyway).  Some fog from the spook alley set off the smoke alarm and the fire department showed up a few minutes later.  It's not a real party if the cops or fire department don't show up, right?  I was glad the fire truck didn't stop behind my car, so I could still leave after the party.  :)

After we got home I was tired.   Halloween can be exhausting.  We all de-costumed and I put all the kids to bed and then sat there wondering how I could have done that better.  Things to think about for next year.