A "Beauty" of a Week!

It seems like this week was so busy, that all I did was change from my pj's to my costume, back to my pj's. Fortunately, I'm unhealthily obsessed with Halloween, so I loved every minute of it. My fabulous friend Calista, was good enough to sew my Belle costume for me. I learned so much from watching her, although I don't know how much I'll remember. I really want to learn how to sew just so I can make mommy dress up clothes :) It was a lot of fun though, and she was great to put in all the time to make it, especially since she's dealing with all the yucky pregnancy stuff as well.

So, the week started on Monday with my sister Andrea flying in from Boise to stay for the whole week. She shares my passion for Halloween, so we had a great time together.

On Tuesday was the ward Halloween party. I somehow got roped into planning it even though I'm not on the activities committee. The last ward party we had was Christmas last year, and my kids were sick so we didn't get to go. Needless to say our ward was in desperate need of some social interaction. Especially since we have like a 60% turnover every semester. Everyone feels new. I'm in charge of all the relief society activities groups so I figured we'd just count it as that and throw a huge party since we were all starving for some fun in the ward.

My group leaders were so great and helped out so much. I was stressed out for months, but it all came together and turned out to be a great activity. Here's a few pictures, from the activity. We had about 120 people come! (I was running around too much to get more than this)

The tables were all decorated black or orange with a pumpkin and leaves on top. Then we put a sticker on the bottom of one chair at each table, and whoever had the sticker, got to take the pumpkin home.

For dinner we had all people with last names starting with A-L bring soup and last names starting with M-Z bring desserts. The ward provided rolls and drinks. There were so many yummy soups. I think I went back 4 times to try as many different soups as possible. We had TONS of food, so I was relieved!

After dinner we did a parade for the kids. This picture is of the babies lining up for their turn. It was so cute!

After dinner the kids could go to different rooms to play games. We had a ring toss, cake walk, bean bag toss, fishing pond, and eyeball relay. The kids got tons of candy and prizes. (note to self: get treat bags for next year). I was mostly running around trying to clean up dinner and make sure the games were all going o.k. that I didn't get to see much of the kids, but they sounded like they had a good time.

When the games were finished, we had everyone come back to the cultural hall and we handed out prizes for the costumes. Hyrum won the best overall costume for the junior primary age group. I couldn't believe how many adults dressed up and how amazing their costumes were. It really was a fun activity and hopefully everyone had a good time!

Thursday was Ben's work trick or treating. The kids got to dress up and go trick or treating to all the different cubicles. They got so much candy! All the employees dressed up and their were some hilarious costumes. Ben and a bunch of developers all dressed up like women. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of Ben in my maternity clothes, makeup and a wig. At least he didn't fit into my regular clothes :)

They also had a contest for the best decorated cubicle and Ben won a $50 gift card to best buy. He had this stuffed person with a pumpkin head slumped over a key board with a mother board sticking out the back of his head. Then he had spider webs, skeletons, and different banners hanging everywhere. We were totally jazzed he won, because we went out and got wii music for free!

Friday was the craziest day. I dropped Hyrum off at school, then drove back and changed as fast as I could so I could come back to help with his class Halloween party. I thought it was funny that I was dressed as Belle and I was in charge of reading Halloween stories.

After Hyrum's class party I once again quickly drove back, changed into pj's and ran to a doctor's appointment (that's a whole other post in and of itself).

Then I drove back home, had a fun Halloween lunch of pumpkin and bat sandwiches with the kids and then quickly finished decorating the house, and making dinner. We had potato cheese soup in these cute bread bowls that looked like pumpkins. Then we had a few trick or treaters and then headed up to Springville, to our old ward and went trick or treating. We only had to do one street before the kids bags were too big for them to carry. The weather was so good for most of it though. We didn't even have to wear jackets.

It was a great Halloween! The kids had tons of fun going to all the parties, I had so much fun hanging out with my sister, and we have enough candy to last until next year. I have to say though, I did breath a little sigh of relief when I was able to flip that calendar to a calmer November. I may pull out my Belle costume to vacuum the house or something though. After all Halloween is still 363 days away!