Halloween festivities 2013

This pregnancy has thrown me off a little bit and we didn't do some of our usual Halloween activities. We skipped Cornbelly's and the witches at Gardner Village, I never got any decorations out, and we didn't even carve pumpkins! The girls didn't seem to mind and I was happy to do as little as possible.

I didn't even have to do costumes this year. Alta was already set on being an elephant that she had found at Dan's parents house months ago. And guess whose old costume it was?

Yep, little 5-year-old Dan. He wore it when he was in kindergarten. (We looked through old Brower family photos months ago and I had taken a picture of this picture, I'm especially glad I have it now!)

And for Ellie, Lorna has been having her over once a week for what Ellie calls "Grandma preschool" and one week she offered to take Ellie to the fabric store to choose a pattern and then make her costume. I couldn't say no to that! Ellie chose a dinosaur and then wanted to add wings so she could be a flying dinosaur.

The Saturday before Halloween we were in Provo for Dan's frisbee games so the girls and I spent the morning with my parents. My dad decided to make Halloween sugar cookies with the girls and it was so cute to watch:

A few days later they got to make and decorate Halloween sugar cookies again with Ruby and Ellie!

The day before Halloween, Alta had gymnastics and they got to wear their costumes and play games. They had obstacle courses, noodle "sword-fighting" on the balance beam, bean bag tosses, and a rope swing. It's hard to get pictures from the balcony where I sit and watch, but here's Alta on the rope. She decided she wanted to wear her Little Red Riding Hood costume from last year.

On Halloween, Alta put her costume on and headed off to school. They had a school parade that we got to go watch (Dan even made it at the last minute). Ellie insisted on wearing her costume. Some of the ward moms waiting for the kids to come out:

 And little Alta with her hood falling off, oops!

 She was so excited to see us all there and came and gave Ellie a big hug:

They had a class party afterwards and then had an early release day. We spent the day playing at home and then finally got ready for trick-or-treating in the evening.

 Running down the street to meet up with a few friends. I never got a good picture of the whole group, but we went with Ruby and Ellie and another neighborhood friend who has three little girls.

 It's fun to see how excited Alta and Ellie get for Halloween each year as they get older! Both my shy girls had no problem running up to every house and talking to strangers. Anything for candy! Ellie got a little worn out by the end, but I think Alta could have gone for hours. After trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, we drove to the Browers to say hi and stop by a few houses of family friends there as well. The girls spent the evening eating candy and holding cute Ewok Beck:

 And now every morning Ellie notices a few pieces of candy missing from her bucket and says, "Daddy, stop eating my candy without asking!". We can't fool them anymore!