Happy Halloween

Braden wanted to be Robin Hood for Halloween so at the last minute I decided to try and make him a costume with some felt and flannel that my mom gave me ages ago.  I just eyeballed it without any kind of pattern.  I realized the brown cover part I made too big.  I needed to wait until he came home from school to cut the head hole, but I didn't.  So it was what it was.  He loved it though and wore it from the moment I showed it to him three days before Halloween to Halloween day.  He loved it, so in my book it's a great success even if it wasn't perfect.  I was going to make a bow and arrow out of a Pringles can and some string and sticks, but didn't have time since I was in charge of Braden's school Halloween party and not one other parent was willing to help me. 

My favorite part of his costume was the hat.  I just cut it out and sewed it together then folded up the bottom part.  We had a big goose feather in it given to us by some friends who had recently been hunting, but it kept falling out and then he decided he liked it without the feather.

Dalin wanted to be a police officer for Halloween.  We have had these cheap dollar store hand cuffs forever and a dollar store cap gun that was given to us.  I managed to get the shirt on clearance and he wore pants we already had.  I went cheap this year, what can I say.  But they were so happy with the results that I can't complain.

What a cute little officer he made.

Landon tried on a bunch of costumes, but decided to be a skeleton.  He just kept saying and telling everyone he met "I'm scary".

We went to our ward's trunk-or-treat and soup social, but since it was held outside and it was freezing cold we didn't stay long.  After we decided to try the Community Center where they have trick-or-treating around the outside of the building where local businesses line up with candy to give out.  Then we went inside the Community Center where they had a lot of booths set up and games for the kids to play and win a prize or treat.  This was so fun and I think we'll do this again next year.  The kids didn't get as much candy, but they had more fun playing all the different games.  Plus they still got plenty of candy so it worked out great. 

Here is Dalin doing to the cake walk.

And here he is with his winnings.

Landon won this whistle that drove me crazy for about a week until it finally broke.  He is also clutching a sucker that he kept for most of the evening.  He loves suckers.

At the bottom of the twirly slide and into the cemetery.   They did this over and over.

Bean bag toss.  Each of them did each game once and then earned their prizes.  It was really fun for them to play the games and most of them were easy enough for Landon. 

Taking his turn.

Playing matching cards to earn a prize.

Braden playing with his chompers as he referred to them.

Landon got the top prize at this game by knocking over all the cans in one throw.  The girl was really impressed.

He earned this glowing spider, but it scarred the crap out of him.  He said it was too scary.

Dalin collecting his prize.

And the ring toss.  There were tons more games that I didn't get pictures of.  We had a really fun night however...

after we got home, put the kids to bed, and played games with some friends of ours the fun began.  Both Dalin and Braden started barfing their guts out around 1:00 a.m.  They were so sick.  Dan thought that it was because they ate too much candy, but it was definitely the flu.  Landon got it the next night, then Dan, and finally I got it.  It was the worst flu I have ever had.  I have never barfed quite that bad before and had my stomach hurt that badly.  It was the most miserable thing.  But after about 24 hours it was gone and we all felt better rather quickly.  But a couple of days later Braden ended up getting strep throat.  After we started him on antibiotics he recovered very quickly and we got back to normal life.  This is the second year in a row that Dalin was terribly sick on Halloween.  But at least this year we waited until the day was over before we started with the sickness.  I don't even want to think about how many people we came in contact with that we spread the germs to that night.  A couple of kids barfed at the ward soup social in the parking lot so it must have been going around.