Halloween

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween. Here are some pictures of ours with the story below.

Ward party and parade. Below is a silly thing Chloe loves to do with her plates now.

Deciding how to carve the pumpkin. Daddy is pretty intense, but mommy ended up doing it. Chloe in her Utah shirt (Go Utes!) just liked chewing on the scraper tool.

This is Chloe in a full pumpkin crate, an empty pumpkin crate, measuring up to the pumpkin and sitting in some straw at Weber's Farm.


Chloe with lovey and monkey and Anna (Bell from Beauty and the Beast) at McCormick.

On the porch with the pumpkin waiting for trick-or-treater's. It was a beautiful evening.


Waving bye-bye!
Here's the story about the pictures above.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Chloe still has no idea what it is all about but I loved dressing her in a costume and being able to participate in all the fun. So needless to say it was all about me this year. The poor girl wasn't even allowed to eat any candy. It doesn't matter though because candy is just a cool wrapper to her. She will know what the goodness is waiting inside the wrapper soon enough.

Halloween started the weekend before with the ward Primary activity. Chloe was a monkey because she loves her stuffed monkey from her aunt Jori. It is the only animal she can tell you what it says. It is very cute. But she did well walking in the parade with Mom's help. She hasn't quite mastered the walking alone, but soon enough. She just wanted to look at everyone in the gym looking back at her.

We were slackers and waited until the day before Halloween to get our pumpkin. So on the afternoon before Halloween Chloe and I decided to take things into our own hands. So off to Weber's Farm, a place near our house that does the whole fall festival complete with pony rides. But a nearly one year old won't care about that so we saved our $9 and just went for the pumpkins and apple cider donuts. Being married to Mike I have become a donut connoisseur and these donuts were not my favorite. They were OK, but no Banbury Cross Cinnamon Crumb donut, oh how I miss those. I digress. I took lots of pictures of Chloe in the pumpkins and interestingly enough found out she really likes straw. I could have left her there for the entire afternoon and she would have been completely entertained.

On Halloween we had a very busy day. Chloe and I took our little friend Anna with us to visit the ladies at McCormick (mom's old co-workers). They were a hit. Everyone oooing and ahhing over the two cute girls. There were cookies and candy and so much fussing. Then we went to Sparks Elementary to see Anna's brother, Jacob, in his school parade. What fun is to come when Chloe goes to school.

In the past we have had so many trick-or-treater's. Our neighborhood has 1100 homes in a very small area, like so many in the Baltimore area. This is ideal for those seeking a large quantity of candy with minimal effort. Our street is a little quite though. All of our neighbors in our 5 house grouping, except us, turn off their lights and ignore the kids. Our neighbors across the street all sit out on their porches and one of them even has 5 or 6 of those huge blow-up decorations (Christmas is much worse) on their lawn. This is quite a sight as our lawns are TINY! Things were a little slow this year so I took Chloe across the street to talk to the neighbors and meet some of them. We had a great time and Chloe loved our neighbor's dog Lola. As we sat on our porch she just pointed and said "woof woof" over and over.

I was a little sad this weekend as I put away all the Halloween decorations. It is such a fun holiday, morbid though it may be. I'm looking forward to next year because Chloe will be almost 2 and I'm sure we won't be able to hide what candy is from her for another year. Plus I already have her ladybug costume thanks to the Old Navy after Halloween sales and Serena. Thanks again Serena!