Halloween Night 2015!

The kids made this awesome haunted house with Grandma Ce-Ce while we were on our cruise, so we needed to make good use of it! We decided to hand out cupcakes and hot chocolate instead of candy this year, and everyone seemed to love it! Adults loved to get some hot chocolate on the chilly night, and the kids loved the monster cupcakes. Alanna isn't in the pictures because she just wouldn't decide what to be. She kind of threw a fit and decided to stay at home and play on the tablet instead of trick-or-treating or passing out goodies. Half way through the night when the crew stopped in for a bathroom break, she decided to join them, sans costume. She collected plenty of candy, as did each of them. Of course, I let them go hog wild with it for two days, and then I took it to make brownies and cookies with (meanest mom ever!) Alanna finally communicated to us that she doesn't want to be something sweet and fairytalish for Halloween...she wanted to be a bloody vampire! Oh no! I hope things change before next year because I don't want my baby girl to be a vampire!

Perkins Halloween Party 2015!

Darth Mal!Jackson did his own make-up

Bat Cache in his Batmobile

Some beat up painter?

Glinda, flying monkey, and The Wizard of Oz

Peter is a Dalmatian, and Max is a puppy too

Cat Woman

Festive decorations provided by Fred and Jill, of course!

I don't know why I just can't get enough pictures of the pie eating faces! I think Caleb won, again!

Blaze really didn't want to "gut" his pumpkin, but he did it anyway

These cuties enjoyed playing make believe as monsters and aliens while the bigger kids carved pumpkins

Luke is just amazing! This is his favorite carving for this year. He was nice enough to help Jackson carve the skin of his pumpkin too, and he even left some of his special tools behind for Jackson to use.

Fred and Jill gave each kid one of these multi colored spiders. I think they were to go inside their jack-o-lanterns, but my kids didn't want them to get dirty and ruined. So they are all over the house being used as flashlights now.

I tried making key lime caramel apples with some of the key lime oil I brought back from Key West Florida. I loved them!

It's so funny to watch these younger kids try to eat a donut from a string. Blaze chased his around like a dog chasing his tail. Cache took bites from three different donuts because his original wouldn't stay still. I think They all just ended up grabbing with their hands to shove them in. Luke won the contest and gobbled his up very quickly!

Trunk-or-Treat!

The Primary was in charge of our ward Trunk-or-Treat this year, and we decided to go with a Candyland theme instead of something ghoulish or ghostly! I work with the most amazing ladies, and we had so much fun planning this party! Kristi has turned into a balloon clown and made this amazing balloon arch and all of the squiggles for the center pieces. Everyone was so impressed, and the kids absolutely loved it! We had a potluck soup/chili dinner, played carnival games, and ended with all of the kids collecting way too much candy! It's so fun to live in a place with so many young kids and adults who are so enthusiastic about entertaining them!

Pumpkin Patch 2015!

This is the 9th year we have been to this favorite pumpkin patch of ours, and I'm so thrilled that my kids weren't "too old" for it. They never tire of pretending to ride tractors, pushing around the mini wheel barrows, or trying to pick up pumpkins heavier than themselves!

Mater was a new addition as of last year, and Blaze was just as excited to see him again this year.

Picking the perfect pumpkin is pretty serious stuff for these kids! It took Paul so long that I finally had to give him a time limit so he'd make a choice. He really wanted a giant one, but I limited them to the $3 pumpkins which were plenty big to carve.