Halloween always has so many activities every year! We started off with a church Trunk-or-treat/Dance, had pumpkin painting for school, downtown trick-or-treating in Childress, the movie theater costume contest and movie, school parties, downtown Wellington trick-or-treating, visits to the assisted living and hospital, door-to-door trick-or-treating, and finally handing out candy at our house!! As seems to be the case every year, the kids enjoy passing out the candy at our house the most. However we didn't get many people this year.
Oma nailed the costumes once again this year!! We finally got the kids to decide what they wanted to be at the end of September, and then they called Oma. She did amazing! We haven't forced a theme every year, but we do suggest one (I mean who doesn't love the themed costumes?!?). They have always been willing and excited to dress up together. We LOVE it, and we love getting Halloween costumes delivered in a box to our door! Oma is amazing!!
Kyler as Captain Hook, Radley as the Crocodile (with a clock), Damon as Peter Pan, and Bentley has Tinker Bell.
These Neverland cuties got attention everywhere we went, especially once people caught the theme.
Captain Hook was super proud of his costume. He got so many comments and love his wig!
Peter Pan got the pose down and was frustrated that people kept calling him Robin Hood.
Tinker Bell loved wearing her costume!! She wore it any chance she got and refused to take off her wings to put a jacket on when we were outside and it was chilly.
The coolest crocodile ever!! He wore his costume all day at school even with the big head. A lot of people thought he is was dinosaur or alligator, but he took it well!
Damon really wanted to get a picture with just him and Bentley.
Trick-or-treating in Childress.
Kyler won best costume in his age group at the movie theater. Several people, including the lady who runs the theater, said our kids should have won the whole contest. They didn't do a theme contest and only had 3 age groups, but Kyler was excited to win!
Trick-or-treating prop in Wellington.
Ready to get more candy.
So sad and worried she would turn into a witch!!
The music teacher in town gets into Halloween and gives the kids potions that can either turn them into a frog or a witch. Bentley was convinced she was going to turn into a witch!!
Way more candy that we could ever want or need!!! Damon even got an entire sleeve of Oreos!
The kids were all super excited and ready to pass out candy when we got home. We divided up the candy (kept all the chocolate aside of course) and had a huge bowl of candy to give away. They were running back and forth screaming about needing customers to come by and get candy. Yelling every time a car would turn or pass by without stopping. Here's a super dark, but loud video of them waiting for 'customers.'
These are the pumpkins the kids painted for school. They were supposed to make a pumpkin based on their favorite book character. I'm not sure they really picked their favorites or just a book they liked, but Kyler painted a shark from Shark vs. Train, Damon picked a sheep dog from a book about dogs, Radley picked George from Curious George, and Bentley painted Tangled.
Kenney and I spent some time together working on a couple projects over the weekend, with the kids around of course! Bentley was kind enough to arrange the first project when she inserted a penny into the CD slot in the van. The next day we finished that project and installed a new storm door with a SCREEN!!! This is huge for us because we do not have any other windows in the house with a screen. If we want fresh air we have to open a door. I've been especially excited for this door!
We had to remove several pieces of the dash in order to get to the CD player. This was just a picture of the cords on the back of one piece because we wanted to ensure that we could put it back together the right way. We should have taken a picture of all the pieces we needed to remove, but neither of us thought about it. Kenney was able to get to the penny and got it out. We started this project on a Friday night but couldn't finish until the next morning because of the dark and a dropped bolt. The next morning Kenney went to the lumber yard to get a similar bolt. We tried unsuccessfully to retrieve the bolt, but it dropped to somewhere we couldn't see or reach. Kenney wanted to make sure we had a bolt so there wouldn't be any rattling (I hate rattling sounds!!). However, unless we special ordered the bolt, which we didn't know if we could even do, we couldn't find one exactly like it. Kenney thought he would just have to strip it. Well since most of the dash is plastic now that didn't work, and then we couldn't get the bolt, that wasn't properly screwed in, out!! We for sure would have a rattle now. So we did what any intelligent person would do by gluing and duct taping the bolt in place!! Yep we are from small town Texas!
The storm door was a much more successful project.
Now I can lower the top half of the door and have a breeze blow in!!
However, we decided the new door really makes our windows look bad!!
Red Ribbon Week at school is no fun for parents!! With every day having a new theme and way for the kids to dress up, it gets annoying. We got 4 of the 5 days so I figured that was a success with 3 different kids to dress up. Superhero day I didn't get pictures because they didn't all wear costumes all day. I also didn't get pictures for Rocket Red Friday, but I did get the first two days.
Pirate Day, something about Pirates ARRR against drugs I think.
Neon/Sunglasses day, Skyrockets are too bright for drugs.
Bentley and Radley racing one another outside one day. Bentley's clothes of a swimsuit, a huge skirt, and her little heels are just too much! She has quite the fashion gene!!
This video is a little old, but it should have given me enough since to not let Damon go rock climbing. He couldn't get down from the tree he climbed and was throwing a huge fit about it. So Kenned decided to record him!!
I keep trying to get videos of Bentley just talking because the things she says these days can be pretty funny. We have a lot of videos of Damon saying the most random stuff. Here she is talking to Kenney while he works on the front door.
We went to Lubbock for Stake Temple Day. As usual we had some errands to run which meant taking 4 kids shopping, Yay!!!! NOT!!! These are a few of our adventures.
A quick visit to Pet's Mart to see some animals.
The annual stop at the Halloween store.
We have been coming to the Halloween store in Lubbock every year since we lived there. Kenney loves it and loves watching the kids get scared with the decorations. Over the years the decorations have become less and less, but there were still a few this year. This is their reaction to a few of them. The best reaction we got from Bentley was of course not recorded, but she was terrified at one point!
Target... no further explanation needed.
They found the most random stuff in the Target Halloween section. Radley's dance was pretty funny!
Kenney keeping the boys entertained while Bentley and I were getting her cleaned up from peeing in the middle of the store!!
We knew for a while that we needed to teach Radley how to ride a bike. We also knew it probably wouldn't take him long once he decided to try. We made a couple trips to the parking lot at the clinic and let Radley go. He didn't have much interest because he couldn't go as fast as his scooter. Then he fell off his scooter and scraped up his leg. So it put us back, but it only took him about 2 actual attempts for him to get his balance and pedal. He is pretty amazing!!
Kenney found a project to work on while listening to General Conference. He saw an old typewriter in a shed at a friend's house while he was there with the boys cleaning up his yard. The man told Kenney he could have it if he would mow his yard. Kenney mowed the yard and still tried to pay for the typewriter, but the man wouldn't let him. So Kenney brought it home and decided to see if he could clean it up and get it to work again. He wants to put it in Bentley's room for decoration.
He spent a few hours taking it apart and giving it a good cleaning. In the middle of cleaning it, Papa came by the house because he had shot a deer with his bow and couldn't find it. Kenney and the boys went out with him and found the deer.
On Nana's birthday Kenney took her out to dinner with Kevin and Cary Shane, so she could spend some time with just her sons. Then we all met up together for cake and ice cream.
Before Pictures
The biggest deer Papa has shot with a bow.
After
The kids' faces are too funny sometimes. Damon didn't want to be part of the picture.
This girl cracks us up! Everything she does is so different than the boys; maybe that's why it seems so silly to us. She does everything with a feminine flair.
Riding around while Daddy hung up the Halloween witches with her crazy hair, but she wanted her picture taken.
I asked her to move her hair and this is what I got.
Dancing around at the pep rally.
I'm not sure what move this is, but she was watching the cheerleaders and doing whatever they were doing.
Some ballet moves got thrown in the mix too!
Here's some video of her dancing as the cheerleaders were warming up and getting ready to start.
Rock Climbing
At the WAC (the local public gym) there is a rock climbing wall. One day the kids and I were there without Kenney. I assumed they all knew how to do the wall. I knew Damon had problems coming down, but he went up so quickly and easily that I thought he would be ok. Well, he was stuck up there for about 15 mins until someone had to climb up there to pull him off the wall to get him down. Lesson learned: don't let him get high until he practices repelling down first!
Radley is a speed demon getting up the wall and is amazing repelling down!
Kyler is great at it too!
Damon had some struggles coming down, to say the least.
