Festivities

(this photo takes the cake as my favorite of the night...)

Well, we are officially are sugared out and needing some detox at this point, but Halloween was super fun this year. Tyler really got into the spirit of it and it totally made it fun! I love Halloween to pieces, but it does feel like we've been celebrating it for an entire month (which I guess we kind of have...), so I'm kind of glad to move onto thinking about something else. Our big celebrations got kicked off last Saturday with our ward's Trunk or Treat and Chili Cook Off. I got almost zero photos of the night (sorry, Sister Lake, I wasn't much help to you!), but had to post this one of Tyler and Lizzy. He is almost two years older than her, but he has sure taken a liking to her and he insisted on holding her hand during the costume parade.

Aren't they cute? And our little cowboy was looking super cute that night as well! The party went very well and Elder and Sister Lake did a great job planning and putting it on. There were a TON of people there, so you know that's a good sign. It was definitely a big hit with everyone there. And when we were on our way home, Tyler said several times that it was just "so much fun."
On Halloween day, I decided to take the kids to the Halloween Party at the Children's Museum. It was a lot of fun too! While we were there, we:

tried to take a picture of the two boys TOGETHER in front of the museum. This is generally the result when we try, and so we were par for the course I suppose. Tyler tries to smother Sam and Sam objects very much. Classic photo we have here:
Touched some "brains", "eyeballs", and "teeth". Tyler said he did not like touching the eyeballs (grapes).
Played, played,
and played some more. We get one happy cowboy when he gets let out of his stroller to play.
Blew some bubbles.
Put Tyler inside a bubble. (and ok, I totally know white tennis shoes do not complete a skeleton costume, but Tyler just got them and he INSISTS on wearing them EVERYWHERE, so Halloween was no exception. So please forgive the fashion faux pas.)
Shopped at the grocery store.
Let Tyler ring up our groceries.
I don't think I'll be handing over the grocery shopping responsibilities to Tyler any time soon.
Played, yet again.
And took a quick picture of our Mr. Bones with the Museum's Mr. Bones before we left. Aren't they spooky?
And then it was off for a night of quick trick or treating. We took off to a neighborhood just up the street from us and walked around for about 45 minutes. It was so much fun! Tyler just loved it. We had our--I mean Tyler's--bucket filled in no time! I just love the traditional trick or treating, it's just the icing on the cake for Halloween festivities (and especially nice when it's so warm here)!

(this photo would be my second favorite of the night...)

Tyler was thrilled to get a cheap little yo-yo at this house:

This photo is entitled "Blinded by the Flash. Thank you, Mom, for generally trying to avoid using nasty flash at all costs." But that face was too cute to not post!
And this photo is entitled: "Proof that Sammy actually went trick or treating with us, and also blinded by the flash a little bit too."
We headed home and the treat bucket was promptly dumped out and the contents were examined.
And I kid you not, the first words out of Tyler's mouth were "Oooooh, chocolate! The good stuff, yessss!". He is definitely my child, I have raised him well. Any time I should doubt my skills as a mother, I will think back to this moment and remember that I must be doing something right. Tyler definitely scored us a TON of the "good stuff".
And Sam had a sucker in his mouth within 10 seconds as well.
And now we aren't quite sure what to do with all this candy! I think I need to hide it for a few days at least. Maybe use it as a stocking stuffer for Christmas???? But look at all that "good stuff", I'm sure I'll be digging in several times now!
Hope you all had a GREAT Halloween!
Now bring on November! We are so excited to see Cash and Hillary (and the bun in the oven) next week and Grandma & Grandpa T for Thanksgiving. Yippee!