Halloween 2013

I'm trying to have a better attitude about Halloween. It really is not my favorite holiday, and it seems like the last few years I have had really miserable kids for the few days surrounding Halloween. I work to chose and put together cute costumes and then they end up crying and upset when they are supposed to get dressed in those costumes for yet another event. This year was no exception until the last few hours.

Tuesday morning Darcy had preschool and dressed up for that. Then that night was our ward Halloween carnival and trunk-or-treat. Wednesday she had dance and she was supposed to dress up for that. Then Thursday was Halloween and we had trick-or-treating here in our neighborhood, but we also wanted to take our kids to see their grandparents all dressed up in their costumes. Tuesday morning was fine except for a little argument about tucking Darcy's shirt in. Ezra was even begging to get dressed up too when he saw Darcy in her costume. Tuesday night Darcy was pretty cooperative, but Ezra was cranky and seemed freaked out at the carnival. Both kids enjoyed trunk-or-treating enough but were too cold, and Ezra cut out early. Wednesday we were having such a rough morning and Darcy only made it through part of her dance class, but she was so emotional and couldn't stop crying. We went home early. Poor girl. Thursday I was frustrated because of the Halloween saddness, so I let the kids which too much TV, which always makes me feel bad.

As I stewed over the Halloween issue, I finally discovered the real problem was ME! I was forgetting to make this holiday (that is most definitely supposed to be for the kids) about the kids. I was choosing the costumes I thought would be cute, and making the kids wear them just how I wanted them to wear them, including lots of annoying accessories. I was even making them dress up when they didn't really want to. I also think their schedule was a little too crammed with all this stuff they didn't really care about doing. So by Thursday evening I decided to let Darcy choose. She decided she didn't want to wear her chaps (These chaps were originally my grandpa's, then my dad's, then when they were worn out, my dad cut them down and made them into chaps for my brother when he was little. We all wore them when we were little. I love the sentimentality of them, and it was harder than it should have been for me to let them go.) I was hoping we could just skip trick-or-treating here and get to Mattawa sooner. She wanted to trick-or-treat here, and the main thing she wanted to do was hand out candy to trick-or-treater's who came to our door herself. It did put us behind a little, but it made her happy and it was worth it. I also told Darcy she gets to choose her costume for next year, and she is pretty excited about it. Why didn't I come up with this stuff before?! I really had no idea how much of a Halloween control freak I was. Now if we could just somehow take the tons of candy out of the holiday! :)

 Ezra loved the pumpkin carving! He was really into scraping out the guts.

 Darcy thought Drew and Ezra should make a happy face, and she and I should make a scary face.

 Cutest cowgirl ever!

 Darcy had been having her picture taken first, and when Ezra came out to join her she instructed him to put his foot up on the fence like hers. He was so obedient.

 I should have taken a close-up of their belt buckles. My dad made their belts and belt buckles for us, and they were so cute! Now they each have their own brand for their future careers as ranchers.

 Way...too...cute.

 The way Ezra said "trick-or-treat" was just about the cutest thing I've ever heard. He also stole some hearts with his polite "thank you" after getting his candy at each door.

 Our first stop in Mattawa was at Grandma Jo's!

 This was our trick-or-treating crew. Ashley is already taller than me, but adding those five inch heals made me feel like a child. Haley always comes up with the best costumes for her family. They were the Despicable Me gang, and they looked hilarious.

 My dad said he had a picture of his Uncle Owen with his hat cocked to the side like this, so I had to get this shot of Ezra.

Camping!

So we went camping in the mountains at the end of October. Brrrr! Our friends, the Duffin's, invited us to go with them, and we had fun on our little adventure, but all of us decided summer camping would be better. :)

The camp site we had planned on going to said online that it would be opened, but when we got there the gate was closed. So we drove around and found another little spot. We were surrounded by a bunch of other campers, but all of them were in campers and RV's. We were the only one's really roughing it in our tents. We got there in the evening with just enough light to set up our tents and start a fire. It really wasn't too cold at that point and the kids were so excited to be there together and they were loving the tents and roaming the woods around us. Darcy also enjoyed using the little outhouse there as often as possible. Haha.

The Duffin's brought some really yummy tin foil dinner. Really my only assignment was to bring plastic cups, plates, bowls, and silverware, all of which I left in a bag at our house. I totally failed at my job and I felt so bad. We got to eat all of our food out of tin foil with our fingers.

It was fairly cold when we went to bed, but still bareable. A couple hours later I woke up so cold. My 16 week pregnant bladder needed attention around midnight. I tried to ignore it for as long as possible, but eventually I woke Drew up to walk with me to the bathrooms. I felt so bad to wake him up to walk outside with me in freezing weather, but he was a good sport about it and talked about the fun adventure we were having.

Ezra woke up a few times in the night crying. We weren't sure if he was having bad dreams (The only thing that really scares him are cats and dogs, so I'm guessing he was having nightmares about kitties.) or if he was freezing. Poor little guy. Darcy never once complained about the cold. She was busy having too much fun! I've never been a big fan of camping, but watching my kids enjoying it so much made me think we should really do it more often.

The next morning we had breakfast and started packing up to go home. Ezra seemed to be frozen and kept crying, so we put him (and me) in the pickup with the heater on for a while. We planned on going for a hike to some caves and especially the little girls (and Drew) were excited about it. When we got to the trail again we were met, yet again, with a closed gate. We ended up walking around this bridge with really beautiful scenery and throwing rocks in the water.

On the way home we stopped at Minors in Yakima to eat. Ezra ended up having a taste of Darcy's chocolate milk. He threw up once inside the restaurant, and then again right when we put him in his car seat. So we had fun cleaning up that lovely mess for a while, before we headed home and crashed. I was amazed at just how exhausted we all were from one little overnight camping trip.

 Darcy and Marley hanging out in their cute little camping chairs.

 Ezra loved helping Drew set up the tent.

 This is where we ended up when our hike fell through. 

 Ezra kept demanding that Drew throw these huge rocks into the water. He kept saying, "Again! Again!" Drew was a good sport and threw about 20 of those big things.