Halloween

I LOVE October. Love it! Maybe it's because it feels like it's the beginning of the holiday season, or because there's a new crispness in the air, or, as I used to tell my friends in my single days, "October is the month for romance!" (Perfect weather for a hayride and cuddling up to the fire with hot cocoa!...unless you live in California)

The beginning of October we celebrated the season by going to a pumpkin patch. It almost even FELT like October because the pumpkin patch was a little bit in the mountains so the weather was cooler, and there were actually a few colored leaves! Happy day! Bridget couldn't believe how many pumpkins there were.

This month my Activity Day girls decorated Halloween pumpkins, and Bridget joined them in the festivities. I gave her one of her plastic knives from her toy kitchen, put some frosting in a bowl, and she went right to work like she had done it before. Maybe she got some of her daddy's cake decorating skills.

Growing up, and even still, my family has a super fun Halloween Party for Family Home Evening the Monday before Halloween. Every year when we were younger my parents would put together a spook alley in our basement and take each of us kids through it one by one. Seriously, it was scary. My mom makes the best/scariest witch ever. I have such fond memories of our Halloween parties. Since we couldn't join my family this year, we had our own FHE Halloween party this past Monday night.

At the end of the party we decided we should practice trick-or-treating with Bridget. We taught her what she needed to do, then took her out the side door of the house and up to our front door and knocked. I opened the door and we said to her "What do you say?" (meaning, say "Trick or treat!") And she said "Please, mom!" I guess she's learned when I say "What do you say?" that the answer is "Please, mom!"

Last night we went to a street here in town that the police close off on Halloween night. Our realtor lives on the street and she told us that literally a couple thousand kids go trick or treating there, so we decided we needed to get in on the action! It was fun and the perfect place to go since there was no traffic on the street.

Some of the houses were totally decked out, like this one. This was one of the first houses we went to, and it scared Bridget from the whole trick or treating thing! Matthew said when they walked up to the house Bridget was shaking from fear! After this she pretty much insisted on being carried up to each house.

I love this picture - Bridget checking out her loot! After trick or treating on the street we went to our ward's trunk or treat party.

A very fun October. I'm looking forward to the rest of the holiday festivities in the next two months. We sure miss being around family and friends at the holidays...that's it, just that we miss you all and wish we could celebrate the holidays with you.