Happy Halloween

This fall has been absolutely gorgeous here and we have loved it.  Living right off a major trail head it has been great to just walk down the block into the mountains to hike and let the dog run.  I absolutely love the fall colors and love that we now live somewhere where I can see the leaves change from my living room window.  When we lived in Salt Lake I would complain about not having trees around and peoples response would ALWAYS be, " You can drive up the canyon to see the leaves change."  Yes, the canyons in the Salt Lake valley are beautiful, but I don't want to drive to see the seasons change.  I love fall here in Flagstaff.  The fact it has been in the sixties and seventies certainly hasn't hurt either.  People say this is freakishly abnormal.  I'll eat it up while we can.  We will have snow soon enough I am sure.

Dan was so cute and took the kids and got pumpkins one day before I had the chance.  He is great about getting on the kids level about holidays and really getting them excited.  He was horrified I hadn't planned to dress Bailey up.  I frantically found a costume for her at the last minute and am so glad Dan had pressed it because Shad was so excited for Bailey to dress up too.  He really is a sweet older brother when he isn't loving her to death.

Shad showing us the scary face he wanted on his pumpkin.

Pulling out the seeds

      We carved our pumpkins Saturday, and roasted the seeds.  Combined with the fact I had halloween decorations up all month (Thank you mom for supplying them)  I actually felt pretty festive.  Shad wanted a scary face on his pumpkin.  He wasn't thrilled about getting his hands or clothes dirty, until we told him he could be "in his body".  He promptly took his shirt off and got filthy.  He was so excited to light the candles on the pumpkins every night with Dan.  I meant to get a picture of them doing it, but it tended to coincide with feeding or putting Bailey to bed every night.

Someone got ahold of the sharpie Dan used to draw the faces on and decorated his scary face. . . definitely made it scarier.

Bailey's silly faced pumpkin.

Almost got a smile

Our little Fireman and Ladybug

For actual Halloween we took a Halloween hike.  Frankly, most of our hikes could classify as this since the trail leads up to a grave and the burned down houses of a family that lived here.  It was a beautiful day and the kids and Solo were happy.  We then got Shad and Bailey's costumes on and headed over to the ward Trunk-or-Treat.  It was perfect, exciting enough for Shad to wear his costume, low key enough for the less Halloween enthusiastic.  You know your kid had a great time when they fall asleep in the car at 6:30 on the three minute drive home.