halloween

i can't believe halloween has come and gone!  we had such a fun october!  the kids knew really early what they wanted to be.  in true andi fashion she was determined to be a peacock.  i loved it, she comes up with the cutest ideas.  cohen wanted to be a vampire which shocked me, i totally thought he was going to be a superhero.  i had everything for neal to be a cowboy so that's what he got to be!  he was pretty excited to be a cowboy and wear a cowboy hat!  i seriously think he just looked too darn cute in his skinny jeans and cowboy boats!  we did our usual halloween activities:

visited the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins
visited bellagio gardens on a day off of school
went to the school halloween carnival
went to utah for some fun fall activities
ward trunk or treat
had dinner in a pumpkin FHE and carved pumpkins
every year our neighborhood does "we've been booed!" (andi gets more excited about this than trick or treating)

i seriously have to give a shout out to our neighborhood!  i have been wanting to write about how much i love our neighborhood.  we just had our 16th ward family move into our neighborhood!  there are almost 53 kids from our ward in our neighborhood (two of those families got baptized a year ago, soon we will convert the whole neighborhood).  they are always outside playing or going to each other's houses.  ryan and i have talked about moving because we have never liked the layout of our home, but we just can't leave the neighborhood.  it's more important to me that my kids have good friends to play with.  there are 3 girls who can babysit and 3 more soon that can.  this year one friend coordinated a block party on halloween night from 7-9.  it was so fun!  they had a projector with goonies playing on the garage.  there was pizza, hot chocolate, homemade donuts and cookies.  i seriously love las lomas!

i have already taken down all our halloween decorations and put up our thanksgiving ones.  now it's time for ryan's birthday, cohen's birthday and thanksgiving!!  on friday the kids and i made a "thankful tree" for the playroom.  we cut out leaves and wrote things we are thankful for and put them up on the tree (andi and cohen even added turkeys at the bottom of the tree).  the kids really enjoyed working on the project together. each day we will continue to put leaves up!

i love that my kids get into all these little traditions we do.  it takes some work and patience, but i really feel like it is so important to keep up these little things we do.  i can't believe how excited and how they look forward to each tradition.  i get just as excited.  i can't wait for the next couple of months!!