Tricks and Treats!

As promised, more Halloween! Last weekend our ward had a Trunk or Treat party, so while Jon got some much needed R & R up in the mountains, I headed solo to the party with the kiddos. Lucy decided to wear her "Dorothy" costume (also made by Grandma Cardon), and was SUPER excited to see her primary friends all dressed up.

The youth were in charge of carnival games for the kids, and Zach and Lucy both had a blast gathering candy and prizes and playing games like this one-- pumpkin bowling!

Both kids wanted to get their faces painted, and as soon as Lucy was finished she took off with her primary buddies and I didn't see her again until the trunk or treating!

Zach requested a Spiderman face, and the priests and laurels took it very seriously. They COVERED his face in this thick red paint, and then tried to outline his eyes in white and black, but after 20 minutes of sitting perfectly still I could tell Zach was not having it. As soon as they finished he started rubbing his eyes, and wanted it OFF pronto. What a mess!

Sunday evening we decided to carve our pumpkins and watch the Disney version of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," per tradition.

Zach picked a demon and Lucy picked a bat, which I'm proud to say I carved-- and for the first time in 3 years, I successfully completed it without it imploding. Hooray! And man, I love that Zachy face! So him.

Pretty spooky, right? Unfortunately, with the Southern-style heat they'd both started rotting by Monday evening and didn't even make it to Halloween. Oh well.

And finally, on THE Halloween I had a doctor's appointment that went an hour later than expected, Jon couldn't get off the base until 5 p.m., so while I had great visions of making this cutesy Halloween dinner for my kiddos, Chick fil A saved the day and within 20 minutes of us eating we were changed and out the door pounding the pavement for candy!

Zachary was determined to ride his tricycle, which was a bad idea in many ways-- a) he's SLOW, b) he's even slower because our neighborhood has tons of hills, and c) he tried to carry his bucket but it kept spilling when he tried to steer. Plus it was pitch black outside, and after he end-over-ended down a hill, we convinced him to hop in the stroller.

Ahhhh, much better and much more efficient. We were really able to cover a lot more ground then.

After we'd trick or treated as long as we could handle (Lucy's feet were "haunting" her), the kids headed home to count up their loot. Not bad for one night's haul! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A Spooky Baby Shower ...

I've never been to Jon's work. Never. Isn't that awful?!? What kind of wife am I?!? He's worked there for 1 1/2 years and again, I've never been to his office. In my defense, he does work 45 minutes away in a direction I never have cause to go in or stop and "drop by" for. And apparently his co-workers have taken note of this unintentional avoidance because they thought it was pretty weird too. So when they found out we were expecting they decided to throw me a baby shower to finally get me in the door! I thought this was beyond generous and thoughtful of them, and totally unnecessary considering they don't even know me, but Jon said they really wanted to do it, and that ANY excuse for a party that got them a 2 hour lunch break was worth it... I was happy to provide one for them!

So yesterday they threw me a Halloween baby shower, and I got to see Jon's office (finally), and meet all of the people he works with and literally spends more time with day in and day out than he does me. The girls really went all out. Apparently one of them even brought her husband and kids in on Sunday afternoon for 3 hours to decorate the break room with the Halloween theme.

She even made this super cute haunted castle completely out of diapers for the centerpiece, arranged all the food for the lunch, painted a bunch of pumpkins pink for decoration, and basically planned the whole thing. She put a TON of work into. How nice is that?!?

Everyone kept asking Jon where we were registered, but this being our third and all, I really don't need anything and luckily all of Lucy's clothes are in the right season, so he told everybody diapers and wipes. One of Jon's other assistants made this little motorcycle out of diapers-- people are so clever!!

All in all, I was really impressed with how generous and nice the people are that Jon gets to work with. I felt very spoiled. This isn't a very good picture so it doesn't do it justice, but we came home with a car FULL of diapers and wipes. And since that's the only thing I hadn't bought yet, I think that we're finally ready for this baby to come!!

One Terrific Kid!

Last Thursday Lucy's school held a quarterly awards assembly, and I got a note in her take-home folder inviting me to come because my child had won an award-- but not to say anything to Lucy because it was supposed to be a surprise.

The local Kiwanis Club had every teacher nominate one boy and one girl from each class to win the "Terrific Kid Award," and then the principal read a little summary about each of the children selected in front of the whole school and gave them their certificate and some coupons and freebies to use at local businesses. I had no idea what to expect, so I didn't really mention anything to Jon and didn't have him take the afternoon off, but it was so fun to hear her name announced and see her reaction.

She was SO surprised! She didn't even know I was there because she didn't see me come in the back, so afterwards I hurried, nay, waddled to catch up with her class and caught a quick picture of her. She just kept saying, "I can't believe I won!"

Here's what Lucy's teacher wrote about why she selected Lucy to win. Pretty cool, huh? We sure love this girl and are proud of our Terrific Kid!!