Happy Halloween!

The theme for the past week at our house has been candy, sugar, parties, and costumes. I'm sure most people can relate. Especially parents of little ones. Halloween definitely lasts longer than one day. Brynn enjoyed 2 Halloween parties at preschool. Since she does 3 days of preschool instead of 2, she got to do 2 days worth of the candy, scavenger hunts, and sugar cookie decorating/consuming. She loved it, and has been pretending to put together scavenger hunts with her little brother. She has also been really sweet about sharing the candy and duplicate toys she got from her parties with Collin. They loved the "scary monster finger" and vampire teeth. Collin didn't seem to mind having pink teeth. He really got into the "scary" thing this year, and does a pretty good scary face, complete with angled eyebrows.

My little monsters...
Gotta love the drool that often accompanies vampire teeth...
Collin's favorite part of his costume was definitely the foam sword. He asked me what he could cut with it, and since he is only 2, I just told him it was for chopping trees. It was funny, because he then spent the next 2 days aggressively saying "I chop da twee!" as he swung at the air, the ground, or any piece of furniture in his path. He even insisted on taking a nap with his sword for a couple of days.
On Wednesday evening, our ward had a Halloween party. A sweet family in our ward had it in their big backyard and there were several booths, a spook alley, dinner, and trunk-or-treating. It was fun watching Brynn and Collin having so much fun. The only damper on the night was that it was unusually cold that day, and Dave was just getting over a cold, so he and Collin went home a little early. I don't think Brynn minded having some one-on-one time with me though. She helped me run the fishing booth for awhile, and then helped me pass out candy during the trunk-or-treating part of the night. It was fun sitting with her and watching her giggle with excitement at the costumes and being big enough to hand out candy. At one point, she commented that "this was the best day ever" and that she wished every day was Halloween. After we unloaded most of our candy, I took her around to a few cars to do some trunk-or-treating of her own, and heard more comments from her about wishing every day were Halloween. That has to be one of the best parts of being a parent--seeing pure joy in your child and watching them appreciate the simple things of life.

My beautiful little princess and my brave knight (who actually kept referring to himself as a scary knight)...
And one of the only pictures I have of myself during this pregnancy (I am already following the stereotype of taking hardly any pictures of subsequent children. Oops) , taken before our ward party...
On Halloween day, the 4 of us went out for bagels for breakfast (yummy pumpkin bagels, to be exact). That afternoon, I took the kids to my Grandma B's for her Halloween tradition of making donuts with the grandkids and now great-grandkids too. Both Brynn and Collin enjoyed cutting out the donuts and then decorating them with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. Of course, they didn't mind eating their completed donuts either. Neither did I, in fact. I brought my camera over to my grandparents', since donut-making is something I remember her doing with my siblings, cousins, and I when we were little. However, I forgot to take a single picture. Darn pregnancy brain (yes, I will blame my bad memory on pregnancy each chance I get).

That evening, we drove to our friends Kelly and Scott's (and their 3 cute girls') house. They live on a corner with alot of fun neighbors, and they block off part of the street each year and have a potluck party before going trick or treating. This is our 3rd year spending Halloween with them and their neighbors, and we have such a good time every year.

The kids on Halloween night...
It is hard to imagine that next Halloween I will be carrying around an almost-1 year old. Only 5 more weeks left until I get to meet this little one. Oh, and we finally decided on a name. After months of indecision between the names Eden and Eva, we finally chose Eden. The kids both had strong opinions about it. Since the first time I even mentioned the name Eden (about 5 months ago), Brynn has been insistent that that was what we needed to choose. At one point, I even told her that I could get her a doll that she could name Eden if we decided to name the baby Eva. She agreed to get her own Eden doll, but would tell me that we could call the baby Eva, but she would still call the baby Eden. That girl has a definite stubborn side to her! Then Collin started telling us Eden was a good name, and he didn't want Eva. Good grief! Dave and I seemed to like both names equally, so we decided we might as well go with Eden. Soooo, after months of indecision (which drove me CRAZY), we finally have her first name. Now we just have to finalize a middle name...