Happy Halloween

We enjoyed a fun Halloween together this year! Brian finds it hard to believe that he has been home for the past 4 Halloweens. Before that he was either in the field training or deployed for almost every single Halloween since he joined the Army!

This year Brayden was Clifford the Big Red Dog. McKenna was a snowman. She did also have a skeleton outfit she wore to a party! We thought the snowman outfit would be too warm for the party!

Brayden really got into his costume. He kept wanting us to say "Come on Clifford, Let's go".

One day we were getting ready to take Blizzard on a walk to the baseball field so she could play ball. Brayden told us that Clifford wanted to go on a walk too and insisted on putting on his costume. So, being the nice parents we are, we let him. He even wanted Clifford to fetch balls with Blizzard at the ball field. He even barked while wearing his Clifford costume! So much fun!

McKenna did a great job being a snowman. She was quiet and sat very still. She did almost melt, being that we are in California and it was quite warm for the end of October! A few people even gave Brayden candy for McKenna and told him he could eat it for her! Thanks!

The community where we live held a Halloween party for the kids this weekend. There were crafts, games, food, costume contests, pumpkin decorating, etc. Brayden make a halloween craft with foam stickers, Brian decorated a pumpkin (for Brayden!), we ate, and enjoyed the company of our neighbors!

Traditions are important...so here are a few of ours....

Pumpkin carving-We went to Safeway and let Brayden pick out some pumpkins.

Then we decided to let Brayden decide what kind of faces he wanted...the kid is an overachiever! He chose Lightning McQueen, Clifford, and Elmo. We talked him out of Elmo and into a plain jack o lantern because Brian didn't want that much work. Turns out we should have talked him out of Lightning McQueen and let him have Elmo! Brayden loved the pumpkins and in the end that was what mattered! We told Brayden he could help carve by cleaning out the gunk from inside the pumpkins! He started to clean the first pumpkin and after two scoops told us "Too hard for Brayden, Mommy do it"

Pizza for dinner-this was a new tradition this year. We went to Papa Murphy's and got one of their Jack o Lantern pizzas. So simple, yet so impressive to a 2 year old!

Trick or Treating-After a long day of playing, Brayden was tired out. He fell asleep watching the World Series! I think he was just warming of for Trick or Treating, he needed some extra energy. After his power nap, he got all transformed into Clifford. Once dressed in his costume, he saw no need to wait and thought we should go now...he had a hard time waiting for mom, dad, and sister to get ready! Brayden loved trick or treating (except at the "loud" houses..those would be the ones that were playing scary music and had lots of scary decorations). He was very polite and told everyone thank you and goodnight! When he got home, we let him have a couple pieces of his candy and then it was time to say goodbye to daddy because he had to leave to go to Reno for the next week for work. After daddy left, we headed to the bath and to bed!

Now we are excited to have YaYa come visit on Thursday!!!

Happy Halloween to everyone!