TRUNK-OR-TREAT

Our church had a trunk-or-treat 2 weeks before Halloween. It was a great chance to try out the kids' costumes. Once again, we tried to stick with using pajamas for costumes, since it doubles as pj's, and it is a lot cheaper than buying costumes that kids often wear only once. So Shade wanted to be Iron Man this year, but we couldn't find Iron Man pajamas in his size, so he then decided a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle would work (Leonardo), especially since he got that awesome jacket from his Aunt Cristi. Kellen actually found some pajamas that worked for Shade's costume (and some Kellen could wear himself), and they both dressed up like TMNTs. Shade also wanted his face painted. Unfortunately, we used a cheaper paint than last year, one that is supposed to wash off better, and it ended up needing more than one coat and cracking a lot. But it still looked cute, although he had a hard time smiling and eating because he said it was hard for him to move his mouth. As for Olive, I found a cheap/cute cat outfit for her. They don't really have character pj's for little girls. I actually almost got her a TMNT costume too. They had some TMNT pj's for little boys, but they were a bit too big for her, so I just went with the cat outfit. I had also gotten Olive her own little pumpkin pail, which she loved the moment I put it in the cart at the store. She played with that thing almost every day. And as for me, I didn't want to mess with a costume, so I just wore Kellen's pumpkin shirt - which fit me nicely :)

The trunk-or-treat was also a chili cook-off, so I signed Kellen up to cook the yummy white bean chili recipe he got from his sister Colby. It was yummy! They gym was nicely decorated - the tables covered in butcher paper so the kids could draw on it, fall leaves, and baskets of corn bread. They had a "scary" area for the kids to feel eyeballs and such. And of course the cars outside were decorated pretty sweet. Shade was excited and wanted to just run around collecting as much candy as he could, but Olive had no idea what was going on. But she soon realized she was getting candy in her pail, so she liked it well enough.