Ryan, Steph, and the Boys: Halloween Countdown

Happy Halloween! Starting early October, someone (ahem, Sam) would begin each morning by asking me how many more days until Halloween. Enter the Halloween Countdown. Part Advent Calendar, Part Number Recognition Practice, Part Motherhood Sanity-Keeper.

On each numbered card, a fun Halloween/Fall themed activity was written on the back. I tried to keep it uber simple because, well, its me. I knew I couldn't/wouldn't be able to pull off a new Pinterest-worthy activity each day. Some days we went to the Library and checked out Halloween books. Some days we had a dance party with the Halloween Pandora channel. Some days we watched Halloween special episodes of our favorite PBS and Disney shows.

One day we decorated our house with "Spoooky" decorations. Here are Austin's jack o'lanterns. I was so impressed, I took a picture.

Making a "Spooky" face after decorating our front door.

One day we made some Halloween play-dough.

It only stayed Orange and Purple for about 10 minutes. Then it was mixed together and became brown.

Pretty soon our front yard was sporting this baby and I knew we were going to have some fun.

Mid-air jump into the leaf pile

One day we made these things. The boys insisted on Green Jello Worms. They were seriously gross, as promised on Mel's website. I could only eat one.

I tried to incorporate things we were doing anyway, like Sam's field trip to the pumpkin patch. We had lots of fun hanging out with a few of Sam's preschool buddies. Here are Joel and Sam with the goats.

Even Austin wanted to feed the goats!

Austin loved the hay-bale pyramid. He climbed right up to the top!

Eli was a good sport as usual :)

After a fun hay-ride up to the pumpkin patch, we searched high and low for the perfect pumpkins. The farm's rule for preschoolers was they could choose any pumpkin, as long as they could carry it themselves.

Or drag it, as the case may be.

Does this tractor look familiar?

This was 3 years ago :)

Austin loved the tractors too! I couldn't get him off this one.

Every October, our ward has a Harvest Party and a Chili Cook-Off. And every year (five years running!), Brother Wise wins. But this year, Ryan thought he had a reasonable chance. He had been perfecting his recipe and even won a competition at work with his chili. A few weeks before the party, some good-natured trash talk began. But then the Wise's took it to a whole new level. We found this left on our doorstep.

Soon other families in the ward began to find similar trophies and notes left on their doorsteps. It all came to a head the night of the party. This note was pinned on the wall in front of the chili table. In case you can't read it, it says "WANTED: Fern Prairie Ward Chili Cook-Off Bully. Warning: Although NOT considered dangerous, this person is just plain annoying. Stay away from him AND his chili. (Remember: True Americans do NOT negotiate with terrorists.) Sadly, Ryan did not win the competition, but the missionaries insisted the judges made a mistake and that his chili was the best.

Finally, we made it to Halloween Night! By the time I got dinner ready, house cleaned, and kids dressed I almost forgot to take pictures! Here we have Leonardo the Ninja Turtle, Superman, and the Tiger (or Tigger, as some people called him at the ward party :)