Frightening Halloween

I've had Zoey's ladybug costume for a couple months.  She's been obsessed with lady bugs since my friend gave me one of those solar-powered ones that rock back and forth.  I put it in my car and Zoey has loved them ever since. If you ask her was the "bug bug" says she rocks side to side just like the toy did.  She was THRILLED when I got out her costume and put it on.  I put the hood on and she would just run around happy as a little clam, er, lady bug.  We went to Pack's Pumpkin Patch and got some good pictures.  She liked the pumpkins, hated the pictures.  We tried to not get eaten alive by mosquitoes.  We left without a pumpkin but had fun looking around.

We hit up Frightmares with Suz and Phin and had a great time.  Well, we did, as the parents.  You'd think sending them on some fun rides was actually a torture chamber.  I feel like a horrible mother for laughing at her but it was seriously so funny to hear her screaming OVER the super loud music.  She did ok for the first few rides then Phin and Zoey fed off of each other and cried through the rest.  She did like riding the train and carousal with me but was a little afraid on the jeep ride even though I was with her.  Bulgy the Whale was a classic.  She eventually gave up crying and just covered her eyes through the whole ride.  It was hysterical.  She had fun trick or treating throughout the park though.  Thanks for the invite Suzy!

Last Saturday we went to Boo at the Zoo per tradition.  We always show up a little later, after 10 a.m., to avoid the opening rush.  It was crowded but not overwhelming.  We waited in some lines for candy and were super disappointed by Smarties most of the time.  Maybe they were trying to avoid peanuts?  She really loved the animals though.  They were feeding the rhinos while we were there and she started saying rhino!  She would point out that they were eating nanas and apples.  It was really cool to watch.  Have you ever stopped to ponder how weird rhinos are?  They seriously look like dinosaurs.  Weird, weird, creatures.  Anyway, it was a super nice, unusually warm late-October day, I felt bad she was in her fleece costume but she didn't seem to mind.

It didn't take her long to figure out that anytime the lady bug costume went on, it meant "canny." After a nap I took her to trick-or-treat at Station Park. This was way better than the zoo (and free! But no animals...)  The stores all had candy and would stand at their door and pass it out.  Since we got there late, some stores were already out of candy but most weren't.  And they had good candy too. There is even a donut shop opening up there and they were passing out free full-sized glazed donuts to every single person!   Station Park was crowded but not annoyingly so.  She was so excited to get some "Me-Ms (M&Ms)."  She actually had already had some that day because she peed in the potty!

We had a Halloween party with friends that night and she loved going down their slide.  It was a house full of boys so she was a little overwhelmed but had a fun time.

She's been so fun lately.  Her vocabulary is crazy.  My parents and sister have been in Europe the past 16 days and are going to be blown away by what she says.  One day she pointed out every Sesame Street character in her book, "Ahy" (Abby), "Bih Ber" (Big Bird), "Ookie" (Cookie Monster), "Ehmo" (Elmo), and "Ernie."  I didn't even know she knew who Ernie was!  She also would point out leaves "Eaf" and said "yoyo."   I have no idea where she learned that.

We ended up carving pumpkins one weekend.  My father-in-law bought this pumpkin scraper that you hook onto a drill so it was a power tool pumpkin affair.  I don't really like carving, the guts make my hands all red and itchy and I get bored after a while.  Dallin loves it.  He's super artistic and doesn't mind spending the time.  Anyway, we decided to print off patterns from pbskids.org so we could make a Gee-Gee-Gu (Curious George) and Daniel the Tiger pumpkin for Miss Zoey.  I think they turned out really cute and she was in love!!

She had a bout of the flu which she kindly shared with all of us at the house, including her grandparents.  She was sick on Halloween and leading up to Halloween so I felt terrible dragging her around.  We tried to not do too much and not overwhelm her.  The day before, my sister- and brother-in-law's Stake had a Trunk or Treat so we took her there and made the rounds.

On actual Halloween my brother invited us down to his work's Halloween and she trick-or-treated through each office and got candy.  She was nervous if the person was around and would make me choose the candy (which was awesome) but if she picked, to picked solely on color (brown Snicker's were not very appealing to her, unfortunately).  She made a haul.

That night we went to my in-law's house and just trick-or-treated on their street.  Not many people go up the street (which is why we do) so they give out full-sized candy bars and handfuls of candy.  Then we went a couple streets over to my aunt's and uncle's and visited with them for a while with their humongo dog that scared Zoey to death.

I had grand plans that Zoey would be a lady bug, I'd be a bee and Dallin would be a spider.  I did end up finding some bee stuff at Target but broke the antennae after the zoo and was sick of winding myself in yellow duct tape so I gave up.  And with all the stuff we were doing on the house, I had no time to make Dallin spider legs.  So it was not a family affair this year.  We sure loved seeing our cute little lady bug though!  I hope she had fun.