Halloween!

We had a great time this year celebrating Halloween. I'm hard at work trying to establish some traditions for our little family. 

This year we kicked off the season with a little Halloween party. It was supposed to be us along with a few of Ella's other little friends but due to multiple attempts and lots of scheduling conflicts, we decided to just do a little one ourselves. 

It was a lot of fun to hang out with my little buddy doing fun Halloween stuff without trying to multitask a bunch of other things.

We had a festive lunch. We were going to make mummy hot dogs but I decided Ella and I wouldn't eat all 8 ourselves so we just had a regular one along with a ghost banana - on which I had to replace the chocolate chip eyes and mouth multiple times. 

 We made pumpkin bars for a fun dinner we were having with our family friends that night...

 We made ghost pictures - glueing is lots of fun!

We colored Halloween pictures. Which we then cut out and attached paper clips to and fished for using our magnetic fishing pole. I guess I forgot to photograph that part. It was a fun little day.

Another one of our traditions is to go to Danny's family's farm - Day Farms and go on a hay ride to go pick out some pumpkins.

 I took this picture when we started moving. She thought it was so fun!

 And we were lucky enough to have a special driver on our visit - Great Grandpa Day!

A couple nights before Halloween we got busy carving. Ella helped me pick out the designs. She picked a Mickey and Minnie pumpkin.

And she wanted to color her "cute baby" pumpkins. We started with a Sharpie but she was not a fan of the smell.

 So we switched to her regular old washable markers. Which was probably a better idea anyway.

 Our attempt at a family portrait using the timer on the camera...

The day of Halloween we went to the library for a special story time. (I brought my big camera which I never do because it's a hassle but looking at the difference in pictures I'm thinking I should drag it along more often.)

I had to snap this one. She was patiently waiting in line for her ghost project. She looks so tiny and it blows my mind that she is getting more and more independent. I know it's not a huge thing to go over and wait in the line by yourself but it's crazy that I can send her over to wait in line with the kids.

 Making her ghost bag with Grandma Spiers who came to watch the festivities.

Ella's little buddies. Myla (the cute pumpkin) and Ellie (the cute pink monster). She loves both of these girls SO much!

 Anxious to get on with the trick or treating part!

Of course mom made her stop at the park on the way home for a quick little photo shoot in her costume. I am biased but she may just be the cutest little thing ever.

After waiting and waiting the rest of the day we got to put her costume back on and go trick or treating! And she was way more interested in going (especially since she could see all sorts of kids behind me) than she was in sitting for pictures. (You can also see all of our pumpkins...Mickey and Minnie Mouse, BYU, and Mitt Romney. I did about half of the Minnie and was done so Danny did 3 1/2 of our pumpkins. He's a natural. He whipped these out pretty quick and enjoyed doing it.)

I am lame and recycled my costume from last year. But this year Ella loved that I was dressed as a kitty.  She really loved that I had a tail. As soon as I painted on the nose and whiskers she was so excited she had me crawl and meow. I was going to do something clever with my little baby bump but somehow ran out of time.  Next year we'll see if I can be more on the ball and have all FOUR of us in something clever.

 Ready to go!

Ella's first stop of the night. Danny was trying to capture it on video on his phone but it didn't work. Dang. It was so cute to hear her say "trick or treat". She really got it this year and was SO excited to get treats in her bucket. She still wanted to look at each one before moving on but as we went to a few more houses she got the hang of it and started going a little more quickly.

Trick or Treat!

The day after Halloween Ella decided she wanted to be a kitty like I was. So we had two dress up days at our house. She spent the entire day playing with her tail and running back and forth to the mirror and laughing. She makes a pretty dang cute kitty too!