Tricker Treats

You know, holidays are so much better with kids. I quite like doing corny, silly celebrations, but Kade isn't too big of a fan. Now that I have a 4 year old, I can get away with putting goofy, hairy spiders like this: all over my front porch. I quite liked our spiders this year. Maryn and I made them together, then, with the help of her little friend, Lindsey, we put them up all over the siding of the house with paper clips. If you caught them in the afternoon light, they actually looked like really big, hairy spiders. I'm kinda bummed that I have to take them down, now.
Last Monday for FHE, we carved our pumpkins. Well, I carved...Maryn and Ailee aren't quite ready to use knives yet. Maybe next year. Instead, the girls took on the yearly tradition of painting pumpkins.

It ain't fun unless you're makin' a mess!
Ailee was very serious about her painting.

It makes me laugh how much she picks up from watching older kids. I had her with me in Primary today. She was watching all the kids raise their hands to participate, so she decided she needed to raise her hand, too. At least she has a good big sister to copy cat.

Maryn posing with our finished pumpkins.

Since we had a big snow fall this week, the girls and I went out on Friday to get winter gear. Of course we had to try it out that afternoon. In the spirit of Halloween, we built a snow vampire:

(Don't mind the random carrot stuck in his chest) It's just too bad that he melted before Halloween. Poor little guy didn't have much time on this earth to fulfill his scary destiny.

Saturday morning, I dressed up the girls in their costumes for some pictures. Naturally they were uncooperative, and the sun was shining too bright in their eyes. Ailee was a flower this year, and refused to let me get a good front picture of her. The flower petals did make a great sun hat for her. I had to stick a ladybug on her shirt to cover up a picture. It took a lot of "you're so pretty"s to get her to keep everything on.

She did make a pretty little flower! I thought the leaves were a genius idea. One of those middle of the night, laying in bed epiphanies.

Maryn asked to be a ladybug this year. She has really grown to love bugs these last six months. She often draws pictures of caterpillars and ladybugs for me. They're pretty cute. I tried my best to find a plain black sweatshirt for her costume, but struck out, hence the Tinkerbell on the front. Don't let it throw you.

It shows much better from the back.

I sewed another set of arms onto her costume, but the thread that hooked them to her sleeves, so they moved with her arm, kept breaking, so you can't see them very well in this picture here. They too, were another late night, laying in bed epiphany, and very cute.

Halloween in action. Here we are, scouring the neighborhood for candy.

Maryn loved Halloween this year. It involves her two favorite things: Candy and dressing up. I can't wait for Christmas.