A week of Halloween and a bit of Thanksgiving

We (meaning Molly) celebrated Halloween four times. She had picked out her costume ...a pink fairy...on a trip to Walmart a month earlier and I couldn't get her to change her mind. (Not like I tried too hard-she was so excited when she saw it at the store and even more excited when I actually bought it for her!) So she needed no encouragement to get dressed up for each party...

Her first party was at dance. Since she doesn't let me watch I have no pictures. But they played games, had treats, and danced around to songs like "Monster Mash" and "Witches Brew."

At the ward party we played a bunch of different carnival-like games and then trick-or-treated through the halls. We spent most of our time at the cake walk (although I guess it would be called the "sucker walk" because the kids got a sucker when their number got called). Stockton won a sucker right away but it took Molly forever. Literally, about 15 minutes. Don't you think the people running it would notice that we had been there forever and just call her number? That's what I would do. I swear the same kid won over and over. Oh well, she persisted and eventually won a Dum-dum sucker.We went trick or treating at Grandpa Gene's work. Stockton got the hang of trick-or-treating very quick...take a piece of candy, put it in his bucket, move on to the next desk or office. It was really cute watching him. Molly had fun too, although she apparently forgot how to talk, or more specifically how to say "Thank you." But the kids made bank in the amount of candy they left his office with.We had a Halloween party that night at Justin's parents. I was in charge of the games. We played Bingo which really didn't work very well with all the crazy kids eating the M&M Bingo markers. Molly and I had also made a pinata earlier that week (talk about a mess!)...it worked well enough although I think next time I'll try to hang it up better. The pinata itself was so strong that the string holding it from the ceiling kept breaking. But eventually the kids hit it hard enough and the candy rained down on them. Molly and Tiana also had fun making a haunted house in the basement.We also had a party at my parent's house that weekend. My mom always goes all out with cute themed food and games...and Molly looks forward to seeing her cousins and their costumes.Hmmm, trick-or-treating. Not much to say about that. It was pouring and Molly only made it to three houses before she was done and wanted to come in. I felt bad but she didn't seem to mind, especially when we let her rent a movie from Redbox and turned it into a family movie night with popcorn (she chose the newest Tinkerbell movie and loved every minute of it). The rain stopped after a while but she didn't want to go out again...Saturday was a busy day so we carved pumpkins the next day (the real Halloween since it landed on Sunday).
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We've done a Thanksgiving Tree two years in a row so I guess it's now a tradition for us. Molly came up with something to be thankful for everyday. When we asked Stockton what he was thankful for he would usually point to something, say an animal sound, or Molly would help him.It was a Moyes Thanksgiving this year so we headed up to the cabin. Despite the fact that there was no hot water in the kitchen the meal turned out great...I'm always amazed that my mom can make so much yummy food and have it all ready at the same time. Molly has so much fun with her cousins and everything is extra fun at the cabin: we played the Wii, she slept on the top bunk in the bunk beds, they assembled foam gingerbread houses, watched movies, got new Christmas jammies, and just played all day long. This was Stockton's first year to really experience Thanksgiving dinner, but he decided to take a nap instead so he completely missed out. Molly at least tried everything although didn't love it (it wasn't my mom's cooking, I just think it's not such a kid-friendly meal)...and she thought it so silly that her cousin Chloe wouldn't eat turkey and had a hot dog instead!