Halloween

That morning, I was able to go into work late in order to see Trace's school parade. It has become a favorite part of Halloween for me, to see Trace's friends, my primary kids, the teachers, parents and everyone's costume for the year in the daylight. The students aren't allowed to wear any fake weapons or masks, so some kids' costumes were a little lacking as you can tell they were missing most of their costume, but it always is a nice reminder that we have some creative people in our neighborhood! We saw a bunch of Star Wars costumes, zombies, nerds, superheros and the "normal" costumes, but we also saw a kid on the toilet, a shark, a teddy bear, a stay-puft marshmallow man, "Mr. Angry" from Disney's Inside Out, a fair share of farm animals and all different kinds of costumes both cute and creepy.

Similar to last year, Cam and Boston and their family didn't really want to participate in Halloween, so we invited ourselves to Lindsay's in-laws house with Shaunasee and her family. Leigh (PJ's Mom) always goes all out for us and then we hit the streets with the kiddos. This year, Trace decided he wanted to be a "wizard" so we asked him for what kind and when talking to us, he was leaning towards Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter book/movie series. So, we got him a long, white beard and wig, a purple long wizards frock and even a wand. Kevin decided because the size difference was so perfect, he would be the animal caretaker from Harry Potter, Hagrid. You see, Hagrid is a giant in the books/movies and he towers over Dumbledore, so the height difference was perfect for their costumes without even trying! It was so fun to hear people as we passed them on Halloween night; "Did you see that Hagrid? He looks just like him!" At least people were able to recognize the two without much explanation. My costume this year was "woman recovering from back surgery". It was very convincing, trust me.

Look at the huge teddy bear!

Talon Smith from our ward

Liam Barnes from the neighborhood

Ms. Martin's costume is awesome!

Sophie was a witch and Trace was a wizard. Coincidence? 

Burton Klc in our ward is the "Kylo Ren" in front of Trace

Wesley Nichols

Jack-O-Lanterns

In true Carrell style, we bought our pumpkins to carve from a true pumpkin patch pretty early in October, but didn't get around to carving them until the night before Halloween. As Kevin pointed out, at least they'll be nice and fresh for the trick-or-treaters. This year, Trace got the biggest one and made his face into a scar-faced, multi-teeth menacing looking one. I'm not sure how he ended up with the biggest one, but it worked out okay. I carved mine with a cute face, bat wings and one tooth. Kevin free-hand cut his to have silly eyes and only two teeth. He said he was going for the hillbilly look. We laughed afterward at the fact that my pumpkin had one tooth, Daddy's had two teeth and Trace's had like, a million! Guess we know who likes sharks the best at our house! Trace was really patient with the cleaning and carving and did a good job even if Daddy had to help him out a little bit.

Cross E Ranch

As a new adventure to get us in the Halloween mood, we decided to head out West to a place called "Cross E Ranch". It is a working beef ranch, but they give tours and have movies and activities for the kids to play on during the month of October. We thought that it may be fun to bring a friend or cousin, so Trace invited Fischer and he was thrilled to go! We started by riding a hay ride right into the cow fields! Then, we let the boys bounce on the bounce "pillow", slide down the giant slide and lay/wrestle in the corn kernel "sand pit". As the night went on, we had hamburgers for dinner while watching the latest Spider-man movie on the side of the barn and then when it was really dark, we walked through the corn maze! Spoooooky! The boys weren't too scared and I was only scared that we'd lose one of them or I'd fall on my face. Sure enough, everything was fine and we had a great night! I thought for SURE the boys would fall asleep on the way home, but they didn't! They spent the whole ride home talking about their favorite parts and telling each other "scary stories". Really funny for Kevin and I to hear their versions of "terrifying events". We may have just created another family tradition to participate in each year.

Photo Shoot

Since one of the things that Trace got when he was baptized was a brand new suit, we decided to take a day that was overcast and get a couple of pictures of this ever-growing little boy. We headed to the Salt Lake Temple grounds and had a wonderful time taking pictures all across the grounds. Everyone we ran into commented what a handsome boy he was and how patient he was with his Mom. I would position him and take his photo, then he would say; "Mom, now I choose the pose". Some of the poses he chose are my favorite ones! We may have a budding model on our hands!

After I'd tortured the little fella enough, we headed to the Lion House for a yummy lunch and headed home just in time for the rain to fall. Phew! Just in time!