Halloween

Halloween started out on Thursday for Rylee. Since she only goes to preschool on Tuesday and Thursday--they celebrated Halloween on Thursday. She picked out a nice dress from her dress up trunk and for modesty and warmth purposes we had to have a shirt under it and tights. She looked like a very sweet princess/ballroom dancer. Her preschool friends went around to different classrooms--usually sibling classrooms and got a few treats.




We even went to one of the preschoolers daycare--a house only about a block away from the school. They got some big treats there and even stopped to pose for a few pictures on their steps.


After they got worn out and couldn't keep their hands out of their goody bags anymore, we went back to the classroom and talked them into one more round of pictures. Lots of princesses and fairies this year!


Thursday, after Rylee's celebration, I loaded on a plane to Tampa, Florida for the national gifted and talented conference. Why they scheduled it over Halloween, I'm not sure. But, I left a very detailed list for Steve and hesitantly went on my way. The rest of this blog will be what I heard because I was not there for any of it.

Kailen had picked out her outfit before I left so I could make sure she had all the necessary pieces. She accessorized herself. She got to wear her dress-up to school all day on Friday. She was Bella Rose--Tinkerbell's sister. This is something her own imagination created--quite cute!

Rylee donned her same outfit from Thursday.

Here are all the girls ready to go get all the candy they could. What a crew!

Becky picked the kids up from school that day and Clint took them all downtown to meet Steve and go to a Halloween parade. Now, I am over 2,000 miles away and Steve calls me to ask me where the parade is--that they were downtown and they didn't see any parade. Come to find out, there wasn't an actual "parade", but the kids were the parade. They closed down Main Street and let the kids "parade" up and down the street stopping in at all the stores to get their treats. So, now that they completed that fun, they went to eat pizza for dinner. I am sure that was quite a treat for the adults! But, Kailen looks like she was having fun.

Well, the Halloween parade was not enough, so after dinner, the kids went to gather more treats on 3rd Street. They were suppose to meet up with another family, but couldn't coordinate it. I am sure they were better off--especially with this crew.

I love this next picture because the boys are doing their "warrior" poses, and Kailen is doing her best "Bella Rose/warrior" pose.

They obviously found a pile of leaves somewhere along the way and had to stop for that fun. It makes you want to be a kid again. I only hope they left most of the leaves in the pile and didn't upset someone who worked tirelessly to make such a large leaf pile.

So, it looks like everyone had a great time. Steve did say the kids got to eat a lot more candy than if I would have been here. But, the kids were still alive when I got home Monday. I really didn't like being gone and missing the festivities. I decided that I won't do it again if they are foolish enough to schedule a conference during a holiday--I think the conference planners got a lot of flack for that. The bummer was, the weather in Florida was not glorious like I thought it would be and we were at least a $100 cab ride from the beach! Oh well--I did get to wear capris and sandals for a few days!

The Saturday after Halloween was an exciting day around here. The White House Christmas tree was cut from our local national forest. It was quite the event. Imagine 600 people on a logging road singing carols and watching an enormous tree being cut down and loaded on a special made trailer. I tried to talk Steve into taking the girls, but I think he was beat down from Friday. The weather wasn't great either. I don't know that they would have appreciated it. In fact it might have given them the idea that we should find a Christmas tree that big for our house! Anyway, when you see the tree in Washington, know that it came from here.

Here is one more picture I had to include. Kailen decided one night to dress-up JJ. She put a feather boa on him. Of course he just laid there like the good dog that he is. I don't think he particularly enjoyed it, but he tolerated it for Kailen. He is such a good dog!

I really don't know what I will post about next. I am really hoping things slow down around here. I am ready for Thanksgiving and the break from school for a few days. We are planning on sticking around here. Maybe we will go get a Christmas tree after Thanksgiving and I can write about that adventure. So, check back in a couple of weeks.