HALLOWEEN OVERVIEW

***updated*** Above: my mom and I handing out candy. Below: Jesse at our street party.

My in-laws invited us to their ward Halloween carnival on Wednesday, Oct 29th. We happily obliged and the kids got decked out in the costumes a few days early. Robby was the cutest ever ASU football player and Maddie went as "Cinderella, Cinderella," as she says. I have to say that Robby HATED when we put his football padding on, but luckily forgot about it after a few minutes and rather enjoyed the endless supply of popcorn, candy, and hot dogs at the carnival. This was our attempt at taking a picture of the kids in their costumes that evening: Robby, Grandpa Toronto, Maddie, and Mommy (Tiffany).Another picture of my Maddie and I. As you can tell she just loves posing for pictures, NOT. So for those of you who have been asking for a lovely 7 month prego picture of me...there you go. There probably won't be too many more like it; I tend to be the camera-man most of the time, but especially when I am pregnant!
There were tons of games at the carnival, but the kids especially like riding these metal horses behind a tractor (aka the train ride) On Thursday morning we had our joyschool Halloween party, so Maddie was able to dress up AGAIN. I am loving the fact that she was able to wear her costume several times this year and she LOVED the fact that she could be Cinderella again.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this picture of Robby in uniform. This is such my little guy, always on the run with his sippy cup held in his arm just like you would cradle a football. Even though ASU football is in the pits right now, we are forever ASU funs and thus Robby went as an ASU football player anyways :) My pretty Cinderella all ready for the ball (she even insisted that she wear lipstick so she would look "gorgeous")

Yep...this is the ONLY picture I was able to take of Robby and Madison sitting together out of all the pictures. At least they are both sort of looking at the camera, although there are NO smiles to be found :( A group picture of some of our neighborhood street kids in their costumes.

In the afternoon/evening, we had a block party for our street where we each brought a side dish, meat and drinks. It was so much fun to meet many of our neighbors for the first time. Some poeple even set up games in their front yard for the kids to play. For one of the games, our friends had doughnuts hanging from strings. The kids had to try to eat them off the string. Maddie loved this game and seriously was hanging out by it forever (I think she had four doughnuts for dinner). Oh I guess she also had four or five sodas as well; every time I turned around she was picking up some random soda and drinking it....how do you teach a three year just how disgusting this habit is?

When it was dark, we set off trick or treating with our good friends on our street and Nona and Grandpa (Jesse's parents) even joined us. Maddie totally got the concept of sitting in the wagon and then jumping out and running up to each door to say "trick or treat". She loved sitting in the wagon with a neighbor friend. Robby sort of understood the candy part of Halloween after a few houses and would drag his bag up to the door and hand it to whomever answered the door. He had to have some sort of candy piece in his mouth between each and every house.

(don't you love Maddie's white face in the picture below after the doughnut game. Naughty mommy for not noticing and cleaning off that face before we went trick or treating)

Later on in the evening, Grandma and Grandpa Sheffield stopped by as well and visited with us for a few minutes. They were the cutest Gandalf the White and his young wife that died before the time that the books were written (according to my mom).

It was friends at first sight for these two. They loved riding their bikes together and did so for literally hours. The next few pictures are mainly just for my own delight! Robby was such a stinker all of Halloween and wouldn't give the camera the time of day. But as soon as we headed home and got ready for baths he was all grins. His smiling, happy face makes me want to spoil him rotten and give him everything he wants--even when it is covered with food, candy, soda, etc...... (for some reason Robby has this odd fascination with anything that belongs to his sister...aka the pink princess sippy cup)

After baths were done, he was more than ready for bed and actually tossed his blanket in his crib and was reaching to lay in there. Two minutes later and he was zonked. Once he was down for the night, I headed back over to clean up our stuff at the neighborhood street party and then took Maddie home for bed. When she finally made it to bed, all she kept telling me was "Mommy, I so tired." I have to say, that this year Halloween was a FUN holiday. I am loving the age that Maddie has reached where she is so excited for each holiday.