Halloween

I love that Shad is getting old enough to understand holidays a little and to enjoy the festivities involved with each.  We already learned how much he loved fireworks this summer, and now we know that he loves pumpkins and trick or treating.  We've had a lot of fun!  

Here are a few decorations he helped me put out:

(Foam shapes from Nana)

On Friday the 25th I took Shad over to Jaker's Pumpkin Patch here in Springville off 400 South.  They had various animals, some you could feed (Shad LOVED feeding the horse), they had free tractor rides, and 2 hay bale mazes.  He loved all of it!  

Tractor ride:

Little kid maze:

Big kid maze:

On Saturday, the 26th I took Shad down to Spanish Fork Main Street's trick or treat.  All the shops along the old part of main had candy for the kids.  It was his first experience with trick or treating.  At first he just stared at all the costumes and people, and was super excited after one piece of candy in his bucket.  It didn't take long for him to get the concept after that.  

Later that evening we also took Shad trick or treating at the Riverwoods, which actually turned out to be pretty lame.  I always like the atmosphere the Riverwoods provides, and it was advertised that it'd be some kind of "pumpkin festival" going on, but there wasn't that much to do, candy quality was terrible and you had to wind through every store to get it.  They did have a few pumpkins set up that people had decorated, and this of course was Shad's favorite:

On Wednesday the 30th Shad and I went over to carve pumpkins with Jessica since Jeff and I had run out of time to do one with Shad at home.  I wanted to see how he'd do with helping to gut a pumpkin at this age... he did really well!  He wasn't grossed out and he loved pulling stuff out of the pumpkin. 

  

And then he and Owen got to watch a show while Adalee slept and Jess and I did the actual carving... ;)

He was super excited about his "mimi bumpbin" though!

That evening we headed over to our ward building for our ward's Trunk or Treat.  I spent the afternoon in the garage making this skull decoration for our car to go with our costumes.  We decided to re-use our skeleton costumes since I'm pregnant with a boy again this Halloween.  Plus it's the most comfortable costume ever.  So all I had to do this year was make Shad's to go with ours.  I think his actually turned out better... And our costumes still ended up being a hit because we had just moved in and didn't have a ward party the year we wore them before, and everyone at the trick or treat events I went to with Shad didn't know me anyway.  Many people acted like they'd never even seen the idea before and they loved it, so that was fun to get the attention on a repeat costume.  ;)

Thursday morning, on Halloween, I made Shad ghost pancakes!  He mostly loved that he got chocolate chips for breakfast, but he thought the ghost was pretty exciting too.  

 Jeff dressed up as a church ball player for work.  He wore every brace he had- neck, elbow, wrist, knee, and ankle.  He should've added some ace wrap in their somewhere.  I told him when people asked him what he was he should just say "Jeff Christofferson" since they're all his anyway... 

That evening we picked out all the candy from all of Shad's trick or treats that we didn't want and put it in a bowl on the porch, and then left to go party in Lehi with the family.  We LOVE their spudnut tradition!  And so does all the extended family and neighborhood.  I didn't get pictures of everyone that came, but here are a few:

Aunt Joan

The girls

Shad and Tylie