Our Fantastic Halloween Week!

WE HAD A FREAKING FUN MONTH!

I LOVE the month of October! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside! In fact when we were trying to get pregnant with Traceon...I really wanted an Octo-Baby! But I think God knew that I would be too stressed trying to figure out birthday party fun, and really not have time to enjoy my favorite month of the year! He always knows best! ; )

I am now sad that my favorite month is over, but now I can reflect on our last week by showing how much stinkin' fun we had!

To start off our fun Halloween week, I put together some spooky buckets of awesomeness for the boys! They woke up from their nap and totally loved it! They are just so cute, and the funnest kids ever!

The buckets had tons of fun things in them like, glow sticks, candy, marshmallow suckers, bugs, fake teeth, coloring books and crayons, Halloween notebooks, a witch and pumpkin craft, a Halloween necklace kit, and stickers! They had fun going through their buckets and getting excited for TRICK or TREATING!

So awesome...right?

The crafts....guess which one is Traceon's?

Then on Tuesday we made PUMPKIN PANCAKES...with Grandma Rosemary's buttermilk syrup recipe!

They were so yummy, and just tasted like FALL!

Cute helpers I have huh?!

Wednesday we made CARMEL APPLES!

These were especially awesome this year because we used the apples we picked at the orchard....and homemade CARMEL! Homemade Carmel is so much better, and easier that un-wrapping 1400 Carmel wrappers...

I didn't get much pics of the boys helping me, because I had to pay close attention to the little ones around EXTREME temperatures... But they had lots of tastes, and got to eat one right after they helped make them.

 Trace...and his sticky-I don't want to be sticky-mad face...

Thursday the boys and I attempted to make sugar cookies. I say attempted because after the cookies were heavily fingered, and maybe even tasted, we got them into the oven...

And they came out like this...

It was a new recipe. A spiced sugar cookie recipe. I saved the dough in the fridge, and all I think I need to do to save them is to add more flour...we'll see.

Thursday we also had people over to CARVE PUMPKINS. We had quite a few no shows, due to illness and itineraries! BUT IT WAS SO FUN! Our boys are just so funny...they make everything worth doing 100 times over! I love it!

Audree and her boyfriend Andrew.

Trace helping daddy pull the "guts" out of the pumpkin!

The boys really got into it, especially Aydan-Bug.

My dad carving his skeleton pirate!

And reading Trace his FAVORITE book EVER! I have read this book so many times I have it completely memorized. It's funny that it's Traceon's fave because I bought it for Aydan the Fall that Traceon was born. Maybe he remembers it from the womb?

Audree eating a SMORES Carmel apple.

Oh Aydan...he carved some very interesting images on the side of my ghost pumpkin. I think he said one was a fish, and one was Optimus Prime...he was very into it! So cute!

Trace got into the PUMPKIN POKES!

All our carved beauties...left to right...Traceon's pumpkin poke pumpkin, Daddy's monster pumpkin, Audree's "Aydan" pumpkin, Andrew's skeleton pumpkin, Audree's cute owl gourd, Aydan and Mommy's ghost/fish/Optimus Prime pumpkin, Gpa's pirate skeleton, Gma's scary face pumpkin! I think we all did a great job

They made our door stop SO CUTE!

(See Trace in the window?)

Friday we went to the Cloverdale Elementary Halloween Carnival! I bought 50 tickets worth of fun for us!

Daddy and Aydan making a spider craft!

Trace and his finished spider. He did help me with the glue...he mostly wanted to eat it but we got he spider made!

They also got tattoo's...which WILL NOT COME OFF. They still have them today!

Went fishing for some fun stuff!

Rocked the Bean Bag Toss!

Played Ring Toss!

We had a good night! It was fun to see the kids play games together! We also went down the SPOOK ALLEY that the 6th graders made, and the boys were pretty scared....but not tooooooo scared! No crying, just lots of "hold me"!

I took this pic of Justin and I after we put the kids in the truck, in hopes to catch a good shot at one of my new headbands I made! You can kind of see it...

Saturday we went to BOO AT THE ZOO! We always have so much fun every year! This year we went a little earlier because Justin and I had a friends Halloween party afterwards to go to. It was not dark enough for my taste. We couldn't see all the cute jack o' lanterns and lights...we'll have to keep that in mind for next year!

Here's Aydan in the black light room! He thought it was cool that his costume was glowing!

TRICK OR TREAT!

HUGE SNAKE!

Both the lions and tigers were out when we were there! The boys LOVED that!

We met up with Dan and Keri, Tommie and Cru, and played the BEAN BAG TOSS, Ran through the maze, and went in the blow up house with them!

Then we ran into Garrett, Stephani, Kylar and Collin! Ky and Collin were Buz and Woody for Halloween!

Family Pic!

Yodeler's with Robot Aliens....

After Boo at the Zoo Justin and I went to Justin's Cheif's house for their annual Halloween Party. It was fun to see all of him and his guys together again. I think they all missed each other, and realized that without each other's support while in Iraq, they would have gone all crazy! It was cute, and they had fun being silly and watching the UFC fights together!

Justin, Brennen, Jayson, Mitch, and Skyler!

Sunday I made the boys SLIME to play with! They freaking LOVED it!

Monday was HALLOWEEN, and Aydan got to wear his costume to school, as well as take treats! These are little witch bags I got on sale at Michael's! Aydan helped me fill them with chocolate eyeballs, fake teeth, gummy tongues, ears, teeth, eyes, and noses, and pumpkin suckers! So FUN!

At Preschool!

This Halloween was SO FREAKING AWESOME! I had so much fun with my guys I cried a little bit amongst our spooky night!

Aunt Jen and Gpa Polson came TRICK OR TREATING with us! We decided to go across Sunnyside over to Stonebrook! It was so CUTE! Every house (that were home, or celebrated Halloween) was totally DECORATED all cute and fun like! Their were a couple of house that had some scary guys out front to scare older kids. Trace was so cute, he would come up and say, "I scared, hold you"!

Aunt Jen (aka Lady Bug) and Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee the alien robots aka TRANSFORMERS!

Transformers on the front steps!

It was too cold to go as a Yodeler, so I went as a black cat!

Except the boys kept touching my make-up, and making it smear.

TRICK OR TREATING!

Look, they're holding hands!

This is one of the many reasons I love October. The sunsets are amazing!

I know this is blurry, but this is what MOST of the house looked like! It was so much fun!

I had so much fun! Watching our boys crunch through the Fall leaves, knocking on neighborhood doors, and saying "TRICK OR TREAT", getting treats thrown into their buckets, and then hearing a big "THANK YOU" from their mouths, was awesome! They're such good kids! Trace did so good trick or treating! We brought the stroller for when he would get tired, and he said "A Treat" and "Tant you"! Aydan got to bring his bike to ride on in between the houses! HE LOVED THAT! The boys made a haul and we went home to some HOMEMADE HOT CHOCOLATE with mini marshmallows!

After mom had to cut them off of treats, they played with these cards!

Then we got in our skeleton jammies, and watched Halloween movies!

We had an awesome week!

*****************************************************

So, let me share something real quick...

Justin is building something for the boys, and it's something he has been thinking about doing for a whole year! He's MAKING THE BOYS BEDS! They are almost done, and I will show you pics of the finished product!

This is why we're are pushing the beds...NOW.

Saturday night we got home at 1:00am from Justin's Chief's house. Gma and Gpa Snyder were at our house watching the tiny one's. When we got home our boys had been up for a half hour waiting for mom and dad. So after Gma and Gpa left we let the boys snuggle with us in our bed for a couple of mins. They were not falling asleep so we took them down stairs to their own beds. At about 4:00am I got a mommy instinct feeling to go check on them, since they were not asleep when we put them in their beds. Trace can crawl out of his crib, and usually gets in with Aydan or goes to the couch downstairs, so I wanted to make sure he was where is was supposed to be.

I went down to their room and he was not in his bed or in Aydan's. I checked the couch, then went upstairs to our bed, and then the couches upstairs. HE WAS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. At this point I was like well he's got to be somewhere...so I started turning on lights and looking in corners, under beds, in closets, everywhere! I could not find my 2 year old any where in our house! I now was in a panic. I woke up Justin, "I can't find Traceon!" So now we're both looking everywhere. We had a friend staying with us that night also. Mitch Slayden was staying down in the "cave" when we woke him up to help us find Traceon. All 3 of us were searching all around the house, I even looked in the washer and dryer. After we all searched inside, I started crying, thinking someone stole my baby! Justin was freaking out, yelling out Traceon's name, and went out the back door in his underwear hoping to find our son. Mitch went out the front, and they looked around the house. I was back inside, bawling, and trying to calm our Aydan-Bug down, he to was very concerned and now awake. I decided to take one more thorough look around the house. I took it slow, and made sure not to leave any creavises out. I got to Justin and I's room and checked under the foot of the bed. NO TRACEON. We have a lot of stuff under our bed so I took another look from the side. There he was. Sleeping. On his belly, beloved blakie in hand. I left him there and ran outside to get Justin and Mitch. I barely could make out the words, "I found him under our bed". Justin dropped to his knees, took a minute to gain control back, and went inside to get our son. He pulled Traceon out from under our bed, and held him. Then I picked him up, took him to his bed, where he was supposed to be. Safely tucked away. I went upstairs to our room and cried for the next 20 minutes. Prayed. And finally tucked myself into bed.

That is why we need a big boy bed for our new big boy.

It seems silly now. Knowing that he was just under our bed. But in that moment, the moment where you don't know where your baby is, is pure torture. It's the worst feeling ever. I'm just thankful that our first time (hopefully last time) losing one of our children was in our home. Crazy right? This 2 year old we got now...is going to give us the biggest run for our money! And I thought he was the mellow one!