Halloween.

Elna hung her Belle dress up here at the beginning of October in anticipation for Halloween.

The week before Halloween I was busy cutting out and making these props for a Halloween photo booth for the ward Halloween party Friday night.

Friday afternoon (the 30th) we met friends down at the Troutdale outlet mall and trick-or-treated from store to store.

Kylie, Harriet, Chase, Chad, Brooklyn, ?, Elna, Georgia, and William.

Brian met us down there on his way home from work.  We were so exited to see him!

Hattie and Chase made the cutest little bumblebees!  Look at their blue blue eyes!

That night we went to a ward Halloween party.  Brian and I were pretty busy with our callings that night.  I was in charge of the photo booth and Brian was in charge of the haunted house.  Elna had a great time and was pretty independent, running off with her buddies.  Now that she’s in preschool with friends it was kind of fun to watch her feeling so comfortable doing her own thing. 

To get into the haunted house you had to pass through the photo booth room.  Elna loved going through the haunted house, so she kept coming through the photo booth room and wanted a picture every time.  It made my mama heart happy!

Silly friends—Elanor,Elna, Sydney, Cade, and Harriet up front.

Angie took the picture above and below of the kids after the Halloween party while we were cleaning up.

Between trick-or-treating at the outlets and the ward party Friday night, our girls didn’t know that Saturday was actually Halloween.  Are we awful to let them think Friday was Halloween?  There was a wild storm Saturday and we were really glad to not be in it!  But we did have a fun family day carving pumpkins…

I took this picture above on the day we actually bought the pumpkins (several weeks before Halloween)

Dad helping the girls carve the pumpkin.

drinking hot chocolate…

and fixing a plugged up drain that was causing flooding in our front yard.  There was so much rain on Halloween day—sheets of rain came down so hard and so fast that there was lots of flooding—we even watched on the news one of the MAX trains completely flooded.  Brian had to rent a roto rooter to unclog the drain so that our garage didn’t flood.

Hattie (with her baby doll packed underneath)

Needless to say, we were glad our girls were young enough to not know it was Halloween, because it wouldn’t have been very fun to go out for very long in this rain!

Happy Halloween!