We finally made time to carve our pumpkins the afternoon before Halloween. The girls were very excited. Konrad typically does some pretty crazy carving for them - using templates and all that - but this year he said they were keeping it simple.
Konrad made a baby pumpkin, complete with a
binky and a bow:
Allison chose the shapes of her features - I think she even drew them on the pumpkin herself:
Samantha convinced me she could do the carving herself. She did both eyes completely on her own, but I helped with the nose and mouth - we found out vertical and horizontal lines are easier than diagonal or circular ones:
Kimber did her own carving as well - all though she did it all by herself:
That night was our Ward Trunk or Treat. The girls were excited for their first chance to collect candy:
Daphne,
Scooby, and Velma
Halloween night we had my parents over for dinner. Then two of our neighbor friends met up with the girls for some trick-or-treating. My mom and I stayed back to hand out candy, while the girls, Aleigha, Lauren and 5 adults ventured out into the neighborhood. I think they decided next year Grandpa Clay would just take all the girls :)
Scooby doing a little tail wagging:
Velma ready for some candy (I realized today that I never got her a pair of orange knee-high socks....oops!)
Daphne
stylin' and ready to go:
With the carved pumpkins (the big one under Sam's pumpkin ended up rotting before we could carve it, which is why it doesn't have a face):
All lit up:
Kimber showed that she is definitely my child when before she would go get ready for bed she had to take a picture of her sorted
Halloween candy. I have many pictures in my childhood photo albums of sorted
Halloween and Easter candy. :)
After seeing how much candy we had and hearing that my friend was having her kids sell their candy to a dentist I decided I was going to try and convince my children to do the same.
Konrad's best friend is an orthodontist (Dr. Aaron Molen) and he was buying candy, so our original plan was to go see him at his Enumclaw office, but in the end, we ran out of time (the office would have closed before we could make the drive out there). So we headed to a dentist in Maple Valley that gave my kids $2 per pound of candy, plus $1 for wearing their costumes. I think we came home with $21 bucks or so. The girls thought that was pretty cool AND they still have enough candy left to enjoy. I let them keep an entire freezer-size ziploc bag of candy and we still had 9.5 pounds to sell.
I was also completely blown away by the amount of candy the dentist had bought. 8 very large garbage cans filled to the top - he said last year they collected 1200 pounds of candy!!!! He said last night that he was positive they would pass that this year. It was INSANE! I have never seen so much candy in my life.
Next year, we're coming to you Dr. Aaron - maybe you can plan to be in your Auburn office to make it easier for us :)
We had a great Halloween - it was a long one starting with Kimber's birthday. I finally started taking down decorations today. The preschool room will seem so empty tomorrow! No more ghosts, spiders, or bats!
Allison and Samantha playing in the afternoon after Kimber and Sam got home from school....even more snow this time :)
The big girls headed to the park for a girls vs. boys snowball fight. They are braver than me. They tried to convince me to come help the girls side, but I stuck with building a snowman with Sam and Allison.
This morning - now this is A LOT of snow for us Washingtonians! Plus it was a beautiful sunny day. The girls went out a few different times throughout the day. I'm starting to think they go out just so when they come in they can have hot chocolate or apple cider :)
The park was covered - the girls were amazed that you couldn't tell the difference between the sidewalk/basketball court and grass.
The neighbors tied their sled to a stick so they could take turns pulling each other around the circle. 
I have a feeling we'll be enjoying Snow Day #3 tomorrow - this snow and ice isn't going anywhere! I just keep wishing we were stranded somewhere a bit more exciting - my sister is in town at my mom's - it would be much more fun to be "stuck" with all of them! Hopefully we can make the trip over there at some point tomorrow!
