My Late Halloween Post

Jonathan's pumpkin carved to look like his favorite anime character from one of his favorite series.

I've been meaning to post this one for a while. We had a fun week of Halloween fun this year. The Friday before Halloween we drove down to Thanksgiving Point and went to Cornbelly's Maze and had fun for a few hours. They had lots of activities for our little one to do. The whole idea of having to drag, carry, beg, and scold her through a maze of corn that might take us hours to get through was not appealing, so we never even went in it. Instead we had fun racing rubber duckies, riding in the cow train, eating lunch, and bouncing. It was super nice weather and it was great to spend some time together just the three of us.This was Gwen's very favorite part. You had to hand pump the water and race little rubber duckies back and forth. Jonathan and I just got to sit and talk in the sunshine while she ran back and forth for over half an hour.They had slides and different things to climb on too. These slides looked fun, but they were all ribbed on the inside too so it kind of rattled you as you went down. I didn't think it was that fun so we only did it once.There were free wagons and that was nice. We didn't get one at first and Gwen kept climbing in other kids' wagons so we knew we had to get one. It made it so we could get to the different areas a little faster though I really think they're for the people going in the maze.The other favorite part for Gwen was these giant inflatable rubber pillows for the kids to bounce on. A few weeks ago she learned how to jump with both feet off the ground so it was especially fun for her. I still won't let her near a trampoline, I've seen too may terrible injuries at my work, but felt that these were safer.

The Tuesday before Halloween we went to the Trunk or Treat party at Grandma Buckholts' ward. It was fun to get to see some of the same old ward members that were around when I was a kid. We got to eat yummy "hot hoop" (soup) and the kids had a fashion show with their costumes. Gwen loved to get up in front of everyone and dance. She even grabbed the microphone and made up a little song and dance pausing to bow every once in a while. She's my little star. Watch for her on American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance some day. I really didn't know that she loved performing so much.

For the real Halloween we went up to Layton to see my sisters and their kids. We had a pizza party with Noah and all the kids boogied to the Halloween music. Then we went trick or treating with Sam and Jami. Gwen really got the whole idea of it too. After hitting her first door she wanted to park herself on the porch and eat the candy she'd been given. I explained to her that we needed to go get more candy and after that she'd yell "need more!" after each house. Still, we only did a dozen houses or so before we decided it was enough.

Jonathan and I dressed up as Mario and Luigi from the Super Mario Brothers video games. Gwen was a flying unicorn.