Halloween

Taken as a whole, I'd say Halloween 2014 was a reasonable success. Abraham and I made him a super hero shield out of patriotic fabric and a paper plate, and fancied up one of the muscle shirts the boys wore last year and he went as Super Abraham (who slightly resembled Captain America). When Hyrum discovered his brother was wearing the black muscle shirt he wore last year, he went into absolute hysterics for a good half hour, crying that he wanted to wear it. This was news to me, since Hyrum had asked several times if he could be the Cat in the Hat. His angst was extremely dramatic but waned with the threat of getting no candy. We eventually got everyone dressed: Hyrum in the much too large Cat in the Hat costume, Abraham in his super hero attire, Mercy in the Tigger costume that both the boys wore at her age, Matthew as a generic Lord of the Rings guy from the waist up, and me as a zombie in the dress I wore for our Thriller dance a couple years ago. With all the drama and me getting confused at what time our neighbor's party started, I didn't end up getting any pictures. We walked down to the Shaw's for pizza, then Matthew came back home to hand out candy while I took the kids around the neighborhood. We didn't get a huge haul, but the candy we did get was high caliber. More than half chocolate and not a single dum dum. The giant Pixy Stix we handed out were definitely a big hit as well.

Abraham had somehow got it in his head that we were going to five houses to get candy, so after five houses he was done and asked to go home. Mercy was fussy before we even got started, so we just did our street (maybe 20 houses) and were done. The weather was perfectly lovely. I wore short sleeves and the kids didn't even need sweaters, let alone coats. I learned later that it snowed in Indiana and most of our friends there didn't last long in the freezing temperatures. I am loving New Mexico more and more! The boys changed into pajamas, ate some of their candy, and were both voluntarily in bed by 8:05 pm. Matthew kept the porch light on and sat by the door watching scary-ish shows on his phone until 9:00. We only handed out 68 of the 200 Pixy Stix we purchased, so we plastic wrapped the rest and are set for next year.   

Like I said, I didn't get any pictures of the kids dressed up on Halloween, but Mercy liked her cozy little costume and it wasn't hard to get her to put it on for a few pictures the next day. 

By far the best thing to come out of this whole experience was the cotton leggings I bought to wear under my dress. They might be the most comfortable, wonderful things I have ever put on and are likely to become my new favorite thing to wear around the house.