Halloween Festivities!!!

I skipped over the second half of October because I knew it was going to be a LONG post! Our community does so much to celebrate fall and Halloween and we were exhausted by the end of it! There our ward trunk-or-treat  which is always a good time! 

And then there was the Fall Festival which was more crowded than we've ever seen it before, but still loads of fun! Briana and Gracelynn came out that day to spend time with us and we had a great time enjoying this fall weather with them! Josh was at work (as always) so he missed it this year :(.

Playing at the park that morning with the kiddos!

We love Gracelynn!

Evie helping Gracie walk!

The park gang! It was so fun spending the day with my sister and our babes :).

Off to the Fall Festival later that evening!

The Fall Festival Gang! Austin was Bendy the Ink Demon (a video game character), Evie was the pink Power Ranger, and Gracie was Boo from Monsters Inc.!

Picking out pumpkins at the pumpkin patch!

Next came the decorating station!

And then we spent the rest of the evening playing and eating fried food from food trucks :).

So grateful for my sisters!

Then there was pumpkin decorating with the pumpkins we got from the pumpkin patch at the fall festival! The kids didn't want to touch the slimy insides of the pumpkins so we painted them again this year. That was just fine with me! It's much easier to clean up afterward :).

Painting our scary pumpkins for family night. I have no idea why Austin insisted on wearing the makeshift goggles hehe!

Evie working really hard on her masterpiece!

Such a goofball!

 And on actual Halloween, I spent the day making pumpkin bisque and ham, and then Briana, Thomas, and Gracelynn came over and we celebrated Halloween with them! We had our traditional pumpkin soup feast, and then when Josh got home from work, we went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood :). I thought it would be nice to leave out candy for the other kids while we were gone, so I left a whole bowl out on the front porch thinking kids would be responsible... silly me! Not only did they take all the candy, but they took the bowl too!!! I couldn't believe it! Anyways, that was the only downfall to the evening. We had such a good time scouring the neighborhood for candy! Our neighbors are always so awesome at decorating and making it fun for the kids! There were homemade haunted houses running and donuts with hot apple cider being given out! It was so fun to share the fun with Briana and her sweet little family :).

Halloween night 2019!

Eating our amazing Halloween dinner with the ones we love :).

And then it was off for trick or treating!

We definitely made every minute of this day count!

I honestly feel like October was one nonstop party! I felt too exhausted by the end of it to even take down our Halloween decorations! It took me a whole week to work up the courage! haha! But that seems to be how we roll and I wouldn't have it any other way. :) I also caught myself pondering a lot on the difference between this Halloween and the last. Last year I was caught up in miscarrying our baby and I got into a car accident that totaled our car right afterwards. Inwardly, I was a wreck on Halloween but I tried so hard not to show it. I wanted so badly to be there for my kids and not let my own inner turmoil ruin their joy. But this year was different. This year I was very much pregnant and my biggest issue was just trying to keep up with everyone! Obviously I would rather have years like this one, but there was a bittersweet gratitude that follows the realization that you survived a really hard year and you didn't let it break you. Thank you for that Heavenly Father.