Madame Butterfly, the 103rd Dalmation, and Olivia and the Red Crayon

It's no secret to those who know me that I am not crafty. It's ok. I have come to grips with the fact that I will never rival Martha Stewart and my children will never arrive at parties with cute homemade crafts to share. So, that is the preface to the pictures of my children's first ever Halloween costumes.

This is the first year that I have had to struggle with how we would address the halloween situation. The girls are old enough now to know what is going on and ask questions. So Dan and I decided that we would take it one year at a time. This year we have decided to let the girls dress up (because it's fun) and attend Dan's community center carnival. All of the COmmunity Centers in Dan's region got together at Shane Mize's community center, Greenbrier and had booths set up in the gym. It was really fun! They had a bounce house and lots of fun games. The girls got lots of candy and Grace Ann, Gibson, and Hayden Mize were there too. It can't get any better than that! I even got to visit with Hannah! So in preperation, I went to the resale shops looking for cheap costume ideas. Because like I said, I am just not crafty! We found some really cute butterfly wings that FaithLyn fell in love with and a cute dalmation costume for Elise and an Elmo suit for Olivia. But when we got home I realized the Elmo suit didn't have an Elmo face hat. So she has a red suit! Hmmm...my craftiness was severly challenged over this one!! But we came up with the red crayon idea and well, she's still to young to realize that she got shafted!

We had lots of options for tomorrow. Our church is having a really fun Harvest Festival and it's completely Bible based so I know that would be great for the girls but I was really burdened about our neighborhood. Everyone in the neighborhood knows that we attend seminary. They know we are "Jesus people." I feel like this will be a good time to let my girls experience giving instead of getting. We are going to stay home tomorrow and give out candy. I hope we have some trick or treaters because we loaded up on candy! I tried to get the good kind too. I want to send a message to these families that, yes, we are Jesus people, and that means we love you! I hope it will open some opportunities to meet some neighbors or at least some neighborhood kids. At any rate, my girls will get to focus on giving out candy instead of getting it. I am really excited because growing up in the country we didn't have any trick or treating. I can't wait to get to open up the door and give a sugary treat!! If anything they will at least know where to come to get the good candy next year!! I hope that what ever you have decided to do with your family that you enjoy it! Whether it's fall, or Halloween, or what ever you celebrate have fun!

This last picture is just one that I wanted to share. Aunt Patty sends us these great boxes filled with all kinds of goodies every once in a while and today happened to be once in a while! The girls love getting packages and the boxes from Aunt Patty are always BIG! So we had fun going through it and trying on all of the great hats she sent our way!