Fall Festivities

Fall is such a fun season in New Mexico: the state fair, the Balloon Fiesta, Halloween, etc. Plus this year we added onto that with a new baby. We found a fun pumpkin patch to go to the weekend before Halloween. They had hay bales to climb, yummy sugar roasted nuts to eat, a corn maze (it was the end of the season so a lot of the corn husks were dying but the kids still had fun walking along the paths) and big pumpkins to take home. Then we got to Halloween. It seemed like the celebrating just kept on going. We went to the kids Halloween parade at their school on Friday and Nathan wanted to dress up like the rest of the kids. On Saturday was the ward Halloween party complete with trunk-or-treating. On Monday (the actual holiday) the kids dressed up again and went trick-or-treating in the Walmart and at the Beehive Home (an assisted living home). I think we ended up going through 15 costumes between all of us. Fun times. Nathan was a construction worker, a pirate and Shrek...and was totally adorable in each one. He even let me paint his face for 2 of the costumes. Dad always lets the kids choose the pumpkins that they want him to carve. They chose Slimer, ET, Hello Kitty and a haunted tree. Dad's a pumpkin carving master! This year I decided to try a "free for all" with the candy, instead of rationing it out every day for a couple of weeks, I pretty much just let them have at it. I think I like it better that way - it gets it out of the house sooner and it makes for only a few days of sugar highs.