Halloween

In past years, the girls have not been able to dress up in their costumes for school. But this year, they were. That made Halloween extra fun and special for them. Ella even got her dad to paint her face.

They had parties at school and had a lot of fun. Gabby was a bit annoyed, though, because she was dressed as Cleo DeNile from Monster High and she said that all day kids asked her what she was.

That evening, after violin lessons, we hurried home and got ready to go trick-or-treating. We met up with friends to trick-or-treat together.

Of course, we had to visit the two best houses in our neighborhood. The Gustafson's had their annual spook alley which Ella and Michelle both went through. I was proud of Ella because she doesn't like to be scared, and so I was surprised she went through, but she did. And the Gustafsons were serving cotton candy on glow sticks. So. Very. Cool. (I personally don't like cotton candy, so I passed on that, but they are still so very cool.) I absolutely love my neighborhood. In fact, that could easily count as today's gratitude idea...but I already wrote about missionary work...and I kind of already wrote about my neighborhood (my ward) on Friday. Then we visited lots of other homes on our way to the Kings. The Kings have scones and hot chocolate each year. Our very favorite stop. In fact, I think Gabby could ALMOST go without trick or treating if we just went to the Kings. Yum!

Somehow this was one of the best, perhaps the best, Halloween yet. It was the first time in a decade that I haven't pushed a stroller...okay, so really, it was the first time since I was a kid and went trick-or-treating as a child that I wasn't pushing a stroller. The weather was a tiny bit chilly, but it wasn't snowing or raining or absolutely freezing.

And I had a great day at school. Most of my students dressed up. We had a parade around the school, and my students and so many others were just darling. We did Halloween activities, wrote Halloween stories, watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. My favorite part was I turned on Halloween music during the party and many of the kids got up and danced. I don't have a Halloween CD, so I just went to Youtube and chose Halloween songs to listen to and we even watched a couple of the videos that were cute like Monster Mash and 5 Litlte Pumpkins. The kids worked and played and danced and told me I was the best teacher ever. It was a great day.