Halloween!

          

Fall in Lafayette has been BEAUTIFUL. With all the lush trees we get to see a lot of color. I was unfortunately late to the picture taking party (no one told me about it, I'm not sure I was invited...) but I did get this one at the church on Saturday (Oct 30).

Now imagine all those leaves on the ground still on the trees...and picture that everywhere.

Our Halloween festivities started off the Monday before. We were invited over to have Family Home Evening with some friends  from the ward (the beautiful Holloway family) to carve pumpkins. Justin and I decided that I would carve my pumpkin, and Justin would carve his later so that he could make sure Ashlyn didn't tear apart the Holloway's house. The kids sure were cute playing with the pumpkin guts and Ashlyn kept sitting on my lap to look inside and help.

Her fascination lasted about 3 minutes

Here is our little family and my finished product

Justin and Ashlyn did their pumpkins on Friday. I took a picture of all of them together, but I'm afraid that my pumpkin started to look like an old man with wrinkled gums instead of sharp teeth! So here is Justin's totally UNREAL pumpkin.

The artist at work...kinda

Unreal....Tournament....III

 

With Ashlyn I wanted to try and do something she would have fun with. I thought she might like gutting the pumpkins, but we saw on Monday how long that lasted. So I went with a small pumpkin, a marker, and some Halloween Stickers. She was SO cute and had a lot of fun. Only minimal help from mommy. And of course we had to have DOG stickers. You want this girl to smile? Give/show her dogs.

The Masterpiece

Then Saturday night was our ward "Trunk or Treat." Now...I had been fretting over Ashlyn's costume (Just ask my Mom.) While in Sam's club weeks ago we saw some relatively cheap plush halloween costumes. Ashlyn spotted...yes...a DOG. I handed it to her and for the rest of the store trip she hugged it, cuddled it, kissed it, rocked it. It was the cutest thing. I was happy because I thought that if she liked it that much she would like to wear it. We got home and she wore it just long enough for me to snap this picture

No hood. But what a cute tail.

She has not worn it since. She LOVES the thing, and will smile and kiss it and snuggle it. But she would NOT wear it. Would throw a fit if I tried.

So an hour before the trunk or treat I was trying to scrounge up something else that would pass as a costume. She was going to be little red riding hood in her cute new coat that grandma tolman sent her (even if she refused to wear the hood.) and I even found a basket that would work. Last minute I decided to try the dog costume one more time. By pretending (not tricking...pretending) we were getting in the car and she needed a jacket (which was all true...we just weren't getting in YET) I offered the dog costume. And she put it on...no problems, no protests, no whining. WHAT???? So I didn't dare take it off. I tried to paint her face like a dog, but that didn't go so well (yes, lots of moving, wiggling, and smearing.) I was just happy I got it on her! and that I didn't waste my 8 bucks on her costume!

If I would have known she was going to let me put her costume on her, her shirt underneath would have been all black. But I didn't dare take off the vest to try to change it. So she's just half dalmatian!

Then it was off to the trunk or treat!

Getting ready (note the pretty colors in the trees...)

She was not happy with the hood on, even if it was cute.

Mostly it was trying to herd her towards the trunks, trying to get her to hold the pumpkin out. But it turned into just letting her run free looking at everyone and everything. She couldn't eat most of the candies anyway. There were two trunks that she stopped and really paid attention to. Why? Can you guess? Yeah, they had DOGS.

Herding her towards the cars

woof woof

Ashlyn, where's Mama?

We had bought a bag of candy for the trunk or treat and for halloween. We ended up not being needed at the trunk or treat, and being gone on halloween. What do we do with all this left over candy!? Hmmm. I'll have to think about that...*munch munch munch*

Halloween we spent over at the Hall's (also in our ward). Unfortunately no pictures, but we had a lot of fun there too. Dinner followed by a movie up in their fabulous theater room. All the while being careful not to let the trick-or-treaters know we were there. (hey...we were busy...don't interrupt our movie!)

Overall...a VERY fun Halloween with our little AshyPoo.





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