Mellow-ween

As the title of this post indicates, this year's Halloween festivities were mellow. As is much of our life right now. When my life turned upside down in August, God really changed me. I finally feel like I can breathe again and that my life's purpose can be fulfilled. And I haven't had a single person tell me how busy I am! That used to be a thorn in my side... or maybe a big stick... or a fence post... you get the picture. As if I didn't know how busy I was - I was sickened by it every day.

Anyhoo, we did have a lot of fun this year. Bradley was a pirate, which started out as Jack Sparrow, but he decided he didn't want to wear the wig so he went as Will Turner instead. He's totally in character in this picture, I swear he's not mad. Kialaia was a princess. This year I kind of (okay, I did) tell her what she was going to be. Gladly, there was no protest. This girl has SO many princess dresses in her dress up trunk that I couldn't imagine spending $25 on a Barbie Mariposa costume! She was very happy and I think felt very much like a princess because I put mascara on her and let her use my colored lip gloss! Ooh La La - very fancy! I'm telling you what - that girl has some amazing eyes! Absolutely beautiful. The picture doesn't show, but she has long eye lashes and with them accentuated with the mascara she looked awesome. But no worries, it will be a long long time before she gets to wear big girl makeup again.

I took these pics with my phone (which uploads much quicker than my camera, by the way) because I forgot my camera at home. We were in the church parking lot getting ready to go in for Harvest Festival. It's a lot of fun, they have tons of games and prizes for kids and adults. And it's over at 7:30 so people can still go trick-or-treating if they so desire. And we do. Like every other year, Paul took the kids out while I stayed home to pass out our "candy" which was fruit snacks this year. Yes, I am kind of a health nut... but I'll be honest... I can't buy candy because I have low will power and I'll eat it all. You're probably thinking "some health nut!" And I just can't stand to spend money on stuff I don't like! Ugh. Such a delima. So I do fruit snacks.

We did carve pumpkins this year, but I forgot to take a picture of them all lit up! Now they are soggy, sad, wrinkled pumpkins on our front walkway. O well.

One fun thing about Halloween this year was that when we moved I found a box with TONS of old costumes in it - from when Bradley was little. So I posted them on Craig's list for $5 each. I thought I could make $5 and bless someone, or have to run them to the Youth Ranch. So I chose the former, and it was so rewarding! They sold like hotcakes and everyone was so thankful for selling the costumes at such a great price... now if only the blessing will be returned next year with maybe a Barbie Mariposa costume....