All Halloween-ed Out

Monday: Dressed Up for Gymnastics @ Bart Conner's

Instead of little gymnasts, ghouls and goblins did their tumbling and stretches! Noah's gymnastics class dressed up before class in their costumes for a class picture!

Walking across the bar with Miss Ashlyn

Big hug before jumping into the pit

Cheese!

I did it!

At first, Kynlee wouldn't jump into the pit, but once she saw Noah doing it, she started jumping with abandon. Gymnastics with Kynlee sure is fun!

Gearing up for the group picture which was nearly a disaster...

See, unhappy, not posed children. What were we thinking? At least it was humorous (and choatic) getting them all together...This isn't Kynlee's or Noah's regular class. This is Monday's class. Abby and I took them Monday instead of Thursday because my school had their annual Fall Fest at West during the normal gymnastics time.

Thursday: Fall Fest at West

Every Halloween National Junior Honor Society members put on a trick-o-treat night for our elementary feeder schools. It's very much like a carnival with games and candy as the prizes. You can purchase pizza and drinks for dinner. There is a haunted hallway, too, complete with zombie students. Cody and I took Noah through the haunted hallway. Noah immediately latched on to Cody. I had to go ahead shouting, "This is Mrs. Goodnight. DO NOT scare my son or I'll flunk you!" No, I didn't say that, but I did warn them not to scare Noah.

Strike!

Princess Bee Daphne

'Olivia' the Pig Kynlee

T-Rex Noah

(If I may have an aside for just a moment...Noah is clearly a ferocious Tyrannous Rex. He is not a lizard or an alligator or a dragon. Seriously, people, learn your reptiles!)

The Deemer Swarm

(I teach with Amanda. She is my grade level counterpart.)

Friday: Halloween Costume Contest

Halloween week is also Red Ribbon Week at school. Each school day had a dress up theme. Friday was 'Say BOO to Drugs', so the entire school dressed up in our Halloween costumes. My department unfortunately came down with this horrendous fever...

Mrs. Higley, Miss Grissom, Mrs. Goodnight & Mrs. Deemer

Luckily, we are all feeling MUCH better. Apparently what we had was worse than the Swine Flu...The Bieber Fever. Justin Bieber to more exact. The only true cure is to attend one of his concerts...or listen to his music. Bleech. (Good idea, Higs, the brain child of this costume!)

Friday night: Haunted Cookie House

At school, the faculty have secret pals. We buy each other little gifts all throughout fall and then reveal we are at Christmas. My secret pal got me lots of Halloween goodies. One of them was a gingerbread kit for making a haunted house! Noah had to so much fun! I had to lay some ground rules first because Noah thought it was actually dessert we were going to eat. I told him we build it. I had to explain we would eat whatever candy was leftover after the house was complete. Then his daddy comes over and starts eating the candy asking what we're doing. Really?! So needlessly to say, Cody and Noah snacked on treats while Mommy iced the house. Some of the black treats turned my boys' teeth black. That was pretty funny! They rubbed it off before I could snap a picture. Noah is very proud of his haunted house. Anyone who comes over, he immediately drags them over to the table where his house is pointing saying, "Look what Mommy and I did!"

Saturday night: Halloween Eve @ Lake Ridge Addition in SW OKC

Abby and Kynlee invited Noah and I to go trick or treating with them on Saturday night. Usually in Oklahoma, at least in the big city, Trick-o-Treat night is on a Friday or Saturday if actual Halloween is on a school night. With it actually being on a Sunday night, Trick-o-Treat night was on Saturday except in Norman, it was on Sunday night because the OU football game was on Saturday night. Confusing, I know. What that boils down to is kids got two nights of trick or treating this year! Twice the fun! We only took Noah one night, though.

Abby's husband, Jesse, is a Cleveland County sheriff. He was asked to patrol Lake Ridge Addition Saturday night, so we went, too! Let me tell you...Lake Ridge is the place to be! If you didn't go this year, you HAVE to go next year. I've never seen anything like it. It's a super nice housing addition. Every house practically is decorated to a tee with Halloween ghouls, spooks and twinkle lights. It's like something you'd see in the movies! Most of the homeowners sit outside on their front porch waiting for trick-o-treaters. Some expect the old tradition of knocking to get your treats.

Noah would run up to the door with Kynlee right behind and ring the doorbell. At a couple of houses, the residents took too long in Noah-time, so he continued to ring the doorbell. Silly. We had a quick lesson about only ringing the doorbell once; otherwise, it's rude. We also had a lesson at the first house about reaching in the bowl without asking. If other trick-o-treaters were at the door with us, Noah would quickly get overwhelmed being bombarded with superheroes and princesses. He would cry because he'd lost sight of Mommy momentarily. However, Noah did really great. He'd greet the residents with a "tick o teet", open his bag, wait patiently for his candy and then say 'tank yoo' before hitting the next house.

One house had a mini-fall fest in their driveway which was put on by members of Southern Hills Baptist church just down from my school. The church members live in Lake Ridge. About 19 houses sponsored the mini-fall fest. It was really cool. There was a moon bounce, bean bag toss, putt putt, face painting, tattoos, art and crafts and pumpkin painting. They were handing out candy, of course, but cotton candy as well. What an incredible ministry opportunity.

Kynlee in the Moonlight Moon Bounce all smiles.

Noah was so insistent on playing putt putt. He really wouldn't do anything else, but was very good at sharing with the other kids in line.

The mini-fall fest was the highlight of the night!

Sunday: Fall Free For All @ Journey East Campus

Halloween morning I sang at church and Cody was out in the woods, so Mimi brought Noah to church. After the service, there was a fall fest in the parking lot with an exotic petting zoo, tractor hayride and moon bounce! Noah had a lot of fun wrestling in the moon bounce with his friends, Mason, Ty and Blakely and Mason's daddy, Christian. Noah also enjoyed the ring-tailed monkey, the lynx, the tarantula and the many, many snakes...

Mimi and Noah petting the yellow and white boa constrictor...CREEPY!

Noah is focused on the lizard in the glass cage as he pets the friendly ferret.

We had a very busy Halloween week with lots of fun and festivities! I think my favorite part was watching Noah's excitement about everything. He would get so tickled with each activity we did. Cody's favorite part had to be all the candy Noah got. That's a reason you have a kid, right? Free candy? It's definitely the season of sugar overload! We're consuming more of the candy than Noah is! We've enjoyed making memories with our son. Here's to the next set of memories. Hope your fall is fantastic!