This is Halloween

Last Friday the kids had crazy hair day at school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the kids spent most of this week in anticipation of Halloween, so we'll just skip forward to what was important this week, shall we?

Okay, so these first pictures are actually from a Birthday party Evelyn went to *last* Saturday. We had a hard time getting pictures because Oliver was convinced that the arm slits in the cloak were for him. Evelyn's Halloween costume was Cerise Hood, from Shannon Hale's Ever After High books (the daughter of Red-Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf).

  

 

 

The kids' school sadly has a ban on costumes for Halloween, but we tried to be festive anyway.

 

 

 This was my Halloween partner for the day. He woke up at 5 a.m., so he was charming from about 11:30-nap time. And by charming, I mean, if he was anyone else's kid I would have given him away.

 

 

 Oliver's costume was up in the air until sometime late Friday afternoon. I didn't buy  him a costume--I was waiting to see which of our already purchased costumes he would agree to wear. For a while we thought he might be a tiger, but the elephant won out. I think he liked the elephant head--I had a hard time getting a picture that included his face!

 

 

 Here's Evelyn, ready for her night out with her trusty wolf side-kick.

 

 

And Andrew, well, I'll let his costume speak for itself. We ordered him a black gi and I painted his face and he wore the Jedi cloak my mom made for him last year (ssh, don't tell anyone it's not really a Sith cloak). He enjoyed being menacing. 

We took the kids trick-or-treating at the dorms, and then Dan took Oliver home for bath and bed and the older kids went around our neighborhood. The weather was beautiful--mild and unseasonably warm--probably in the sixties when we came home.

This morning it snowed.

Today was fast Sunday, and I was so proud of both my kids for getting up to bear their testimony. Evelyn told me she wanted to get up, and I offered to go with her. She walked up to the front, stood on the step stool, looked out at the audience--and froze. I don't think she'd realized exactly what it meant to stand up in front of everyone and have them all look at her. She turned to me, eyes wide, and whispered, "what do I say?" I told her a couple of things she could say, and, brave girl, she turned back to the audience and said, "I believe in God. I think we need to be nice to each other and share. I believe in God" (yes, she said that twice) "and Jesus. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

And then Andrew got up. Sometimes he reminds me *so* much of my youngest brother, and this was one of those times. He sounded exactly like a miniature adult. Instead of spouting off the usual things most primary aged kids say, he said, "I'd like to bear my testimony about some things I've been wondering about. I know a lot of us mean to read our scriptures but its hard to find the time and I've been wondering when it would be the best time. If we read at night then it's easy to fall asleep, so maybe it would be good to read them in the morning. But I think anytime we read the scriptures is a good time to read them." He went on like this for a couple of minutes. It was funny to me how much he sounded like a grown-up thinking out loud--and a lot of people commented on his testimony to me at the end. He did bring it back and bear actual testimony about the church and the scriptures and I was so proud of him for being brave enough to stand up and say the things he believes.

Sadly, Dan was in the hallway chasing Oliver at the time, so he missed it.