HALLOWEEN!

The night before Halloween we went to Dixie College to go Trick or Treating around the football track.  Every year all of the sports teams have a trunk or treat station and they give out candy to the kids in the community.  Last year they actually won an award from the NCAA for their service in the community.  It's pretty neat.  So we met the Wells clan there and had fun.

 

 This is my friend Emily Holt and her cool costumes that she made for her family.  She is in the pink one. 

 On Halloween day after Shayne opened her letter I got the boys ready and took them back to school just in time for the traditional costume parade.  Each class walks around the track so they can show off their costumes to everyone else.  This tradition has been going for over 30 years!  Here are my vampires.

Here they are later that night with makeup on and ready for the candy .

 

 Sophie is a blast from the past.  80's.  Thanks to Shayne and Sadies 2010.  And Josh is a scary clown that rides a unicycle.  Which is pretty impressive considering those HUGE plastic shoes he had on were really slippery.

Here are the scariest costumes yet. Every year we head over to Jillyn's house to celebrate her birthday.  She always has sandwiches, chips, fruit, cookies, treats and her famous sunshine punch.  It's a great way to start off the night.

 Lauri, James and their 2 adorable little girls were up for Halloween too.  We make quite a crew don't we?
Joel went as a Tropical Paradise - see the pair of dice around his neck?  I went as a Tropical Depression - I had a bottle around my neck that said PROZAC on it.  HAHA! Get it? Oh man I think I'm funny.

 

One last picture with JoEllen and her minions.  

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 After we left Jillyn's we went to our Ward's Halloween party.  Sophie and Josh had to help set up and the YW and YM were in charge of the games so they missed out on Jillyn's.  The ward had chili, games and trunk or treat.  Then we went to JoEllen's so Sophie and Josh could actually go door to door and get a little candy.  It was lots of fun and now that it's all cleaned up we can concentrate on what we are thankful for.  I am thankful that Halloween is over even though it is super fun.  The kids are thankful for all the candy and Mason is thankful for all the cavities it will cause.

MISSION CALL!

Wouldn't you know it?  Shayne's Mission Call came on Halloween at 11:30a.m.  She went to the mail and called me.  Joel was already home waiting for the mailman with her.  He left to go pick up Josh and Sophie and I picked up the two little boys from the elementary and met them all at home.  Shayne didn't want a ton of people around when she opened it.  In fact at first she was just going to open it by herself at the mailbox but then she figured nothing would get blogged about it if there weren't any pictures. (true)  So her next plan was to get it and call me to meet her at Joel's work so the three of us could be together when she read it.  But that didn't fly with Sophie and Josh.  Ben and David didn't really care.  But now that it came on Halloween we needed to get them out too because I needed to help them get in their costumes and ready for their class parties.  So it was all of us and Zack.  Zack is like a little brother to Shayne.  She called Eric too - Big brother - but he couldn't get off work.  So there we were in the living room, everyone with a phone on speaker to someone else.  Grandpa's, Uncles and Kyson when she opened it and read:

Dear Sister Beckstrand,
You have been called to serve in the Perth Australia Mission!

She goes to the Provo MTC and is speaking English which is exactly what she wanted.  She didn't want to learn a language because she wants to be able to start teaching right off and not have a language barrier.
She leaves March 13th.  Which isn't for awhile but works out well because it's our Spring Break!  We have a ton to do like get her passport ASAP! March seems like a while off but time will fly.  I hope we will be ready when it gets here.

She now has a Blog of her own that will follow her path to Perth and back.  

If you want to follow it it is www.sistershayne.blogspot.com

 Here is her pumpkin.  She finally carved it.

Flag Football

David and his friends all wanted to sign up for flag football this year because they were finally in 1st grade and old enough to actually play.  The problem was that the MOMs (me included) signed up really, really late.  So late in fact that all three kids were on a team with kids from another elementary and they knew none of them.  But that hasn't stopped them.  They have loved every minute of it. 

I'm not sure what Owen's face is doing in this one.  A super serious smile?

The rules for blocking are: arms crossed in front at all times.

Takin' a knee

This is Taiven pulling the quarterbacks flag. It was awesome! He did it every time even if the the QB didn't have the ball!

 

The best fans EVER!

Juked!

Owen with the kick.  He is a great kicker and kicked it every game.  I just got a picture of the worst one.  Sorry.

David taking the snap!

Run! David! Run!

Ben on the other hand did NOT want to play but when I told him that David and the other two were playing he decided to play.  Again the problem was the timing.  The team he was on was also kids from the other elementary and no one had time to be the coach.  So Joel volunteered.  He has always wanted to coach the boys in something and now was his chance.  So he got Brian to sign Taye up and be the assistant coach.  We also got Nick, a friend of Ben's, to sign up so there were at least 2 other kids he knew on the team.  It has been great.  Come to find out that Ben has a great kick.  We knew he could kill a soccer ball on a drop kick but a football off a tee is a little different.  Lots of fun!
 

Go Eagles!

 

Ben with the catch!

Taye on the front line.

Nick and Ben

HIKE!

Coach of the year!

Last game of the season and it was COLD!

THRILLER!

This year Joel and I took a year off of Thriller and gave our 4 tickets to Shayne, Sophie, Josh and Zack.

  They loved it.

 CREEPY!!!

PUMPKINS!

 Here they are!!!  The 2012 Beckstrand Pumpkins minus Shayne's.  Hers is later.

 First is David's.  We carved his the night before at the neighborhood party.  It turned out so cool.  Then Ben's vampire is next.  He was being a vampire for Halloween so he wanted a vampire pumpkin.

This beauty is mine and thanks to an idea on Pinterest I just used my super cute cookie cutter and a hammer.  It was the fastest carving I've ever done!

 

Joel's pumpkin was awesome lit up!

 

 

These are Sophie's that took her FOREVER! and Josh's that he also did at the party the night before.

 Both are awesome!  Josh's went with our spider theme this year. 

 

In fact right before the party I went to Harmon's to get bread bowls and these lovely's were on clearance.  I wish they had more of them I would have bought them all!  Notice the cool full moon!

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!