Halloween Festivities 2014

Well.  Halloween has never really been my thing and last year I really did not do much with the holiday because of it.  Since then I have felt bad that my son missed out on some of the festivities, so this year I put together a simple advent calendar for our family during the month of October.  Even though I don't particularly like Halloween, Beckham deserves to make fun childhood memories during the holiday.  Throughout the month, we enjoyed traditional fall activities and I actually had fun with the Halloween activities as well.  Here are a few of the activities we enjoyed during beautiful October.

*First on the list was prepare for General Conference.  It's kind of a big deal to me and I love everything about listening to the prophet.  We made our traditional Cinnamon Twist and ate it much to fast.  Beckham colored pictures of the prophet in preparation for the event and we talked about how much we love having President Monson talk to us.  It was a good day for our family.

*I also celebrated my 26th birthday and Jason gave me the best gift of all.  We made a trip to see Cache Valley for a few days.  The weather was beautiful and it was the perfect time to enjoy fall.  We went up to the canyon with Grandma and Grandpa to see the pretty leaves.

*While we were there Beckham had his first every sleep over by himself.  He slept over at his cousins' house.  He loves them so much. To be honest, he could have cared less if we stayed with him or not.  Beckham waved goodbye to Jason and me like it was no big deal for him.  His first sleep over was a major success.

 *We put up Halloween decorations around the house and unloaded Beckham's trick-or-treat bucket.  He promptly put it on his head like this and explained that it looked like the helmet Captain America wears.  See he even has his shield too...

*Jason's work put on a Harvest Festival.  It was full of fun.  There was endless train rides for Beckham, painting pumpkins, and goodies.  Beckham thoroughly enjoyed himself and was sad when it was time to leave.  Notice Beckham's pumpkin has no paint on it, because it was much too messy for our boy.  Also at the event was a dunking machine and a mechanical bull.  Jason was dunked a few times by a few of his employees and took a spin on the bull.  Fun was had by all.

*We carved pumpkins.  More accurately, Beckham and I watched Daddy carve a scary face on our pumpkin.  The whole idea of gutting a pumpkin was disgusting to Beckham.

*Beckham went with me to the store and picked out his very own costume.  Spider-Man.  We quickly tried it on when we got home and had a difficult time convincing Beckham to take it off.

*Not pictured was our Doughnut Day (in total we made 80 doughnuts), making sugar cookies (turns out Beckham only likes the frosting), and learning out first Halloween song.

*Two days before Halloween, our ward put on the cutest Halloween carnival.  Beckham was thrilled to dress up and run around with other kids.  He got so excited to see Hulk, Cap, and Iron Man....too bad they were just other kids dressed up.  Beckham couldn't tell the difference!  We participated in a truck-or-treat after the party.  Beckham got quite a bit of candy and was pleased, but I think he enjoyed socializing with the other kids more than anything.

 Also, he didn't want to take the costume off for bed.  It took a few minutes of talking from Dad to let us pry off the beloved Spider-Man costume.

*On Halloween Day, we visited the library for the first time.  It was so fun for my little bookworm!  There was a cute story time, songs, and a craft for Halloween.  I really think this was like Christmas day for Beckham.  He l-o-v-e-s to read and look at books.  Plus some of his little friends were there too.  Afterword, we picked out a few stories to take home.  We read them over and over and over again each and every day.  We love the library.

*That night, we went to Bumpa and Nanna's house to celebrate.  It was good thing we did, because they know how to celebrate Halloween.  We had delicious scones, Halloween dancing, and trick-or-treat fun.

 In total we probably visited 5 houses.  After the last house, we had a bit of a melt down.  Beckham laid flat on the Burley road.  He was done with the whole Trick-or-Treating idea.  And that was it.  We ended our night on this note.  Grumpy and tired.  Hopefully he will enjoy running from house to house next year.

All in all, we had a pretty fun October and enjoy the anticipation of Halloween.  And now, I am trying to help this child understand that the festivities are over for a full 365 days.  He is still requesting to sing Halloween songs and get candy dressed up as Spider-Man.  Oh dear.