Halloween Fright!

Well we hope you are sitting down and have fastened your seat belts because this is going to be one long post!! To start out Stefan got these helicopter plastic twirling things for his birthday from Grandma and Grandpa Powell, and we have spent many days down on the track flinging them up in the air and watching them fly down and trying to catch them! Great Gift. Next on the list is Janine. She wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake this year. She decided this is what she wanted to be back in september. So Stephanie ordered her a costume and when it came in the mail it was too small! So Stephanie mailed it back and ordered the next size bigger and lucked out getting the last one. When we recieved that one in the mail the hat and tights were a small but the dress was a toddler! so again the dress didn't fit and Stephanie sent everything back but the tights and made Janines costume herself! We all tried to convince Janine to be something else. Stephanie even took her to Halloween City and said whatever you want Janine you can have it and she looked and thought everything was cute but finally told her mom that she just really wants to be strawberry shortcake. Making this cute dress was quite the chore to say the least. (I will shorten this story up so that you wont spent your whole day reading this blog.) Stephanie was constantly on the phone with her mom trying to figure out sewing jargin and trying to understand how to make this dress. well after stephanie thought she understood her mom she sewed the top together and pulled it right side out and there was no BACK! so she unpicked everything called her friend Gabby and she came over to help Stephanie figure it out. And of course it is so stinking simple when someone shows you how it is supposed to go! After gabby left stephanie went to iron the dress top out and of course the iron was on too hot and Stephanie melted a hole in the dress! (see what I mean about this dress) well eventually I got it all sorted out and the finished product turned out really cute. We carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening last week. The kids still won't stick their hands in the pumpkin and rip the guts out! aaahhhh....someday i guess. Stefans pumpkin is the bat, Janines is the Cat and Stephanies is the diamonds all over. Eric didn't have his own this year. He was the master carver. So he pretty much did 2 pumpkins. The kids had their halloween carnival and program on friday. Both kids did well. Stefan didn't do any hand motions but he did sing which is an improvement from last year. Janine did the hand motions and sang! Which we were very proud. Janine hasn't said a word yet in school but has started to say a few words in Nursery. So we are very excited and know that she will start to talk soon enough in school. Erics family came up to decorate the stores for Christmas. (i know crazy) Christmas has to be up in the stores November 1st. So his family came up to do that and Loni and Whitney stayed with us and joined in on our family Halloween day. We went Bowling as a family and had a great time. The kids are always so good for the girls. Stefan ages 10 years when they are around. This was Stefan and Janines first time "real" bowling. Real as in not on the Wii. They loved it.

Afterwards we went to Maceys to get some groceries to make our Fall Chili for the Chili Cook Off at the ward Halloween Party. We won "The Manliest Chili" Eric and Stephanie figured it was because our chili was chunky because there was no red meat in it. Only Turkey. But we were happy we won an award. Our Family recieved so many compliments on our Costumes this year. Stephanie has finally rubbed off enough on Eric that now he slightly enjoys dressing up with Stephanie every year. Eric was a Pharoh and Stephanie was Cleopatra. Stefan was a blue Ninja and Janine as you know was Strawberry Shortcake and sweet Jacoby was a Chef. We enjoyed our Halloween this year. I condensed each story for the sake of those reading. Happy Halloween from THE ALLANS