Jess in the City: November 2011

I was determined not to let Halloween get crazy this year! Last year it seemed like it was a bit of overkill with a million parties to try to make up for the fact that we didn't trick-or-treat on Sunday. I love having Halloween on a weekday - Monday was perfect this year!

It seems like pumpkins took over our home this year... Here's round 2 of pumpkin painting, and we couldn't forget the jack-o-lanterns -- luckily, Jon was on jack-o-lantern duty this year! I had zero energy left when that came around!

I had a great time volunteering at Noah's school party. I think I'm finally finding ways that I can help out at his school without feeling too overwhelmed, and I'm so grateful for that. The Halloween party was right up my alley -- I brought a fun pumpkin craft for the kids to do and helped hand out treats. Noah has such a sweet class and his teacher is really great.

The ward party was also a great success this year! Jon helped organize it with the YM/YW, and everyone seemed to have a great time, even barring the freak snow storm we had that day! What, SNOW?!? It was bizarre... it knocked down trees, put out power, and covered the roads for the first time this winter. Yikes, I'm so not ready for winter yet! Luckily, I had just finished gathering winter hats, gloves, scarves, etc. so we were prepared!

Finally, on Monday night, we set out to trick-or-treat with some friends. This was probably our best Halloween night we've had in the city to date. The kids had such a great time going store to store (gotta love trick-or-treating at Chinese Restaurants and Dry Cleaners) and then smashing into elevators of buildings and going floor to floor. People put pictures of pumpkins on their doors if they were welcoming trick-or-treaters in the few buildings that we went to. It was tons of fun! We're already planning our route for next year :)

And finally, the little goblins... not so much goblins as completely cute Captain America and Thomas the Train!