Who knew Halloween could be so fun?

At the beginning of October we were having a video call with some of our friends in France on Skype and they saw some Halloween decorations the girls had made on the door. In case you're wondering, the big 'X' things are spiders :). They were surprised that we were already starting the celebrating, and even I (whose first full sentence as a child was the Halloween mantra, "I want candy!") had no idea just how much fun we were in for. Fundamentally, Americans look for reasons to celebrate and Halloween provides so many opportunities. Weeks before the actual miraculous outpouring of trick-or-treat candy, there are costumes to plan, (Ryn is a clown in the very costume Kevin wore when he was 3, Elle is our little witch-- grace a la famille Gandon, and Eden is our little lamb that Ryn was for her first Halloween)
bat, ghost, and pumpkin cookies to make and share , pumpkins to carve (we had a fantastic Family Home Evening last Monday with Ryan and Grandpa and Grandma Linkous),

parties to attend--one at the Pepperwood Ward and one at Ryn's dance class (where she's wearing the witch costume Elle wore for everything else and is glued to the teacher's side comme d'hab :)),

and songs to sing (I showed Ryn some minor chords on the piano and how we could make spooky owl and ghost songs out of them).

That afternoon we had a blast at the Discovery children's museum with our friends, Ben, Tatum, Bethany, Mary Jane, and Miles Norris. With kids exactly the same ages as ours, they've been a blessing since the day we moved into this ward.

Ryn's favorite part of the actual Halloween night was just being able to knock on every door she saw. On a walk yesterday, she couldn't understand why we couldn't keep such a good thing going and asked at nearly every home, "can we go to that house?" Elle loved telling people at every door what a witch says--"Come here, my pretties..." I'm sure they were all terrified :).