Star Wars Halloween

halloween was a huge success! i started out the day by volunteering in ammon's kindergarten class. whew... talk about some excited (and hyper) 5 & 6 year olds! they carved a pumpkin, decorated their own pumpkins (rice cakes) with cream cheese frosting, "bobbed" for apples on a string, made crowns, did a cookie walk (like a cake walk) and lots of other fun stuff. it was fun to see how halloween could actually be educational! (shapes were reviewed for the pumpkin carving, numbers for counting seeds, science hypotheses for apple bobbing, art for the crown decorating, etc.) i was glad to be able to spend some time with ammon for his first school holiday.

later in the day, i took abe and ziya back to the school and we watched the costume parade. ammon looked like he was having lots of fun. as a matter of fact, he was so excited, i couldn't get him to slow down enough for a good picture!

after school, i forced ammon to take a nap. he wasn't very happy with me, but it made for a much more pleasant evening! we finally got everybody dressed (Darth Vader, Yoda and Princess Leia) to go to our ward's party. it was great. the kids' costumes were a big hit. there were tons of games and activities for the kids to play - toss the ring, duck pond, decorate a cookie, cupcake walk, spook alley (actually created by jacob and some of the young men), a trick-or-treat alley, and lots more. put all of this on top of a pizza dinner and we were all happy campers. the best part is that we didn't have to go outside at all! trick-or-treating in 30-35 degree weather? no thank you!