Halloween is such a big thing to cover! I’m going to to try and do everything justice without making this post 100 years long; we’ll see how I do. 🙂

Let’s start with Josh’s haunt! He decided he was going to make it different this year and not have a game. This was in the name of going trick-or-treating with the kids and me. But alas, we couldn’t find somebody who wanted to skip Halloween and sit with our house while people went through our garage; so he ended up being there the whole time anyway. Oh well.

Let’s begin with the yard. As you approach the house, you see a skeleton pirate captain manning his ship with a stormy sea behind him. There was also all manner of pirate music playing!

On the other side of the driveway, you see a lonely pirate rowing his rowboat.

Also, lest there were any troublemakers…

Then you enter the pirates’ grotto via the grand entrance. That is, if you dared go in. 🙂

Within the grotto there were many spooky things like skeletons in cages and spiders galore!

But the highlight of everything was definitely the pirate treasure room!

And that was the haunt! It was so detail oriented (like everything Josh does) and just a fun experience! But people have definitely become accustomed to the games, because Josh said a good number of kids just ran through, not taking any time to really look at stuff, and then upon emerging looked at Josh and asked “Is that it?”

But I’ll tell you, I was around the neighborhood that night, and even went to “the” houses, and Josh’s was still something extra special even sans game. We went to one house that the kids had been asking about because it was super decorated; and people were genuinely trying to scare the kids who came by. I find that really dumb, because the kids who are out on Halloween are frequently really little kids, like mine, just trying to be a princess and simultaneously get candy. Why would you want to be the house to traumatize toddlers?! But as we made our way home, we heard fun pirate music, saw all of Josh’s cool props, and the fabulously rugged pirate himself, and everything just felt fun and inviting.

Yes, yes. I know I am significantly biased. But really; Josh always makes the best haunt.

Anyway, here’s some more of Halloween!

Then, the aftermath! The kids had permission to eat all the candy they wanted for about a half hour. So they each got a sucker and spent most of their time on that single sucker. It cracked me up! So, I let them enjoy their suckers while I shamelessly ate all their Kit-Kats!

Also, here is our adorable niece, Lucy, in her old-lady costume! It was too cute not to share!

And now that we have had a marvelous Halloween, we are back to having just a marvelous autumn! Here are some goings on, and most importantly, my mantel display! I am basically THRILLED with how it turned out! It might be my favorite mantel display ever!

The Saturday after Halloween was Super Saturday for the ward. This is what the kids did while I was gone.

And now it is officially the Thanksgiving season! I LOVE Thanksgiving time! It is so fun to have an extra excuse to be grateful for all the wonderful blessings we have! 

We had our traditional “Family Party” of writing down as many blessings as we have sticky notes for. This time, instead of scattering them all over the house, we consolidated them onto the back of the “Summer of Adventure” poster.