The best treat

Halloween is one of the funnest holidays. I love all of the festivals and how the whole neighborhood/town/city celebrates together.

Our first party was the city's Boo Bash. There were games to play (such as grabbing eyeballs from a pool of water with a blind fold on) and inflatable obstacle courses to run through. I was happy to discover this was all free.

Next we had the elementary school's Fall Festival. The boys wore their costumes for this one. There were more inflated obstacle courses and games (plinko was a favorite). There was face painting and tatooing and friends from school to play with.

We then went to our ward's chile cook off and trunk-or-treating party. I didn't take any pictures of that but it sure was fun.

On Halloween we carved our pumpkin--we originally had two, but one went rotten way before we were ready to carve them.

Chris was ill on Halloween so I had the pleasure of escorting my children around the neighborhood trick-or-treating.

The best treat of all was given me while we were out trick-or-treating. I was stopped by a couple who was out with their children. The husband asked if I was the mom who roller-blades to school every day. I answered in the affirmative. Then his wife told me I am her inspiration. She mentioned that one day her son came home from school and told her that he had seen her inspiration at the library. It's fun to know that I'm so well known. It's an honor to know that I inspire anyone. What a treat!

Random updates

Ella has been having fun playing soccer this fall. The league here in Southwest Texas separates the girls and boys, only has three players on the field per team and has no goalies. Ella loves it and has become so much more aggressive. Last week she scored two goals.

I live in Texas. And if I learned one thing from the movie "Whip it" it is that when you are in Texas you either do beauty pageants or Roller Derby. As the neighborhood "Rollerblading Mama" it was fitting that I organized a g.n.o. to attend the Hurricane Alley Roller Derby. It was quite possibly the funnest night out ever. I think that in another life I was a Derby girl. (My Derby name is Hermione Danger.)

There are a lot of parks here and the weather is perfect 98% of the time. So my boys and I go to the parks often. Rhys thinks he is invincible. He likes to go head first down every slide.

We recently went to the Dr for our flu shots. Eli was not too keen on this idea and decided to hide from the nurse so that she couldn't give him his shot. When the nurse came in though he found the superhero in him and came out from hiding. He was actually quite tough and did not cry.

I had a birthday in September. My big present was our new butler Jeves. He is amazing. He opens and closes doors for me. He helps me back up. He says goodbye when we leave him. He gives me the freedom that I'd longed for since we moved to Texas. And Eli let me know that when we are driving around we are inside Jeves' stomach.