Trick-or-Treat

After some debate on what to wear for halloween, everyone settled on being a semi-vicious but mostly stinking cute Viking clan. The boys told me it was too girly to be the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Dorothy. They just wouldn't do it. Geese! But vikings, now that's not girly-although we did our best to make Lydia into a pretty pink Viking Princess.

This year the kids, under Dad's direction, turned trick-or-treating into a service project. We have good friends who gather food for needy families each Halloween so we decided to begin our own chapter of "Trick-or-Treat For the Needy" in Texas. The kids worked hard distributing flyers and then gathering the canned foods instead of candy. We were a little anxious about whether this idea would fly or not, but we were truly touched by the generosity of so many people. The boys collected 104 pounds of canned foods from one street and then delivered it to the food bank on Monday. Mike and I were very proud of our outgoing little group.


Here's our Vikings out gathering.

Brandon and Todd gathering a sack of food left for them on the porch.

What a good Daddy! Lydia was so funny. Some houses gave candy and food. The boys would go dump both into the wagon, so Lydia picked up two handfuls of candy and just sat in the back of the wagon yoga style with her arms up in front of her staring at the candy. She never opened and ate it, just stared.

Ethan got tired after a while and worked less and less and less... even for candy.

So that was Halloween for us this year. An awesome ward party one weekend and Trick-or-Treat for the Needy the next. Good times in '09!