I present! The 2019 Hufford Children Halloween Costumes!!
The Unicorn
The Dead Bride
The Huntress
Where's Waldo?
He's a "Teenager"
A Hunter...a very happy Hunter
Grumpy Cat and Cardigan Fox (that's a fox costume made up entirely of my normal clothes, an orange cardigan and the old fox tail and ears from 2015)
This year felt different. It felt like the beginning of what Halloween will be now that our kids are getting older. They all have "plans".
Laney went trick or treating with Megan M. and Kimberly.
Megan took off with her boy band (l to r: Meg, Rob Ferguson, Aidan Flynn, Ryan Guenther, Logan Nichol)
Mathew drove himself (that's pretty weird. And totally awesome) to a party with his theater friends.
And Ethan went to a haunted house with Ally, Bridget and that other Ethan.
Luckily I still have my two littles that don't make plans without me. We bundled up and popped a set of hot hands in our pockets and braved the cold to acquire the candy. We saved the cider house for last and weren't disappointed.
We were home by 7:30, candy sorted by 8:15, and pajamas on and snoozing by 9. We've got school in the morning and may the heavens bless those poor teachers trying to impart the knowledge to those little pre-diabetics.
Not to brag, but Everly had her pumpkin artwork selected for display (FRAMED) in the entry of the school. For a second, I figured maybe they just let the kids take turns or something.
oh contare.
This girl's pumpkins are the bomb-diggety.
I took a peak at the competition and I have to say.......sad.
How many years have we been doing this now? I think this is our fourth....or maybe it's the seventh. My memory isn't that great anymore. It's like swiss cheese.
That explains why I didn't remember that trying to cut firewood with the miter saw is ill advised. To my faithful guardian angels and all their buddies that assisted them in keeping my from chopping off my hand when this thing broke in half.....I thank you.
This year, I'm feeling particularly in need of some camping therapy. I informed all the teachers that I would NOT be attending parent teacher conferences and we got outta dodge. Mark had to work and Ethan was (hopefully) going to class. Mathew did everything in his power to get out of it....including weave a whopper of a lie. Something about play practices that lasted all day long and started the minute we were meant to leave for the woods?
oh well.... we girls will survive.
We'll set up the tent, build the fire, organize camp and take a selfie to make sure history remembers our magnificence.
That's right. Magnificence!
It should be said...that we are extremely grateful for Mark's firewood delivery service. We had three days worth of campfires to stoke. Were we mocked for the size of our pile? Perhaps. Were we absolutely persecuted for its grandeur? Yes. But we were toasty warm....for 72 straight hours.
That first night was....soooo cold. If I had been these two, I would have had another layer of coats and been tempted to put my feet in the fire. But the young are impervious to the cold.
Night 1 in the tent...the girls turned in early. Maybe because it was 32 degrees and there were hand warmers tossed in the bottom of their bags.
I stayed up to chat with the Flynns (they came out a day early as well) and stoke the fire. Before I fell asleep, I texted this picture to Mark and said goodnight.
He was also roughing it at the movie theater with Mathew. And a giant bucket of popcorn. And a gallon of soda. And probably a snicker bar in each pocket.
Thursday morning we snuggled in our tent as long as possible. We knew the sun would come out and bring with it much warmer weather for the rest of the weekend...why suffer needlessly?
But eventually we had to venture out and use the facilities. (Freezing bickies!!) We are very grateful for the ventilation system in the bathroom, but it comes with a price.
We didn't make plans to do breakfast with the Flynns, so this was our big chance to try something new....campfire omelettes! Everybody put their chosen ingredients into a ziploc baggie and smooshed them about.
It takes quite awhile to get water boiling over a campfire in freezing weather. But the process is RIVETING. (Look at how absorbed Aidan is!)
Eventually our pot turned black.
And then the water started boiling...ish.
Right after we dropped our bags in, it occurred to us that it would have been a good idea to write our names on them. whoopsie!
mmmm....delicious. Nothing more appetizing than boiled mosquito bodies in your pot.
I'm not gonna lie. It took forever for these to cook....but then!!
Viola!
We are masters of our craft. We are at one with nature. We grill tortillas in the WILD.
Guenthers arrived soon after breakfast and before you know it we were down in the creekbed catching frogs.
It was WAY too cold to have shoes off, but lucky for Anna, I'm operating at about 50% of my normal parenting vigilance.
Of course, no trip to Wallace is complete without a roll down the hill. The sun was really starting to warm us up it was nice to sit and chat with Courtney while we let the girls laugh and play.
We did wonder where Miranda had gotten off too without her shoes, but we figured she was with her dad, so it would all work out okay...even if their hike ended with a barefoot piggyback ride. You know...whatever.
We moseyed on back to camp. There were nails to be done.
A little charcoal eyeshadow, perhaps? We girls make camping look GOOD.
Oh look! Ethan came up to chop us some more wood! Great timing. There wasn't much we could do with those big stumps...besides using them for campfire ottomans and salon stations.
Before too long, we had husbands dropping by to try their hand and wood chopping. It's possible they were doing service for the lady here "without a man", but it's more possible that they like messing around with axes and cheering each other on....
I won't lie...there's some pure happiness on the other side of that chopped wood!
Meanwhile....back in Olathe Mathew you are Mark were braving the DMV for Mathew's honest-to-goodness LEGIT drivers license!!! (You know that this means I am officially done driving to early morning seminary, right?.....these are happy tears)
We spent the next two days in a beautiful haze of nature and snacks. That's all I really want out of these camping weekends.
Sara a was inducted into our campfire chain gang and Jennifer showed us all the true way with her double pie iron. Genius.
Mark came up and spent the last night with us...just in time to help us pack up in the rain and mud. The guy just can't catch a camping break, I tell you.
When we arrived home, Anna had made this very helpful list of things we would need to get done before we head off for naps and alone time. Someday she's gonna laugh! But for now she's too sweet and innocent and that's just fine with me!
