Our halloween festivities this year included a school parade, dinner with friends from church and of course, trick or treating!

Here is Cade all dressed up for school.

 Here's Alex waiting for Cade's class to come for the parade.
 There's Luigi!

 Now it was time for the whole gang to get dressed up. I'm sure you've guessed our theme by now! Super Mario Bros.
 Here's Toad
 Luigi
 Princess Peach
 And it's-a-Mario! Dan was very popular as we were trick or treating, and he was even talking just like him!
We had a great Halloween. The weather was perfect, we had a great time with friends, and enjoyed some real door-to-door trick or treating.

 Keeping it simple this year. Cade helped Daddy with the monster one, even carved!
 Glowsticks are substituting as candles because, well, we didn't have any!
 That's Cade with his 'Halloween face'
Have a fun Halloween week! All of our festivities are on Saturday, with a school parade on Friday, so look for pictures soon after!

• Scrapbooking- or I should really say paper crafting. I am working (slowly) on a scrapbook from our cruise, but I tend to do other projects first. Card making, shirt making, and these cute little things for Halloween that didn't even involve my Silhouette!

• Alex Projects- I kept telling myself that once Cade went to school I'd have all this time for this endless list of things. But I really had some things that I needed to get done with Alex. One was the removal of the pacifier, or as he calls it "puff-puff". The second was to potty train. I wanted to do that before the summer so I didn't have to buy those expensive swim diapers, but it never happened. I really wanted to get it done before he starts Primary in January and especially before we move back to the USA so he's in a good pattern before those long flights and travel days.
• Pacifier Project- The first time we attempted this it was the worst 3 weeks of our lives. He was incapable of calming himself without it so he would wake multiple times in the night screaming and crying and we'd go through the long process to get him back to sleep. I really wanted to stick with it, but after 3 weeks of no sleep we finally gave it back. THIS TIME I told him that a baby need his 'puff-puffs' to sleep better and we put them in an envelope and gave them to the baby. He's been just fine!
• Potty project- I've also dabbled in a little bit of potty training but when he started peeing on the floor and such I just stopped. I wasn't ready for this. After a trip I needed to make I knew it was time, though I still wasn't all ready for the journey of potty training. I went to the store to get him a new stroller and Alex spotted an Elmo potty. He said, "Mommy, can we buy the potty?" I said, "Are you ready to be done with diapers?" to which he replied yes. So I of course bought the potty and we started the next day. Cade was hard to potty train. Alex, not. He's only had one accident and one 'wet the bed' incident and was completely potty trained within days. Even when I had him in a diaper over night he woke me up to take the diaper off so he could pee. Sorry folks, no potty training tips for you, he was just ready! Hooray!
• Piano teaching- Right now I have 6 students and I love it! I could handle a few more but I'm happy with 6 too.
• Primary- I am the Primary Secretary of an extremely transient branch which keeps me super busy. We have 112 kids on our records with 7 more to join us in the next week or so. We have our Primary Program this Sunday where all the kids have a line to say and sing all the songs they've learned this year.
• Husband- My dear husband has entered the busier part of his already busy schedule. He's TDY for the 2nd time this month and works almost equally as much when he's home. It's been stressful for all but we do the best we can to enjoy quality family time since we don't have much quantity of family time.
• Me- I mentioned that I had to take a trip. About a month ago I learned some news that changed many lives. My best friend's little sister had taken her life. This is the family that we lived next door to from 1st grade on up. So not only is it tragic to have lost Lauren, but my dear friend Alison was now going through a hell of her own. I felt a strong pull to make a trip to see her. I knew the only way I could do it was to fly Space A on a military flight. Commercial flights were $2500 or higher! I contacted a friend who had flown Space A before to see how the process worked. She replied with some great tips, and then said that if the only thing that would keep me from going was my kids, that she'd watch them for me. What an offer! With that glimmer of hope I pressed forward with plans to go to El Paso and everything fell into place. In my life I've noticed that if it's meant to be, it will all go smoothly. It was still quite a bit of work and effort to get there, but I made it. I made it on my first Space A flight (which is fairly unheard of), and I made it on all of my standby flights once I was in the USA. Our visit together was priceless and really strengthened our friendship. I love her and I'm so glad I could be there for her during this rough time. I had no complications making it back to Korea either. I left Korea on a Tuesday morning and was back late Monday night the next week. Short, but very {bitter}sweet. Thanks Ruth and everyone who offered prayers in mine and my friend's behalf! We miss you Lauren.