Winnie's baptism

 Before the pumpkin carving, the movie watching or the candy eating, we got to spend the morning of Halloween doing something infinitely better than celebrating a fun holiday.

Winnie chose to be baptized. And since her baptism is in 2020, things are a little different. Rather than having a big stake baptism with lots of people in attendance, our stake has given the wards and families the reins when it comes to the scheduling of the ordinance and the program. Everyone wore masks. We helped sanitize the chairs and piano before and after our event. (Two more kids from our ward were baptized later that day.)

After we had consulted everyone's calendars, we offered two dates for Winnie's baptism: October 17 or October 31. She thought getting baptized on Halloween sounded like the perfect day, so we let everyone know we'd be doing that at 10 a.m. on October 31.

It was an intimate event. We had all four grandparents, her one great-grandparent, one great-aunt, one aunt, her sisters, her parents, her bishop, her Primary president and two people from the stake in attendance. Seth, Grandpa Scott and Grandpa Dennis stood in the circle while she was confirmed. Winnie picked the songs but left the rest of the program up to us. 

It was beautiful. It was spiritual. It was perfect.

Andrea doing Winnie's hair while Miriam brushes her teeth before the baptism.

Family picture before the baptism.

Winnie and Seth before the baptism.

Andrea and Winnie before the baptism.

Grover girls before the baptism.

Winnie and Seth making a Marco Polo for Emma before Winnie's baptism. Emma had been scheduled to be baptized in Italy the week before. We were going to be able to watch it via Zoom. But then Italy shut down any non-vital travel, so her baptism is postponed for now.

Winnie's baptism program.

Family talking after the confirmation. Aunt Patty, Grandma Hendricks, Grandma Susan, Grandpa Dennis, Ana, Miriam.

Grandma Hendricks, Grandma Susan, Grandpa Dennis, Grandma Scott, Grandpa Scott and Winnie at our church after the baptism and confirmation. We had a brunch at the church building after we were finished at the stake center.

Halloween

 Halloween looked a little different for all of us this year. The festivities started off with a party at my friend Robyn's house on Saturday, October 17. We all had specialty masks that worked with our costumes.

The younger girls had fun decorating cookies and playing games. We all had fun eating good food and visiting. The girls all loved on the dogs that were in attendance.

Andrea making Miriam's face white. Grandpa Scott shot pictures of us getting ready for the party. 

Grandma helping Ana with her apron.

The cutest scarecrow.

Bunnymort?

Grandma and Ana putting gingersnaps on a platter to go with our pumpkin pie dip.

Group photo outside Grandma's house.

Seth the magician and Andrea his white rabbit. Seth received the purple sequin jacket for his birthday from his brother Jason, and one of the first things Seth said was, "If I ever need to dress up as a magician, I have the right jacket." So we rolled with it. Gratefully our neighbors the Wests have a top hat we could borrow. Rebekah the scarecrow. Ana the baker. Miriam as Voldemort. Winnie as Snape. The Voldemort and Snape masks were difficult to make for this non-artist.

Miriam, Ana and Winnie loving the dogs at the party.

Andrea and her childhood best friend Lauralynn (Robyn's sister) visiting from Kuna. 

Then the girls dressed up for school on Friday, October 30.

Miriam and Winnie in their respective costumes. Sizing down a graduation robe for an adult is tricky business. 

Winnie and her mask.

Miriam and hers.

Ana was officially in quarantine since she had had close contact (sat within six feet in class) with someone who tested positive for COVID, so she reused my bunny costume and got to watch her student council friends play Just Dance over Zoom.

Seth and I had had a talk with the girls who are still of trick-or-treating age, and we decided to play it safe and not have the girls go door-to-door for treats on Halloween night. Instead we took them "shop or treating" as the younger two called it. We gave the girls a $12 candy allowance, took them all to Winco, and let them pick out their pumpkins for carving and their Halloween candy. 

It was pretty crazy taking a whole bunch of bulk bin bags to the checkout line. We divided up the girls' spoils on the conveyor belt with the pumpkins. The cashier wondered who got the pig ears as a trick or treat. (The girls picked them out for Peach.)

All the treats getting rung up.

It was a good lesson in budgeting and math. Ana learned that jelly beans weight a lot and therefore take up a good chunk of your allowance. Miriam learned that she needs to write down the number for each of the bins on the tags before we take them to the front to pay. Winnie learned that she can get a lot of different candies if she only gets a few of each. Bekah learned that $12 = two pounds of Swedish fish plus some gummy butterflies.

Then on the actual holiday, we turned the girls loose on their pumpkins.

Bekah scooping out her pumpkin.

Ana's mini pumpkin barfing out its guts.

Winnie carefully carving her pumpkin. It was the first time she actually got to do any cutting. She only cut through to where she wasn't supposed to once.

Miriam drawing on a mini pumpkin that accompanied her larger carved pumpkin.

Bekah with her Pennywise jack o' lantern (she picked a very complicated pattern that took her a long time, but it paid off!), Ana with her scary pointy-toothed jack o' lantern and her baby scared jack o' lantern, Winnie with her unicorn jack o' lantern and her mini self pumpkin (Andrea helped her carve this year), and Miriam with her half regular Jack Skellington/half spooky Jack Skellington jack o' lantern and her mini Sally pumpkin (Seth helped her carve this year).

Obligatory silly photo.

The jack o' lanterns all lit up on the basement stairs at Grandma Scott's house.

Our COVID-safe trick-or-treating station at Grandma Scott's.

Miriam and Winnie decorating the trailer with silly string. They had hoped to use it on the man who lives across the street from Grandma Scott who likes to silly string the trick-or-treaters, but we came up with an alternate plan since we weren't going door-to-door.

Miriam and Winnie dressed up in alternate costumes to trick-or-treat at their grandparents' houses.

From there, Ana and Bekah went down to Grandma Susan's house to eat pizza and watch Coraline with a couple of Ana's friends, and Seth, Winnie, Miriam and I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas at Grandma Scott's.

Marching band

 This is the year of rolling with the punches. You never know if scheduled are going to happen or if everyone will be able to show up. At the beginning of the school year, Rebekah anticipated marching during halftime at five football games. Due to COVID (quarantines and people testing positive), she ended up marching at two. And since tickets were limited, we were lucky to have gotten 10 tickets to the second game so that her grandparents, sisters, aunt and parents could all come watch.

Friday, October 2: "Radioactive" and the school song

Friday, October 23: "Radioactive" and "Crazy Train"

Marching back with the other kids in her section.

Playing with the pep band. It was so cold that the band didn't stay for the whole game.

But our family did. Miriam with binoculars.

Ana and Andrea.

Winnie reading on her Kindle. We brought hot chocolate for the whole family, along with a bunch of blankets and snow clothes.

Winnie's baptism dress photoshoot

 It's tradition that after our girls choose to be baptized members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Grandma Scott lets them choose a pattern and fabric, and she makes them each a dress for her confirmation. And it's also tradition that I take each girl out for a photoshoot after the dress is finished. 

We had Rebekah's, Ana's and Miriam's photoshoots after the baptism. In fact, Miriam's was so far after the baptism (3-4 months after) that her dress barely fit her through the shoulders. But with Winnie's baptism on the last day of October, we decided to take care of the good weather prior to her baptism and shoot pictures after school on Wednesday, October 14 at the Idaho Falls Temple and Freeman Park.

Beautiful girl. Beautiful dress. Beautiful choice.