Balloon Spooktacular and Halloween Fun

I was definitely meaning to post this earlier, as Halloween was like 2 weeks ago, so here it finally is!

I got a LivingSocial deal several weeks ago for something called a Balloon Spooktacular where there are all of these hot air balloons tethered to the ground and kids can go trick-or-treating to each one. We were pretty psyched and had the 25th marked on our calendar for a few weeks to go any time between 5 and 10 p.m.  Well the morning before, we got a call that an investigator in our ward (he's 18) had decided spur-of-the-moment he was going to get baptized Friday night at 7 p.m.  He's pretty shy so he didn't want a lot of people to be there, but we are ward missionaries so we'd gotten to know him pretty well and he wanted us to be there.  We couldn't say no!! So that definitely threw our plans for a little loop.  Trent ended up going and I stayed home with Aiden.  Once Trent got home we rushed over to the Balloon Spooktacular in Scottsdale and arrived there just before 9, so we didn't have a lot of time.  We decided to not even bother with trying to get Aiden to wear his costume, so we just went to see the balloons :)  We got there right in the knick of time because maybe 15-20 minutes later they started deflating the balloons.

Luckily Trent remembered how to change the ISO and such on our camera so we could get some semi-decent pictures.  When we just kept it on automatic we'd get a picture like this - can see a whole lot of dust in the air and can hardly see the balloons :/

They shot off some fireworks towards the end.  Aiden couldn't decide if he liked them or not!

He was not liking them at this point and just had his face buried in my shoulder..haha.

Now he likes them ;)

They had some great food trucks there (I got a fabulous quesadilla and a chocolate caramel covered pretzel stick) and lots of craft vendors.  I wish we had gotten a chance to see everything.  We will definitely be making this a tradition.  And hopefully next year we'll be able to get there at the earlier end and Aiden can actually go trick-or-treating ;)

The next evening was our Ward Halloween Party.  We (well mostly Trent) made Aiden an airplane costume that we found on Pinterest. Aiden had been pretty excited about the idea of it while we were making it, but when we tried to get him to wear it, he wasn't having it.  We were so excited though because he let us put it on him for a few minutes at the party and even did some trick-or-treating - until he decided to take it off.  He got like 3 pieces of candy ;)  We were totally okay with that!

Too bad he wouldn't wear his aviator hat.

Flying with Daddy later that evening.

A few nights later I randomly put on Aiden's aviator hat and suddenly (because I was wearing it of course!) he decided he wanted to wear it ;)

The night before Halloween we went over to my parents' to carve our pumpkins.  M&D's is on the left, Trent's is in the middle, and my little one's on the right :)

Aiden claimed my pumpkin as his own ;)

Leaving them out on our doorstep.

On Halloween we headed over to Tanis and Kent's.  Of course the grandparents wanted to see Aiden go trick-or-treating ;)  Mom and Dad came over as well.

This night, opposite from the ward party, Aiden was happy to wear his aviator hat, but would have nothing to do with wearing his airplane.  Because of this we only went to 2 houses.

This guy handed out candy in his front yard by his fire pit.

We went back to the Knuckles' to wait on trick-or-treaters and the very first kid that came was wearing a scary mask and totally freaked Aiden out.  Like he started crying and ran into my lap.  So whenever the doorbell rang Aiden would run to me.  Stupid Halloween masks.  After a while we all decided to just sit out on the driveway.

Some trick-or-treaters showed up right as I was trying to get a picture with Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles.

Silly boy :)

Our attempt at trying to get Aiden to wear his airplane..hahaha.

Not happy with us :/

Spotted some trick-or-treaters headed our way.

With Grandpa and Grandma Christensen before they headed out.

We stayed a little longer and Aiden got to hand out the candy.  He loved it!

Our pumpkins lit up before we headed in for the night.

I am excited for next Halloween when Aiden will be able to tell us what he wants to dress up as.  And we'll have an almost 6-month-old!!  Crazy!