Halloween

You gotta love Halloween! It has always been my 2nd favorite holiday (Christmas coming in at #1) - the costumes, the candy, the crisp Fall air. I love it! We've had to make some unpopular Trick-or-Treating rules of late, though. In the Nielson household, once you hit high school, you're done going door to door for candy on Halloween. Amber was NOT pleased. The tricky part about this rule is that, unfortunately, there is photographic evidence of me, Amy, Trick-Or-Treating as a Sophomore at BYU! Pathetic, I know. My roommates and I dressed as ghosts and hit the Osmond's neighborhood in Provo in hopes of free candy. Our kids have seen the pictures and I am now being called a hypocrite. Oh well. The rule stands. And Amber still chose to don a Dracula cape and be festive!

Here they are in all their Halloween splendor - the vampire, the bunny, the elephant, the doctor and the bat.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Band Competition

On Halloween Amber had an out of state band competition at the University of Idaho, in Moscow. Wa-Hi's band rode over in 3 buses, leaving at 6AM and not returning until after 8PM (LONG day!) They competed against many other high school bands, won first place and then played at half time of the UI v. LA Tech football game. She had a great time! Many thanks to Nana Jo and Papa Jim who sent us a few pictures of the above event (they travelled to Moscow to see her play!)

Shining Star

Alyssa was given her school's "Shining Star" award this month! The Shining Star Award is given to students who are nominated by their teachers for 'consistently demonstrating outstanding citizenship and modeling behavior that reflects the school's core values of Support, Trust, Acceptance, Respect, and Success' (STAR). Shining Star recipients get all kinds of perks throughout the school year, so Alyssa is pretty excited about this honor. She was given her award at a school assembly, where she was all smiles.

Preschool

Jacob had a little preschool performance for parents the other day. It was awfully cute and I was surprised that he didn't have an attack of shyness. I half expected him to boycott once he saw how many grown ups would be watching!