Reformation Night!!!

Every year our Church family gathers together for some fall festivities. The children and some adults arrive in their costumes. The night begins with a costume contest, a chili cook-off, a "lesson", and then ways to collect candy. The children have a huge blast. We are thankful, always, for Jill's hard work in making Reformation night possible. I was really looking forward to this year in particular because ALL of our children are actually old enough could to participate in the fun.

As we entered the church building, we scoped out all of the fantastic costume ideas. I love how the majority of people, who come dressed up, create original ideas AND/OR make their costumes. It makes the competition more intense knowing Spiderman or Elmo are not showing up. The first year our family participated, we dressed up our children as the characters of Wizard of Oz (Dorothy, the Lion, and the Tin Man) and we won the group costume contest. AND this year, we dressed up as the Napoleon Dynamite Cast and we won again!!! What an honor it is to be the winner of a great group of runner ups. Our family won a $25.00 gift card to Kroger as the prize.

My submitted chili also came in second place, next to a well known cook in our church. I was super excited because it was a recipe that contained more ingredients than you can imagine. Two ingredients that surprised me were chocolate and beer. I wanted to make the recipe somewhat my own, so I added 3 types of beans to it as well as jalapenos. YUMMY!!!!! Hubby was burping it up all night. I won a $10 gift card to Wal-mart and a gorgeous purple mum for this prize. I felt a little bad monopolizing all the prizes. My step-mom has always said I have the best luck!!!

Just an aside, Lilah did NOT participate in the Napoleon Dynamite costume idea. Originally, I was trying to recruite some other members of our church body to help Darren and Ty pull it off. I wasn't going to dress up, but towards the end I figured it would mean more if our family did this together. It was nice "letting my hair down" and getting out of my comfort zone. Lilah was little orphan Annie. I wanted Jax to be either "Sandy", her dog, or "Daddy Warbucks". It was tough finding an affordable pinstriped tux for his little body. I hope to still pull it off on Halloween Night, but I'm not sure buying a tux for 2 hours is worth it.

Enjoy the photos of everyone. I hope to capture some better ones of my children on Halloween night, but I am not sure I can convince them to wear the same costumes again. I may just let the boys be comfortable and put on a superhero costume from their "dress up" clothes chest.

DOUBLE CLICK ON THE ALBUM BELOW TO VIEW IT IN A LARGER FORMAT.