Halloween Fun

We compressed most of our Halloween fun into one very busy week this year.  

Monday was Family Night so we carved our pumpkins. We've usually done this Halloween night for some stupid reason. Why it never dawned on me to do it for Family Night instead so we weren't rushing around trying to squeeze that in before trick-or-treating is beyond me. Live and learn, I guess. Spencer is old enough to carve his own pumpkin now, so it's fun to see what he comes up with. Grace designed hers by herself (a mean face) and let Darrel do the cutting. Justin's request was a "happy baby face"on his. They all turned out very cute and somehow fitting with their personalities.

Thursday was the big day at school with a Halloween parade and class parties (with which I didn't help at all this year--nice break!). I will not get into all the drama that surrounded trying to find Spencer a costume, or Grace's worry that everyone would think she looked silly as a hula dancer (silly on Halloween--isn't that the point?).  Suffice it to say, that took up Tuesday and Wednesday.

Friday was a day off school, so a group of moms from my neighborhood planned a visit to a pumpkin patch in Syracuse. I almost didn't go when I woke up to a drizzly freezing cold morning, but I decided that was better than staying home in the dark (the power was out). We dressed warm and the weather was actually O.K. We went to the same pumpkin patch last year, so the kids were excited knowing all the fun things they would get to do: a tractor ride to pick their own pumpkins, giant (and probably not up to code) slides that are super fun, a corn maze, a giant inflatable jack-o-lantern to jump in and farm animals. We stopped and got pizza to eat in the car on the way home, so that topped off our fun outing.

Halloween night we had a potluck dinner with our neighbors to kick off the trick-or-treating. Spencer switched from an animal trainer (his school parade costume) to a duck hunter, complete with yellow labrador retriever and mud for camouflage on his face. Grace was still doing the hula and Justin was a fireman. Darrel took the little goblins around for candy while I handed it out to all the little goblins at home. The kids came back with their buckets full and have been eating ever since.  Have at it, I say!  The sooner it's gone the better.

My big accomplishment for Halloween was only having a few pieces of Halloween candy left-over from handing it out. Hooray!