Halloween 2011

Okay, so here's the Halloween low-down:

Pumpkin carving: The deer feasted on our pumpkins last year because we carved them a few days before Halloween and silly us, we left them out on our front porch.  Our friendly neighborhood deer took full advantage of the free meal and our pumpkins were all hollowed out to one big gaping hole in the middle long before Halloween arrived.  This year, I outsmarted them.  We left our pumpkins uncarved until Sunday, the day before Halloween.  We carved them all, but instead of leaving them out on the porch, we put them in the garage overnight and just put them out on Halloween night.  After that, I don't care if the deer eat them (which they did, last night--after the pumpkins were frozen!). 

So on Sunday we did pumpkin carving as a family.  Claire and Hallie were so excited and ready to help--until they saw the pumpkin guts.  Claire was absolutely disgusted and refused to touch the slimy innards.  Hallie was a great helper, although she wasn't a huge fan of the insides either.  She did a fantastic job transferring her pattern from the paper to the pumpkin, though.  She very painstakingly stayed and poked all the holes through so that Mommy could carve her pumpkin.  Uncle Ben came over for the weekend, and he carved Claire's pumpkin.  Basically all she did to contribute was choose the design.  I carved Hallie's, Evie's, and Mom and Dad's pumpkins.  Rob's not much of a pumpkin carver, but he was great moral support and we had a good time as a family. 

Before we started, Claire wanted a picture of what her pumpkin looked like before we took the stickers off.  This is the pumpkin she decorated at preschool. 

Hallie and Claire with their finished products.

By the time it was dark, all four pumpkins were finished.

The pumpkins in all their haunted glory.  Evie's is the girl face one (the only one that didn't come from a pattern), and Mom and Dad's is the creepy bat.

Halloween T-shirts: I bought them on clearance after Halloween last year, and the girls were so excited when we pulled them out of the box. 

You can't see them that well in the picture, but I crocheted their Halloween hair flowers.

Halloween parade: We went to Hallie's school for their Halloween parade.  They let all the kids put their costumes on to show all their classmates, they have a short parade through the halls of the school, then they take their costumes off and have a Halloween party.  Here is Hallie's class:

Costumes: And here's the girls in their costumes.  They weren't in a very photogenic mood, unfortunately, but hopefully you still get the idea.

Claire got individual pictures because she had to dress up for preschool a few days before Halloween.

Pretty princess.

Princess, Batgirl, and Mini Witch.

We've got some good poses going on in this one: Ashlynn's witch claw hand, Hallie and her "save-the-day" attitude, and, of course, Claire.  Just can't stop that girl from hamming it up.

Having fun at the trunk-or-treat. Evie ditched the witch hat in about .2 seconds.

Trick-or-treating: So as the pictures indicate, we went to the trunk-or-treat in Rock Springs this year since our ward didn't have one.  Afterwards, the weather was still nice (which NEVER happens on Halloween here), so Rob manned the door and I took the girls trick-or-treating all around the neighborhood.  We did more "traditional" trick-or-treating this year than we've done in all the years past combined.  The girls actually loved it and since there wasn't any wind, we didn't even wear coats!  This is the first year you've ever been able to actually see their costumes--kinda fun that way.  Turns out it was the warm weather before the storm, since the next day we got a heavy, wet snowfall of at least 6 inches.  But hey, it held off for Halloween, so we're not complaining!  I kept asking the girls if they wanted to go back home now or do a few more houses, and they were like "More houses! More houses!" They loved it.  My arm was pretty tired by the end, because I carried Evie's overflowing candy bucket the whole time (we had to start collecting her candy in her witch hat because we literally couldn't fit another piece in her bucket), and often one of the other girls' very full buckets, too.  Which is no problem for a little while, but after an hour and a half...  The point is, we had a highly successful Halloween and a HUGE haul of candy, which I now have no idea what to do with.  I think I'll let them eat all they want for a few days and then start throwing it away.  We'll see.  Overall, the girls LOVED Halloween, and even Evie got into the spirit, saying "Tick-teet!" like a pro and "Happy Hoween!" and "Bye! Lah yoo!" (Love you) to many of the houses we trick-or-treated.  None of the girls got cranky, although on our way home, Hallie said "Mom! The moon is going down!!" And I said, well, I don't think it'll be down for a while, there's just clouds moving in front of it.  But she was convinced it was going down.  She explained to me that when the moon goes down, the sun is about to come up--"and Mom, we've been out all night, and we won't get any sleep before school tomorrow!" (in a very distressed tone).  Too cute!  Accordingly, we hurried home to find it was a little after 8 PM, but Rob and I used that let's-go-to-sleep momentum and got the girls in bed as quickly as we could.  It was a great Halloween.  Holidays are so much more fun when you have children that you love to get SO excited about all the traditions.  It made me super excited for the holiday season this year. 

And so, like us, I hope you all had a very happy Halloween!