Halloween 2012

It was the best Halloween ever (I'm so glad that the kids say this every year).

We carved our pumpkins on Monday (and I remembered to get in the picture thanks to our "Get in the Picture Challenge" - join in! The challenge ends November 7th.)

 The kids did their own designing and almost entirely their own carving this year. I just helped the twins a bit. And I felt like a great mom when I took the time to help Isaac clean off lots of the pumpkin seeds and roast them this year (that has felt too overwhelming for a few years but Isaac really cares about pumpkin seeds so I made sure we did it this year - yeah me!).

I think they turned out really great.

 

Then yesterday on Halloween we hosted the 2nd Annual Neighborhood Halloweeen Parade and Dinner. We had about double the number of kids and families this year and it seemed like everyone had a great time. We played games, bobbed for apples, paraded up and down the street, stopping for candy from some nice neighbors, then enjoyed black bean soup (I 6 timesed the recipe and was so glad we had enough even when lots of people enjoyed seconds) before going our separate ways to trick-or-treat. I love our neighborhood so much.  And wow, the weather was perfect!

I'll let the pictures tell the story:

Here are the kids headed out to trick-or-treat. Isaac had serious costume issues - he was going to be a pirate but we couldn't find an eye patch and someone's been a pirate in our family for like 5 years so he sort of wanted to do something new. So we bought him some mummy wrap stuff but then he was worried he'd be too hot. At the last minute, he grabbed a karate suit from the trial karate class he took a couple years ago and it worked out great! Eliza was a happy sunflower using part of Isaac's old Peter Pan costume and some other stuff she found around the house. Oliver put together a great cowboy costume and didn't complain a bit about the too-small boots he insisted on wearing even though we were walking a long time for trick-or-treating. The fake gun our neighbors loaned him made him pretty happy (we don't really do guns around here so it was a special treat). Silas was a skeleton warrior - Ashton helped him make some duck tape armor that went over his old skeleton costume and he made a sword and was thrilled (should have got a photo of him with the mask and helmet - oh well). Ashton borrowed a "mad scientist" costume from a neighbor and was thrilled with it (but was trying to be very serious and scientific in this photo).

Some kids wanted individual photos. Some didn't. Whatever.

The belt from Isaac's old Ninja costume made him feel his costume was just right.

 Eliza's under shirt looks pretty blue here but really, it was more greenish. Maybe some leaves would have been a nice touch. But she was happy.

We did a fair amount of trick-or-treating and met lots of very kind people who had fun decorations and generous candy. And we saw plenty of houses that were pretty scary simply because they were pretty run down and had some iffy people hanging out on the porch - our neighborhood provides scariness in a variety of ways...

Then we came home to sort our haul (sorting and trading is a highlight for my kids) then the kids put all the candy they didn't particularly love (about half of what they got) out on the front porch for the Halloween Fairy who'll hopefully remember to drop a fun little game or puzzle by for them in exchange for the candy they left for her. I'm thinking maybe the Halloween Fairy will leave coins instead of a gift this year because she's a bit busy and perhaps the kids will be more excited about coins now that they're a little older. We'll see!