Our Halloween festivities started off last week when the kids received a Halloween package from Grandma and Papa Blakeslee.
There was a Halloween book and a box of chocolate for each kid and stickers and a card for all of them to share. They were beyond thrilled. And you better believe that the twins insisted on reading those Halloween books every night for the next week.
Ben's grandparents are some of the sweetest people I know. A few days later, they sent all the kids their very own Halloween card in the mail, with a dollar inside each card. My kids have very little concept of money and its value, so to them a dollar felt like a million bucks. Leah and Lexi carried those dollar bills around for days. When they couldn't find them, they'd ask "Hey, where's my 20 bucks?"
This past Monday, for family night, we carved the pumpkins we picked out 3 1/2 weeks ago. We're not super obsessed with carving pumpkins around here (we haven't done it for 3 years) but the kids were really into it and quite enjoyed it.
The twins helped clean out their mini pumpkins.
I carved their pumpkins for them. And can I just say that cleaning and carving mini pumpkins is fabulous? Fast, easy and super cute.
The girls were thrilled.
Mitch and Chloe cleaned out their pumpkins, but of course needed help to carve their big ones.
Mitch's turned out cute.
Chloe drew her jack o'lantern design on her pumpkin, and I carved it. Unfortunately, the mouth and the nose were drawn too close together which resulted in me carving the nose into the mouth. Oops. Good thing jack o'lanterns come in all shapes, sizes and designs. And she was a good sport about it.
Ben carved one for us. If you look closely, you can see some "boogers" hanging from the pumpkin's nose- Ben took some of the inside seeds and gunk and put it on the nose for extra effect.
When we were all done, Ben rigged up an old birthday candle to put in all the pumpkins (I had no tea lights....) The kids loved that part.
On Halloween Day, Chloe's school did a "Crazy Day" spirit day. No costumes were allowed, but they could dress and do their hair crazy. I tried to get Chloe to dress a little crazier, but mismatching socks was about it. Her facial expression was crazy for sure.
We did her hair as "crazy" as we had time for that morning- little pony tails all over her head. After school she told me, "Mom, my hair wasn't really that crazy. It was kind of cute."
Finally, finally finally it was time to dress up and go Trick or Treating. My kids have been asking me for 3 weeks, "How many days until Halloween?" (Of course this morning, Mitch asked, "How many days until Christmas?")
My cute bunch
My little bugs- Leah a bumble bee, Lex a lady bug. When they first tried on their costumes Leah said, "I can fly!"
A kiss for sissy
My love bugs
Mitch doing his best Spiderman pose
Chloe as a scary ghost. She has been so easy with costumes in years past. This year, she was very specific in wanting to be a ghost. We looked in stores and online and when we came across this black, scary thing she said, "That's it! That's the one I want." She was very insistent that this was the only kind of ghost that she wanted to be. Luckily, it was pretty inexpensive. She was thrilled when it came in the mail.... On Halloween, she decided that the mask wasn't very comfortable and right as we were walking out the door to go trick or treating, she decided she didn't want to wear the mask and wanted me to paint her face instead. She did not get her way and after being pretty upset about it, she finally got over it and was happy again.
We started at 5:15, or as Ben said it felt like, "high noon."
We walked up the street and met up with some friends. It was so fun to go trick or treating with friends this year.
Our first order of business was to walk down to the super cool pirate ship display that someone in our neighborhood built. It's been up for most of October and we drive by it every day on our way to school. My kids love it- I love it. It's one of the best Halloween decorations I've ever seen. Rightfully so, this house won first place in the community Halloween decorating contest.
How cool is that piece of work? And the owner of the popular pirate ship also gave each of the kids a full sized candy bar. How cool is THAT? People that hand out full sized candy bars on Halloween are awesome, let's be honest.
As we made our way around trick or treating, still in 5:00 hour, we came across a house that had this sign taped up, restricting anyone from even coming on to their porch. Out of candy at 5:30? I doubt it. Didn't want Trick or treaters knocking on their door all night? Quite possibly.
We tried a new route this year, which was really fun.
Our route, of course, had to include a stop at Grandma Cynde's house. She, of course, didn't disappoint. She had regular candy to pass out, and then little baggies stuffed with 4 or 5 more bags of candy. How awesome is she?
The flash made everyone's eyes bright and scary looking, but hey, it's Halloween. And we needed a picture with Cynde.
After 2.5 hours of walking, knocking on doors and collecting piece of candy after piece of candy, we decided to call it a night. The 7 kids we had in our group held up really well for all the area we covered in that 2.5 hours. But boy were they ready to get home and eat some treats!
This little Lexi bug of mine can be the cutest, sweetest thing I've ever seen some days.
Mitch is proudly displaying the jackpot candy bar. Whilst doing our 5:00 trick or treating, we came across the house that, upon opening their door, announced to the kids, "Congratulations! You guys are our first trick or treaters and you've won yourself giant candy bars." Is that not the coolest thing ever? The guy only had 5 of them, so the two youngest in our group got like 5 or 6 mini candy bars instead. I definitely want to do something like this in years to come (maybe when the kids are grown or something).
We enjoyed quite the candy feast that night. Leah pounded back some M&M's and had a cute chocolate smile to show for her hard work.
Happy Halloween!
