Happy Halloween!

Welcome to Halloween 2012. We have done lots of fun things this Halloween season.  We have gone to the pumpkin patch 3 times, carve pumpkins, made Halloween crafts, saw "Hotel Transylvania", and even went to a party.  Today was the big day though. The Day. It was trick-or-treating day.  The kids woke up all cheerful and wished me "Happy Halloween."  In fact, Presley cried when  Gracie and I left for school because he thought we were headed out to go trick-or-treating.  Gracie has aleady been Jasmine for  Hallween party so for school today, she opted to be Wolverine.  I tried to talk her into something more girly but nope.  To make it girly though, she wore her costume with her glitter shoes.  Since she is in the morning class, they got to have their own parade through the school.  How cute is she? 

 

Here she is walking down the hall with her BFF Lacey, behind her.

 

I sneaked down to her classroom this morning to snap a few pictures.  She was busy making a craft.

 

And then when she was done, she went to read on the rug.

 

In the meantime, I spent a long day with these crazy kids.

 

But I hurried home to take my own kids trick-or-treating.  Presley never changed his mind this Halloween season about his costume choice. He was going to be Hawkeye (from Avengers) and that was that.

 

We ended up buying Gracie a new Wolverine costume anyways because 1.  it is her favorite superhero and has been since she was 2.  And 2., the old one we had didn't fit her anymore.  And 3, Menards had it for cheap and complete with claws. Her old one didn't have the claws. It's all about the claws.

 

As we struggled to wake Evie up, Gracie wanted me to take her picture with the pumpkin man at Grandma's house.

 

Bub likes him too.

 

Finally we managed to get Evie dressed, as Alice, not Dorothy like she already was, we were ready to hit the streets.

 

First stop was across the street to cousin Jill's house.

 

By the second house, the kids knew what they were doing.  Walk up the sidewalk, ring the doorbell, say "trick-or-treat", hold out your bag of candy, smile, and say "thank you."  We rehearsed the routine about 100 times.

 

I remember as a kid, planning my outfit weeks ahead of time.  We would map out the neighborhood and decide what kind of route we would be taking.  We always knew the best houses to go to and always planned to hit those up too.  One day my kids will be like that too.  Right now, we are just learning the routine and going around the block.

 

And our cute little candy bags aren't that big so that means they can't hold too much candy!

 

I always loved trick-or-treating as a kid and all the neighbors always had special goodies just for us.  Today we saw Miss Nancy, my parents' neighbor, and her dog Harley.  He was dressed like a pumpkin!  He was so excited to see the kids.

We made it around the block successfully and made sure to stop at our friend Rico's house and even walked a couple streets over to go to Aunt Rosemary's house.  She always has extra special goodies for us too.  By then though, the kids were dragging and Chuck and I were the ones carrying the candy bags.  They were full.  We had to get back to Grandma and Grandpa's and check out all the loot!

 

Presley emptied his right away and even tried to bit threw some wrappers to try to eat his candy already.

 

Evie dumped hers out too.

 

They had some pretty yummy stuff in there.  

 

But Miss Wolverine was pouting because I told her no candy until she eats some supper.

 

It was fine though because Auntie Amy showed up with Halloween presents for everyone!  They got some fun Halloween crafts which I am going to save for next year, and some neat shirts.  Bub got Jake and the Pirates.  Evie got Snow White. 

 

And this supergirl got her favorite supergirl shirt...Wonder Woman!  

Happy Halloween!

My Little Pumpkins!

Tonight we finally got around to carving our pumpkins. We have had them for awhile but didn't have a good chunk of time when we were all here to do it. I printed some cool pumpkin patterns that I found on Pinterest but decided against it.  Instead, we let the kids draw their own faces on their pumpkins and then we could carve it for them. 

 

Chuck and I cut off the tops and the kids had so much fun pulling out all the guts.  They liked scooping it too.

 

Evie wouldn't touch it with her hands though.  Just the spoon.

 

Gracie helped everyone out.  She was like the pumpkin pro!

 

Once Chuck and I carved out the eyes and noses, the kids had fun popping them out.

 

Here is how Gracie's pumpkin turned out. She was ready to put some candles in them and light them up as you can tell.

 

Evie was not happy with how her pumpkin turned out.  We had to help her draw the face on among all the pretty scribbles.

 

Bub was pretty happy with his though.  

 

Here are the 3 pumpkins that we carved tonight.

 

The kids had so much fun and Evie came around to liking hers.  We had to award each pumpkin its own award.  Gracie's was most scariest. Presley's was the most funniest and Evie's was the prettiest.

 

Giving them pumpkin awards made things smooth over in no time.

 

We lit them up real quick in the house. They look pretty cool.  

 

I love doing all kinds of Halloweeny things with my little pumpkins.  

And now the kids are finally off to bed and are dreaming of trick-or-treating and oodles of yummy candy that will give them a major sugar high tomorrow.  Babysitter?  Anyone?

Halloween Parties!

This weekend was so BOO-tiful!  We were so busy.  Yesterday we had our friends, Scotty and Levi's annual Halloween party!  We love going to thier Halloween parties!  This year the theme was Great Pumpkin.  How cute is this setup?

 

My friend Jessica is a pretty big Charlie Brown fan so there were little Peanuts touches everywhere.  

 

Each kid got a little goodie bag including a bag that says "I got a rock."  My favorite line ever from the Halloween Charlie Brown.

 

We had the famous "Halloween pizza" for lunch and Jessica also made some yummy S'mores cupcakes.

 

Presley went as Hawkeye, Evie as Dorothy, and today Gracie was Wolverine.  So far for various other Halloween events, she has been Jasmine and Tiana.  We'll see what she actually will be for the big day.

 

Miss Shelby was looking awesome in her 50's poodle skirt.

 

We did some fun reading of Hallween stories.  Evie and Jackson  were into it.

 

And soon more joined in.

 

Jackson couldn't help himself by counting along with the Halloween story.  That's probably why Evie was looking at him that way.

 

Anne does such a great job narrating the stories. All the kiddies were loving it.

 

Evie was so excited to show Presley a Halloween book that we have at home.  We have read "Where is Baby's Pumpkin?" at least 25 times this year.

 

After some stories, it was time for crafts.  Everyone got to make and decorate a mask.

 

Gracie of course knew what she was doing so she used up all the big spider stickers first.

 

But Presley thought he looked pretty spooky even if he only used polka dots.

 

Same with Evie.  But they had fun making them.

 

I got my little monsters to pose for a quick pic with thier masks.

 

And speaking of posing for pics, I had to get Levi in his costume.  Can you guess what he is?

 

Levi Knievel!  Jessica even made his outfit.

 

Here are all the kiddies from the party in thier costumes.

If you can't tell, my friend Jessica is also the photographer.  Look at how cute her new pics are of Scott and Levi.  She does such a great job. We just did the 3 year photo shoot with the twins outside. I hope they turn out this cute too.

 

Presley slowed down just for a second enough to snuggle with me for a quick pic.

 

The kids couldn't wait to dive into the cupcakes. They were chocolate with a marshmellowy center with a little S'more on top.

Jackson thought they were so delicious, it was scary!  ha!

 

I think this was Evie's first time eating a S'more.

 

Gracie has had some though and she of course loved it.  She got to eat it because she did eat a whole piece of pizza. And if you know Gracie, that is a huge.  It was only the cheese, no crust. But still, huge.

 

Evie and Jackson also had fun on the see-saw.  You could be looking at the future Mr. and Mrs. Ogle.

And quite possibly, the future Mr. and Mrs. Dunn.  

 

After the Halloween party, we headed home because our street was having a fall block party!  The summer one was such a huge success that we had planned to have another one. It was a fun party.  Depsite the chilliness, the kids wore thier costumes, had a coloring contest and bobbed for apples.  They had a bouncy house and a photo booth. Tents were set up, music was going, and Chuck was manning the grill.  We also had these hanging up in the kids bedroom window.  They've been up for awhile but when you turn the light on and look outside at night, it looks pretty cool.

 

The kids and I hit the photo booth and that is our new favorite thing.  It was free so we took tons of pics. Here we are showing off our scary, silly, and mad faces.

 

There was a brief moment too where we had the bouncy house all to ourselves!  

We were having fun until I told someone that she had to keep her hat on because it was cold.  She was not too happy.

 

We closed off our court and the kids got to play in the street. Bub had fun.  We played baseball, soccer, football, and basketball.

 

Gracie colored a Halloween picture for the coloring contest.  She didn't win but we did win a $20 gift card to the pizza place from our raffle tickets.

 

I bought this yummy pumpkin cookie cake and Jewel.  I have not had a piece though.  Jillian will not be happy.

 

But I did have one of these.  Yum!  

 

And we hit the photo booth a few more times before the night was over.

 

The kids enjoyed running around in the cold and eating lots of candy including ring pops.

 

There were a few different fires going in fire pits so Gracie and I went to make S'mores.  The real things.  I can't wait to do this in Girl Scouts.

 

It was getting cold but the kids didn't want to go in. So Chuck let them hang in his car and listen to "Cowboy" and some Elvis.  They thought that was pretty cool.  I snapped this picture and then realized Chuck is holding his beer.  How classy do we look?  The car was not on and we were not driving it so please don't call DCFS!  

What a great weekend!  We are pooped!