Happy Halloween

Halloween this year was just as fun as always. I worked all month on costumes and wondered why I was sewing them instead of just buying them. This was real apparent when I finished Sarah's costume and she hated it and was kind of a brat about it. Not exactly what I was going for, but in all honesty it didn't turn out like it should have and she is 11. Anyway, she still wore it and I calmed down after her pre-teen attitude so Halloween was saved.

Woods Girl Sarah

Ninja Ben

This year was the beginning of different Halloween for us. Sarah didn't stay with the family for Halloween, but went to a Halloween party with friends from her class. She was so excited to go, but I'll be honest that it was so hard for me to let her. I wanted her home with us, trick or treating with us, and just spending time with the family. Sometimes letting your kids get older just stinks.  :)  She had a lot of fun, got lots of candy, ate pizza, and played games. I'm glad she had fun, even if I missed her.

Vampire Hannah and Witch Gracie

Buzz Dan and Karate Kid Adam

I took the kids trick or treating this year and Kenny stayed home to pass out candy and get some work done. The weather was great for October 31st and the kids enjoyed seeing their friends as we wandered the neighborhood. After a few hours or so, I brought the little boys back and let Ben, Hannah, and Gracie stay out for another half hour or so. Because the kids were off track and didn't have school the next day I decided, when trick or treating was over at 8:00 that we would pile in the car and go visit my brother Ryan. The kids loved showing Ryan their costumes and all the candy they got, and it sure seemed like Ryan enjoyed the surprise of having us show up at his door.

Fun with Uncle Ryan.

I love this pictures so much that I just had to include it.

Pumpkin Night

Our Pumpkin Pizza

I've decided I like the idea of having a pumpkin night in October. We get our pumpkins carved, eat pumpkin shaped pizza, and if I'm feeling like it, do other orange/pumpkin things. (I was not feeling like it this year, just FYI.) We got pumpkins a few days before Halloween and two days before Halloween we decided to have our pumpkin night. I got the pumpkin pizza, orange pop, and we set to work carving 8 pumpkins. It's always such an adventure carving pumpkins with kids and this year was no different. It took a couple hours, but we got all the pumpkins carved before bedtime. The kids had fun and were very happy with their pumpkins and so I'm considering the night a success.

Daddy let the kids open their own pumpkins this year. Sometimes he helped them and sometimes they did it themselves. It was really cool for each of them.

Hannah loved the pumpkin guts. He was the only one willing to touch them.

Gracie showing off her drawing.

Hannah coloring a face on her pumpkin

Me helping Ben carve his pumpkin.

Sarah carving her pumpkin all by herself.

Daddy carving one of the little boys pumpkins for them.

Eating pizza on the floor because the table was a mess with pumpkins. What a treat.

Ben and Sarah and pumpkins

Adam and Dan showing off their Mr. Potato Head pumpkins.

Gracie and Hannah with their pumpkins

Playing at the WitchFest

I thought I'd take a cute picture of the kids at the
WitchFest. I quickly remembered my kids don't really like to take 'good pictures."

I took the kids to the WitchFest at Gardner Village in late October. I have heard about if for years and decided this was a good year to go check it out. They had a treasure hunt where they gave you a clue and you had to find the witch that matched it. The kids had a lot of fun finding the witches and seeing all the other fun things around. I asked the kids which witch was their favorite and they all said it was the outhouse one. HaHa. I'm sure many kids thought that was the best one. After we found all the witches the kids got to turn their papers in and get a cookie. It was a fun outing and I think, maybe we'll do it again next year.

Sarah desperately wanted a picture in front of the witch outhouse. She's so goofy.

Gracie pretending the witch outhouse was stinky.

Hannah had to pretend the outhouse was stinky too.

We had to have a picture by the giant pumpkin.

Eating the cookies they earned for finding all the witches
on the treasure hunt (and some cotton candy that mom bought.)

Trick or Treating

Halloween 2012

The candy pile.

Halloween finally came and it was time to send the kids Trick or Treating.  The weather was beautiful and the kids had a lot of fun roaming the neighborhood.  We let the oldest 4 go together, on their own, sometimes it's nice that Sarah has her own phone, this was one of those times. I took the little boys with me.  It's so much fun to take little kids trick or treating and see their faces when people give them candy.  Daniel always wanted a sucker and would say, "Trick or Treat. Can I have a sucker?"  Luckily he was a good sport if they didn't have suckers.  Adam just loved any kind of candy.  They were also very interested in whether or not people had dogs.  It was so fun.  When I got done with the boys, Kenny went to check on the big kids.  He brought Gracie back with him because she was ready to be done before the others.  When all was said and done,we got enough candy to last us awhile and the kids had a lot of fun.  

Princess Gracie and our skeleton boy showing off the pumpkins.

Zombie

SWAT Team Guy 

Pink Jasmine

Rapunzel

A Viking/Guard

The Cutest Knight Around

The kids with all their candy.

They love throwing their candy in the air.

Happy Halloween

For Halloween this year Foxboro had a parade for all the students to show off their costumes.  I still think it's really sad that they don't do more for Halloween, but what can we do, right.  I took the 3 little kids with me to the school to watch the bigger 3 in the parade.  The weather was BEAUTIFUL so we decided to hang out outside this year.  Last year we were in the gym and it was so crowded and pretty miserable.  This year was wonderful.  The kids ran around awhile we waited for the parade to start.

While the little kids were waiting they were playing around.  Adam started running away.  He looked so cute the first thing I did when he wouldn't come back was pick up the camera.

Here's my little knight dude running away from me.

Ben's class was the first one to walk by.  Here he is as a SWAT team guy.

Hannah was next.  She loved going to school as a pink Jasmine.

We found out the day before the parade that Sarah wasn't able to wear her zombie dress because it had blood on it.  She was REALLY upset and I don't blame her.  I don't see how her dress is any more scary than her friend Skylee (in front of her in this picture.)  She decided to go as a very disappointed rock climber instead.

Pumpkin Day

I decided the evening before Halloween was the perfect night to have an all things pumpkin evening   I'd been meaning to do pumpkin things for weeks, but never seemed to get around to them. (Story of my life)  So on October 30th we had a pumpkin themed night.  It's best told in pictures so here we go.

We started by carving pumpkins.  The girls helped us cut the tops of them.

We quickly decided to take the pumpkins outside to keep the mess down.

The girls helped us gut the pumpkins.

Daniel enjoyed looking at the insides of the pumpkin, but didn't want to touch it.

After gutting the pumpkins it was time to move back inside and draw on them and carve them.

Gracie drawing a face on her pumpkin.

Hannah and her drawn on pumpkin, complete with a ghost on the side.

After the faces were drawn the carving began.  Using a skill saw is such a great way to carve a pumpkin.

We let Sarah Kate carve her own pumpkin this year.  She felt very grown up and did a pretty good job.

After carving pumpkins it was time for dinner.  Being that it was Pumpkin Day we had to have pumpkin pizza. 

The family eating their pumpkin pizza.

After eating dinner we had to make our orange pumpkin cupcakes.

Ben putting frosting on his cupcake.

Adam didn't care much about frosting his cupcake.  He just went straight for the cake.

Gracie frosting her cupcake.

Sarah and her finished masterpiece.

Dan and Adam enjoying their cupcakes.

Hannah decorating her cupcake.

Ben and the little girls decorating their cupcakes.

We finished out evening by getting in jammies and taking pictures with our pumpkins.  It was a very full, very fun evening.

The boys with their sailboat pumpkin.

Gracie showing off her pumpkin.

Hannah with her pumpkin.

Hannah also drew a ghost on the side of her pumpkin and insisted on having a picture taken with it.

Ben's pumpkin, drawn by him, carved by mom.

Sarah's pumpkin she did all by herself this year.  Pretty good job if you ask me.

Kenny's pumpkin. I bet you can't tell who we wanted to win the election this year.  (It says "OBAMA 2008 2012" and no we don't want him dead, just his presidency.)