Happy Halloween!

We had a marvelous Halloween week and we hope you did too. Jed's enthusiasm spilled onto all of us and we have had a really fun week leading up to Halloween.

 Monday night we carved pumpkins. Jed picked out a pumpkin for himself and for Hank several weeks ago at the Farmers' Market. He grew quite attached to "Barry" and "Bill" and I was worried we would have tears when it came time to carve them, but he was so excited! He talked the whole way to school about what kind of face he wanted on Barry. It was adorable.

 We have had some very tough pumpkins in years past (two years ago we had to use our drill) but these were lovely to carve. Everyone enjoyed the process very much.

 We loved how Barry's nose cut-out looked like Mr. Gru from Despicable Me when Dave put it in the opposite way.

 The boys with our handiwork. Jed was determined that Barry have "just a smile." We asked him if he wanted teeth or anything and he kept saying "just a smile!" I think both Barry and Bill look great.

We took them outside and lit them up to see how everything looked. I found some awesome purple and orange lights at Goodwill and our house was very festive indeed.

 Wednesday night we had our funny food feast. I have found that it is easier to do it the night before trick-or-treating so we can actually enjoy the food. I learned a new way to cut the hot dogs so they truly look like mummies, and they were a huge hit. I didn't get a picture of anything else, but it was delicious!

 Here are my darling Minions before heading out trick-or-treating! Jed had decided to be a minion waaaaaaaayyyy back in September, and each day he would talk about which one he was going to be--"The one with two eyes and spiky hair, and Hank will be the one with one eye and flat hair." (Unfortunately, you can't really see their "hair" in this picture, but we made it by sticking pipe cleaners through the tops of their hats.) I am thrilled with how easily their costumes came together. Nana helped us out by finding some awesome overalls for Jed, and Goodwill came through for me with two long-sleeved yellow shirts on the same trip!

Dave took the boys trick-or-treating while I stayed home to hand out candy. I was a little sad not to go with them, but next year is my turn. I will be looking forward to it the whole year! They came home wet from the rain but super thrilled with their candy haul and how much everyone liked their costumes. When Jed took off his goggles, he had a major red mark from the jar ring. Dave and I both had tried to convince him to wear the goggles up on his hat, but he wanted to wear them on his eyes "like a real minion," so there was nothing we could do. It soon faded as we got the boys in their jammies. Hank went to bed and Jed stayed up to watch Disney's Ichabod Crane movie with us on the computer. It was a perfect Halloween!