Happy Halloween!

Halloween fun has been a long time coming at our house! I made the idiotic decision to buy pumpkins at the farmers' market the first week in October, and then when we were at the store a couple of days later, Jed found a pumpkin carving kit & book that he simply couldn't live without. But this was like October 5th. So, every day he would BOUND out of bed and yell "It's PUMPKIN DAY!!!" And then Dave or I would have to break the news that it wasn't pumpkin carving day yet. And then heartbreak would ensue.

Finally I drew a huge pumpkin on the calendar so Jed would know which day was pumpkin carving day, and then we'd count down the days. And then people kept giving us pumpkins! So by the time the actual pumpkin day came, we had 7 carvable pumpkins plus 8 tiny pumpkins gracing our porch. We made the decision to leave all the tiny pumpkins and 2 bigger pumpkins whole, but that was definitely under protest.

 The boys were THRILLED to finally be carving pumpkins. I know their faces don't look thrilled, but I swear, they were.

 See?! Jed loved his huge pumpkin.

 And Hank adored his tiny one.

 Dave scooped out the guts, I sorted through ALL the guts and roasted the seeds, and Jed and Hank dictated what kind of pumpkin faces they wanted while Dave carved. We figured it would be good to wait one more year before letting Jed wield the knife on his own, in light of his cutting accident last year. He was perfectly happy to let Dave do the carving. 

 Hmmmm, somehow don't have a picture of our finished pumpkins (right here). They turned out really great. We tried a couple of pumpkin-life-extending methods I found on Pinterest. We soaked the carved pumpkins in bleach water for several hours, then tipped them upside down to dry. When they were good and dry, I mixed 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, and a quart of water and brushed it on the pumpkins. I did this when I remembered (every 2 or 3 days) and we had no rot and our pumpkins stayed nice and firm all week.

I worked on costumes all week (stay tuned for that another day) and finally, Halloween arrived! We headed out nice and early to do some trick-or-treating, since it was windy and snowing.

 Jed was a spider. He had come up with the idea all on his own at the beginning of the month and thankfully, stuck to his choice the whole way through! I thought he made a really adorable spider.

 Hank was a little mummy. He has no idea what a mummy is but he loves a little story book wherein one of the characters is a mummy, so I figured it was a safe costume for him.

 Here we are, ready to do a little trick-or-treating! And here you can see our pumpkins--Owls and the moon, 3 jack o'lantern faces, and a cool ghost that Dave did for me.

 

 I love these cute boys!

Dave raided the costume box and went as a masked sailor. And I was a glamorous kitty. Pretty much my best costume ever. 

Since the weather was so terrible, we did very little trick-or-treating. One of the hotels in our town allows businesses to rent rooms and they set up a trick-or-treating route through the halls, then offer doughnuts and cider at the end. It's a quick and easy way to get a bunch of candy and stay out of the weather. The boys enjoyed themselves at the hotel quite a bit and then we went home to eat dinner and watch Ichabod Crane. A simple and perfect Halloween!